Escaping an abusive relationship can be both essential and perilous. It’s complicated. It’s traumatic. It takes courage and requires support. That’s where our mission began almost 30 years ago (1993) and continues today.
American Family Center (AFC) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit charitable organization dedicated to assisting domestic and intimate partner violence victims and survivors, while also pioneering new and innovative prevention awareness programs with local and national reach.
Our method is to follow the facts, find problem areas and engage with social media awareness campaigns that reveal the dynamics of control, power and coercion where it can make a difference.
To this end, our programs and activities include the following:
Wednesday's Woman Dine & Donate
Operation/RECONNECT
Brotherhood of Fatherhood
Social Awareness
Legislative Advocacy
Cause-Related Support
Statistical Analysis
Our endeavor is both worthy and in need of ongoing support. We would be honored and privileged if you would join us in this pursuit.
With grateful appreciation,
American Family Center
DV Prevention is about Choices
Domestic violence behaviors often involve the dynamics of power, coercion and control. Self awareness of those dynamics can help influence, instruct and potentially reduce those behaviors.
Choices > Interactive is our 30-second interactive snippet-series that portrays potential DV situations with a unique feature called "branching". Branching offers the viewer the choice to follow their own path based on the options (behaviors) offered to them. When the choice is made the snippet plays out accordingly.
Relatable and engaging, these teachable snippets appear in the social media feeds of the target audience. Currently, we are creating content targeting the demographics of high-incidence DV profiles including: Spousal and Intimate Partner, Adult, Youth, Teen Dating and Cultural Backgrounds.
Not surprisingly, this effort requires producers, directors, writers, casting, IT infrastructure, social media buyers, pre-and-post analytics, and much more! If you are able to help with some of the heavy-lifting, please consider making a donation below.
“Wednesday’s Woman” is our community program in support of every woman who has ever been abused by an intimate or domestic partner. It creates an easy way to support victims and survivors at the local level, in partnership with restaurants and patrons, by participating in our “Dine & Donate” program. This program supplies our "Wednesday Woman's Closet" with clothing, cellphones, home goods etc., for those moving from secure-shelter to independent living.
Social media platforms make the formation of groups easier than ever. Brotherhood of Fatherhood is a social-media group that creates awareness and educates dads about the importance of their roles in the family. The camaraderie found here enables them to share experiences, collaborate, grow and learn “how to dad” in today’s family.
Operation/RECONNECT is designed to bolster support for domestic abuse victims and survivors by helping them acquire the necessary technologies needed to reach out for critical support services and stay connected to their worlds, including:
Family
Friends
Employer
Psychologist
Social Worker
Law Enforcement
Legal and
Medical
Starting over is never easy and having access to the basic homegoods makes moving from secured-shelter to independent living a little less stressful. Our inventory includes: clothing, furniture, lighting, appliances, computers and more. Purchases from, and donations to the American Family Thrift Shop all help make this valuable inventory available for those in need.
If you would like to help by making a tax-deductible donation to our inventory, please contact us!
AFC social awareness activities include creating and promoting awareness for several other cause-related campaigns including:
Our legislative agenda is focused on securing funding for domestic violence prevention programs while advocating funding for ongoing programs that support victims and survivors of domestic violence and abuse.
Many Hands, Many Faces
Sometimes our clients have individual and specialized needs that extend beyond our core services aimed at domestic violence prevention. Our Many Hands, Many Faces program offers cause-related sponsorship to partner-providers, enabling us to effectively collaborate and more adequately meet those specialized needs.
In Massachusetts, domestic violence is the willful intimidation, physical assault, battery, sexual, and/or other abusive behavior as part of a systematic pattern of power and control perpetrated by one intimate partner against another, or against a spouse, child or elder. It includes physical violence, sexual violence, threats, emotional and other forms of intimidation and abuse. The frequency and severity of domestic violence can vary dramatically.
While an individual instance of domestic violence is unacceptable, when you aggregate each instance statewide the statistics in Massachusetts are staggering.