TodayLocal women fight domestic violence
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Article RatingThirty Pennsylvania women are being honored this month by the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence for the work they’ve done to end domestic violence. Four, we are proud to note, are from Cumberland County.
The coalition grew out of what was known in the early 1970s as the Battered Women’s Movement. Volunteers worked together at first to provide emergency shelter for women and their children fleeing abuse in the homes.
Recognizing that women then had few options, these volunteers began organizing to raise awareness, extend services and work for legislation to give women greater protection under the law. In 1976, they successfully lobbied in Harrisburg for passage of the state’s first domestic violence law, the Protection from Abuse Act.
From there, they again led the way, forming the PCADV, the first such coalition in the nation.
Since 1976, PCADV’s statewide network has grown from nine to 65 community-based domestic violence programs serving more than 100,000 victims of domestic violence each year through intervention services that are provided free of charge and include 24-hour hotlines, crisis centers, individual and group counseling/support, shelter, assistance in filing PFA petitions, court accompaniment, children’s programs, and referrals to other community resources.
PCADV also works to eliminate the crime of domestic violence through public education and school-based programs as well as training and technical assistance to organizations, communities, and policy-makers.
The four county women being honored this year during Domestic Violence Month bring four very different perspectives to their work on behalf of women and children.
Morgan Plant of Carlisle, a contract lobbyist for the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence (PCADV), has worked to protect women for 27 years. As a representative for PCADV, she helped in the process of passing amendments to the state’s Protection From Abuse Act about a year ago.
State Sen. Pat Vance, R-31, has worked over the past decade to protect domestic violence victims from insurance discrimination, improve the Protection From Abuse Act and establish an Address Confidentiality Program for victims who need to hide their whereabouts from abusers.
Nancy Chavez of Camp Hill has made it her life’s mission to end violence against women and children after her son-in-law and a friend murdered her daughter in 2003. In addition to public speaking, she is creating a nonprofit organization in her daughter’s name, fund-raises for DVSCP and is writing a book.
Donna Vandemortel works in the Victim Services Division of the Cumberland County District Attorney’s Office in Carlisle. She has played a key role in helping to develop and implement domestic violence protocols and training for police departments throughout the county, her nominators say.
It is because of women like these that the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence is now recognized as a national leader in the movement to end domestic abuse. And women across the commonwealth today not only have alternatives, resources and the right to protect themselves and their children, they have advocates unwilling to rest until no woman has to live in fear in her own home.
