Emerge Center Against Domestic Abuse

Our goal is to end the cycle of domestic abuse in our community.

In our line of work, centering the experiences of people of color is paramount to providing truly supportive domestic abuse services. Emerge has deepened its commitment to being an anti-racist organization in the last several years. Emerge has worked with national and local experts to help us transform the organization by inviting staff to understand the intersections of race, class, gender identity, and sexual orientation. These facilitated spaces allow our staff to engage with intersectionality related to their lives and the lives of the DV survivors we serve. Our goal is to ensure that all positions are involved in these discussions and play an active role in transforming the organization. These changes guide how we support survivors. Emerge is committed to seeing and addressing survivors' culturally specific needs and experiences, including personal, generational, and societal trauma.

In the last several years, companies have increased their focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and the collection of DEI data in their workplaces. DEI data collection has also become a priority for outside sources to understand an organization’s internal makeup more broadly, and while well-intended, it can create an opportunity for organizations to focus on meeting a diversity quota. We believe
these practices can tokenize and reduce individuals and their unique lived experiences to percentages, rather than addressing interpersonal and systemic racism and improving inequitable systems, which require time, energy, and commitment to decentering whiteness and actively becoming anti-racist.

Emerge has over 40 years of experience providing support to people fleeing domestic abuse. Over the course of decades of service, we have created and/or updated programs with research-based practices. Emerge uses a voluntary services model, practices a trauma-informed care approach to service delivery, and ensures that all services are individualized and customized to each person we serve based on their unique needs and goals (as defined by them, not by us).

Our mission is to provide the opportunity to create, sustain and celebrate a life free from abuse. To that end, much of our programming addresses abuse that has already occurred. We provide DV survivors with 24/7 access to safety through our emergency shelter as well as a wide range of support services including safety planning, crisis intervention, case management, basic needs (food, clothing, personal hygiene items), support groups, domestic abuse education, lay-legal assistance, life-skills education, financial literacy, housing stabilization assistance, connections to community resources, transportation assistance, parenting education and age-appropriate services for children.

In addition to these services that meet the immediate and long-term needs of DV survivors, we also offer programming designed to stop abuse before it happens. Because we recognize that supporting DV survivors does not address the root of the problem and will never END domestic violence, Emerge offers services for people who are using abusive behaviors. Through a partnership with the Pima County Adult Probation Department, Emerge established the Men’s Education Program (MEP).

The MEP offers a 26-week course for men who are court-ordered probationers, as well as voluntary community members. Our goal is to help them unlearn beliefs and change behaviors that create risk for their partners, and ultimately help them learn how to make safe choices for themselves and their families. Using a psychoeducational and peer-facilitated approach, MEP focuses on changing individuals’ behaviors, while also addressing community influences on what individuals believe to be acceptable and “normal.” Our program uses a “community accountability model” and teaches men how to hold themselves and other men accountable for abusive behaviors and choices.

A seven-year longitudinal, multi-site study by the Centers for Disease Control showed that men completing at least three months of this kind of program were 50% less likely to re-assault their partners at the 15-month follow-up (compared with men who did not complete the program). At a four-year follow-up, fewer than 10% had re-assaulted their partners in the previous year. Even more telling, 85% of partners reported feeling “very safe” after their partner participated in this kind of program.

In 2008, Tucson Center for Women and Children (est. 1975) acquired the only other domestic violence service provider in Tucson, The Brewster Center Domestic Violence Services (est. 1963 and offering DV services since 1982), and began doing business under the name Emerge Center Against Domestic Abuse. Emerge became the sole provider of comprehensive, specialized domestic violence services in Tucson and the largest such provider in Southern Arizona. All services are offered in English and Spanish.

During the 43 years that we have been serving the Tucson/Pima County community, we have developed a full range of trauma-informed services to meet the needs of domestic violence victims/survivors and their children. Emerge is committed to growing and adapting our programs to better meet the needs of survivors in our community. For example, in 2012, Emerge began offering housing stabilization services to address the long-term self-sufficiency of DV survivors in Southern Arizona.

Since its inception, Emerge has provided intervention programs for victims of domestic abuse and their children, including: a crisis hotline, emergency shelter, community-based (non-residential) services, and a housing stabilization program with transitional and permanent housing options. The services provided through these programs are critical for the more than 5,800 people who access them each year. Emerge currently employs 80 – 100 staff and numerous direct and indirect service volunteers, Staff and direct service volunteers are required to complete an extensive training to understand the root causes of domestic abuse and how to provide trauma-informed care.

During the 40+ years we have served the Tucson/Pima County community, we have developed a full range of trauma-informed services to meet the needs of DV victims/survivors and their children. DV support services are a life-or-death need for thousands in our community. As the only dedicated DV service provider in Tucson, Emerge is committed to maintaining cost-effective programming.

In 2019-20, Emerge provided the following DV services through our programs in Tucson:
• 5,608 total survivors received support
• 6,602 hotline calls provided resources to people in crisis
•340 people, including 167 children, fleeing abuse accessed safety in shelter
• 2,029 survivors not in need of shelter received other DV support services
90-100% of program participants (across all programs) said the following about the impact of Emerge! programs on them:

• their safety has improved (91%)
• their knowledge about DV and its effects on their life has increased (94%)
• their knowledge of community resources and services has increased (92%)
• they are regaining control of their life (96%)
• the program has helped them to make informed choices about their situation (96%)
• they are more self-sufficient (95%)
• they are satisfied with the services they received (96%)

90-100% of program participants (across all programs) said the following about the impact of Emerge! programs on their children:
• their child(ren)’s understanding of how to stay safe improved (89%)
• their child(ren) have an increased sense of self-esteem (93%)
• their child(ren) feel that someone believes them and they are not alone (92%)