NEWBURYPORT, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center announces the launch of the Geiger Institute, a national initiative to end domestic violence homicides. While the domestic violence agency has grown and expanded its homicide prevention work over the last 17 years, including providing training and technical assistance to over 250 jurisdictions across the country, this launch marks a turning point for the organization, which plans to grow their staff, develop new partnerships, raise funding, and evolve their work to increase safety for marginalized communities.
The mission of the Geiger Institute, which can be found at its new website www.geigerinstitute.org, is as follows: “We partner with communities to implement proven homicide reduction strategies, develop new solutions, and evaluate effectiveness. Through these collaborative partnerships, we create pathways to safety for those most at risk of fatal intimate partner violence.”
The Geiger Institute offers the approaches developed by the Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center, the Domestic Violence High Risk Team (DVHRT) Model and the Danger Assessment for Law Enforcement (DA-LE), as well as training and technical assistance. Communities can also partner with the Geiger Institute to create new customized solutions to reduce intimate partner homicide.
Current or former intimate (romantic) partners commit 14% of all homicides in the U.S., with over 70% of the victims being female – disproportionately women of color. Research shows that many intimate partner homicides are predictable; and if they are predictable, they are preventable. The DVHRT Model leverages that predictability by incorporating research-based risk assessment into a community’s domestic violence response system to identify the most dangerous cases. The Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women, recognized the DVHRT Model as a “leading promising practice” in intimate partner homicide reduction.
The DA-LE is an 11-question evidence-based risk assessment tool that identifies victims at the highest risk of intimate partner homicide or near-lethal assault and is designed to be easily administered by responding law enforcement officers.
Suzanne Dubus, CEO of the Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center, is ready for this next step in the organization’s work. “We have been eagerly anticipating this launch for some time and wanting to grow our team and expand the solutions we offer. The COVID-19 pandemic only increased the urgency, as we continue to see a surge in severity and complexity of domestic violence cases. Our focus is to support communities with high domestic violence homicide rates and create solutions in partnership with those communities that will reach those who are most marginalized and most at risk of being killed.”
Those interested in finding out more or joining the growing Geiger Institute team can visit www.geigerinstitute.org.
About Geiger Institute
The Geiger Institute is a national initiative to end domestic violence homicides. Over the past 17 years, local service provider Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center became a nationally recognized leader in the fight to end domestic violence homicides, developing the DVHRT model and DA-LE and providing training and technical assistance to over 250 jurisdictions across the country. Now, this work will continue as the Geiger Institute, partnering with communities to implement proven homicide reduction strategies, developing new solutions, and evaluating effectiveness. Through these collaborative partnerships, the Geiger Institute’s mission is to create pathways to safety for those most at risk of fatal intimate partner violence.
About Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center
Since 1982, the Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center has been helping individuals and families impacted by domestic violence. What first began as the compassionate mission of several volunteer parishioners of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Newburyport has grown into a nationally recognized nonprofit organization serving adult and child survivors of domestic violence from Newburyport to the Merrimack Valley; and providing tools and strategies to reduce domestic violence homicides across the country. In addition to domestic violence support services and trainings, the Center offers Youth Empowerment Services (YES), which educate students how to lead conversations about healthy relationships, recognize signs of an abusive relationship, and become empowered to make positive and healthy decisions. The mission of the Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center is to empower individuals and engage communities to end domestic violence. For more information, visit www.jeannegeigercrisiscenter.org or call the 24-hour confidential hotline at 978-388-1888.
