At PAVE, client safety comes first.  Our agency is bound by confidentiality laws and therefore will not disclose information about clients without permission.  This sometimes obscures the good work that is done at our agency.  In order to safely share client success with you, we have prepared annual fictitious stories.  While the names are made-up, the elements of the stories are very real.  The scenarios presented are all issues presented by a variety of clients within the year of the story.

2009 Client Story

Sara is in her late 40s and has lived her entire life in rural Wisconsin. She began seeking PAVE services through the crisis line. Sara disclosed she has a handful of neighbors, but does not see them often. The only time she really leaves the house is doctor appointments or to attend church and both of these she does with her husband. When her husband leaves the house, he takes all the keys with him so she is quite literally trapped at home.

Sara has adult children with her husband, but she does not communicate with them. Many years ago her daughter, who grew up in this violent home, offered to let Sara move in with her. Knowing this situation would throw her husband into a rage, Sara declined the offer. Her daughter has not spoken to either of them since. Sara is closest to her cats. The last time her and her husband got into an argument, he placed one of the cats in the freezer and threatened to leave it there indefinitely next time she disobeyed him.

Sara does not work, but receives disability as her only source of income. Her husband has signed and cashed her disability checks ever since she began receiving them over 10 years ago.

After several hours of options counseling, Sara reluctantly decides to enter shelter, believing it is the only way she will stay alive. Her cats are transported to the Humane Society, where they will be sheltered while Sara receives PAVE services.

Sara spends the first few days at PAVE sleeping. When she meets with staff she is groggy and difficult to understand, confusing the staff and Sara herself. As time passes, Sara comes to believe her husband may have been altering her medications in an attempt to kill her. She has disclosed that she struggles with mental health issues and regularly sees a doctor, so has a large variety and quantity of medications. While at PAVE she agrees to continue to work with her doctor to stabilize her medications and track proper dosing.

Sara is genuinely afraid to leave the shelter and refuses to discuss independently living during the first month of her stay for fear that her husband will find her. Sara is also not used to communal living and with many children also residing at PAVE, Sara finds it a difficult arrangement so spends much of her time in her room.

PAVE staff come to discover Sara's fear is well placed. Her husband has been repeatedly calling a variety of places – from her doctor's office to human services - looking for her. He also called PAVE on several occasions pretending to be everything from a handy man to their pastor to determine if she was residing here. PAVE staff continues to state to all callers that they cannot confirm nor deny whom we work with because Sara has not signed a release for PAVE to speak with anyone. Because of this heightened safety risk, staff is glad United Way of Watertown supported the installation of security cameras and new intercoms this year.

During her second month at shelter, Sara begins to consider a safety plan for living outside of shelter. She discusses the option of pursuing a restraining order with PAVE's legal advocate, but decides against it. Her husband has never hit her. Even though he has restrained her with enough force to leave bruises, no one ever witnesses this due to her extreme isolation.. As much as she believes her husband altered her medications, she has no proof. Sara has never called the police, but explains to PAVE's legal advocate that during an argument her husband bloodied his own nose, called the police and claimed she hit him. Neither person was arrested, but the police asked them both to keep their behavior in check.

Sara expresses fear of the legal system because she thinks her husband will use it to either have her involuntarily committed, due to her mental health issues or attempt to frame her for his death. He has threatened suicide in the past, saying he would tell friends and family it was her fault before taking his own life. Once, he stabbed himself in the leg and on the way to the hospital threatened her the entire way that he would blame her once they arrived. When he got there, he told the hospital that he hurt himself while working in the yard and explained to Sara how grateful she should be for his discretion.

During a support group discussion, Sara discloses she has considered leaving in the past, because of the isolation, control and frequent unwanted sexual contact by her husband. However, Sara believes herself to be a “good Christian woman” and did not want to do wrong by leaving her marriage. Once this is disclosed, PAVE refers Sara to one of the area churches, whose faith leaders have expressed an understanding of the dynamics of power and control and intimate partner violence. Sara expresses much relieve that she may continue with her strong faith practices in a safe place.

After three months of shelter living, Sara finally feels safe enough to find independent housing. She received a small amount of rental assistance from an Alliant Energy grant to PAVE and a food box when she was ready to move out. She continues to contact PAVE for economic assistance and to discuss her life transition

2008 Client Story

Maria is 27.  She has three children– Amelia (8), Andrew (4) and Alisha (2).  They came to stay at PAVE because Maria’s boyfriend, Nate,, threatened to kill her in a drunken rage.  While Maria has been emotionally, verbally and physically abused by him for all three years of their relationship, he has never been physically violent around the children before.  When she came to shelter, Maria reported that it is because all three children witnessed this recent event, she decided to flee.  Maria is extremely worried about what Nate will do to try to see the children; Amelia and Andrew are from another relationship and not his children.  Paternity has never been established, but Maria knows Alisha is Nate’s daughter and he will stop at nothing to see all three children.  This becomes evident the next day when PAVE receives a call asking about Maria and her children from Human Services.  Apparently, an anonymous report has been made that Maria beat Andrew for wetting the bed and she is now “hiding out” to avoid being caught for the abuse.  PAVE Advocates have not yet talked to Maria about confidentiality waivers, required by law if PAVE is to speak to anyone about her, because Maria speaks very limited English.  PAVE’s bilingual Advocate was only available to assist Maria for an hour when she came into shelter because she was needed by another client.

Once in shelter for a few days, Maria develops a safety plan and lists her goals with our Case Manager.  One of Maria’s goals is to find work.  However, she is afraid she will not be able to find a good job because the longest she has worked at a place has been 3 months.  Before meeting Nate, she was on public assistance and did not work.  Nate insisted they needed more money, so she got a job.  As soon as Maria started working Nate harassed her at work, calling or driving by every few hours to make sure she was still there.  Her employer, recognizing that Maria was distracted and not getting her work done let her go at her 30 day review.  Nearly the same situation happened at her next employer, except that she kept up appearances for 3 months until the employer caught on.  PAVE’s Case Manager got a confidentiality waiver signed to talk with the new employer Maria applied with and explained the history and situation.  Maria’s new employer has chosen to work with her on this situation, going so far as to agree to relocate her to a workplace location closer to her new apartment when she is ready to leave shelter. 

Maria assesses with PAVE’s Legal Advocate whether or not to move forward with a restraining order against Nate.  Maria decides that because she feels safe and Nate does not know where she or the children are, she would rather not “rock the boat”.  She also decides to not to apply for food stamps or childcare assistance, because she fears it would trigger a paternity action that would disclose her location.  PAVE’s Legal Advocate explains the “good cause exception” to Maria and informs her that she could file the appropriate paperwork to try to prevent that from happening.  Maria has distrust of “the system” and chooses to not apply for assistance or the exception.

Maria worked with PAVE’s Children’s Advocate to get Amelia registered for school when they arrived in shelter.  However, Amelia frequently complains of stomach aches and other pains.  Maria, feeling sympathy for Amelia, usually lets her stay home or go to school late.  The school, properly calls every morning the child is not accounted for looking for her.  Maria has not signed a confidentiality waiver for the school, because she is afraid her abuser will call there to get her location.  Unfortunately, this means PAVE cannot confirm or deny anything about Maria to the school, making teachers and other staff worry about the children’s well-being.  PAVE’s Children’s Advocate recognizes this as a warning sign and initiates a conversation with Amelia about her situation.  The Children’s Advocate uncovers not only a lot of stress, but Amelia also discloses that Maria’s boyfriend had been coming to her room at night and hurting her.  PAVE’s Sexual Assault Victim Advocate begins to meet with Maria and Amelia, and they find out Amelia has been keeping this secret for two years.  Maria and Amelia continue to receive options-counseling from PAVE’s Sexual Assault Victim Advocate even after they move out of shelter.

Even though Maria is now working, she struggles to find housing that she can afford.  After eight weeks in shelter, Maria and her family move out into their own apartment.  Maria continues to come to group for support regarding her domestic violence situation, as this was put on the back burner once her daughter’s sexual abuse was disclosed.  At support group, Maria begins to deal with her experience of domestic violence and focuses on making positive life changes.  Hopefully, she will continue to be a client in 2009.