The program incorporates behavior change methodologies that empower women survivors of Intimate Partner Violence and their children to end the continuum of violence that plagues their lives. The methodologies incorporated into The Business of Me result in benefits to domestic violence survivors, sponsoring corporations, shelters, communities and public health through cost reduction and innovation in education, research and evaluation, and information technology.

Women survivors of domestic violence are taught specific techniques for envisioning and managing a change process that leads them to what the program calls self-ability enabling them to make choice-full life decisions. We have developed the program with the sole focus of significantly reducing re-victimization of domestic violence survivors whether employed or already sheltered.

The Business of Me “Community Partnership Program", is a corporate-community partnership that directly addresses problems faced by woman’s organizations, companies with a presence in the local community and women in need from both.

Corporations provide The Business of Me to their women as an addition to the company’s EAP program reaching out to women associates in need. Domestic violence shelter's offer The Business of Me as a self-funding addition to their outreach program. Sponsoring company employees, (who attend the program anonymously to the company to ensure their safety) join the organizations clients to form a "The Business of Me" group and the program is presented at the shelter’s facility.

Over the six-week presentation of the program the women are bonded into a group called "The Board of Directors". At the end of this first phase of the program the group becomes autonomous, electing its own "Chairperson" annually and thereafter continuing to provide emotional support to its members through its monthly meetings and use of its own online social education/networking group.

Support for our groups and participant’s is provided through The Business of Me’s SOCED System, an innovative hybrid online-education/social networking support experience that fosters dialog, emotional support and group bonding. TBOM-SOCED creates online interaction between the group’s members, the group’s moderator and The Business of Me.

The company has, at its core, five primary social impact objectives based upon two primary beliefs: Where women are financially self-sufficient battering is virtually non-existent, and, where women have the support of other women battering is virtually non-existent.[1]:

1.    The reduction of the re-victimization rate of women returning to relationships characterized by Intimate Partner Violence and early intervention in the lives of the dependent children of victims of IPV in order to instill healthy attitudes in them.

2.    The development of Information Systems supporting more functionally and cost effective: Social and human services intervention; continuing group and member support; quantitative and qualitative analysis; and the production of actionable information.

3.    Creation of community/academic/private-sector/government collaborative partnerships to support research, curriculum development, systems development and intervention.

4.    Supporting development of community-based participatory research that protects the privacy of participants while contributing to the core understanding of the affects of pro-active intervention through the application of curriculum and online education/social support systems.

5.    Help build a new sector of the economy that harnesses the power of business to solve social challenges by creating private-sector/community partnerships and by incorporating into our core organizational foundation the interests of societal stakeholders including employees, communities, and the environment.

Direct ratings of psychological and physical abuse by women in physically abusive relationships indicate that psychological abuse has a greater adverse effect on them than physical abuse[2].

Women arrive at shelters bewildered and scared. That is why The Business of Me program begins by bonding the participants into a support group and immediately begins discussion focusing participant’s attention on their future and begins the process of leading them to deal with feelings that negatively impact their ability to sustain independent lives.

Victims of domestic violence endure significantly higher health costs than other women for three years after the abuse ends according to the findings of a recent study conducted by Paul Fishman of the Group Health Research Institute in Seattle and supported by grants from the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Group Health Foundation[3].

According to the study, abuse victims had health care costs that averaged more than $1,200 above non-abused women for the first two years after the abuse ended and about $400 above others in the third year.

Overall, abused woman's health care costs were $585 greater per year than non-abused women during the period of abuse. After the abuse ended, health costs were $1,231 higher in the first year, $1,204 higher the second year, and $444 higher the third year.

We believe that rigorous post program studies of the programs participants will show a significant reduction in public and corporate health care costs by significantly reducing the re-victimization rate of women returning to abusive relationships.

The program’s principle tactics are intervention at the corporate and shelter levels and continuing support of the program’s participants through the creation of collaborative support groups and innovative use of computer-mediated communication and Internet Technology as the support system for the program.

Benefits to the programs participants are substantial; increased self-confidence, increased financial literacy, and focus on the creation of an independent life; all reinforced by a social support system created for participants that anchors the group to one or more social service professionals.

We know that abusive relationships are isolating in part because abusers often keep their victims away from the support and assistance of others. They are aware that such isolation leaves them, the abuser, in control.[4] The Business of Me intervenes to disrupt the interplay of violence, power, and control in relationships. .

While the findings from a recent National Survey of the financial capability of adults in the United States conducted by The Department of the Treasury paint a troubling picture of the current state of financial capability in the U.S. adult population the study finds that young individuals display much lower financial literacy than older individuals[5]. The program addresses this issue by including collaborative methods for “Talking to Your Children About Money” and reinforcing the need for participants to actively engage in their children’s financial education

The ability of computer-mediated communication to provide social support networks effectively in an online support group has broad implications for the overall framework of human services including child, adolescent, and family services including fostercare; daycare and early childhood development; divorced and step-famililies; schools; delinquency prevention and treatment; mental health; service to the elderly; developmental disabilities; health-care and health promotion and drug treatment. The Business of Me SOCED system provides a platform for interaction between participants, their moderator and The Business of Me and it provides significant new opportunities to researchers, caseworkers and other human services professionals for monitoring individual progress in groups[6].

By bringing the program to corporations we offer those organizations a new way to reduce medical and other costs while providing a vital program for women in need within the organization.

The Business of Me offers huge potential benefits to domestic violence intervention organizatons, corporations, public health, health-care cost and the cost of Intimate Partner Violence to our children and our communities.

 

[1] Dr. David Levinson, Family Violence in Cross-Cultural Perspective, Frontiers of Anthropology,

Volume 1 ISBN: 0803930755

[2] Psychological Abuse: A Variable Deserving Critical Attention in Domestic Violence, Daniel K. O’Leary, Violence and Victims, Volume 14, Number 1, 1999 , pp. 3-23(21)Author: O'Leary, K. Daniel¹

[3] http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100426131559.htm

[4] Free Yourself From an Abusive Relationship © 2000 Andrea Lissette & Richard Krauss. ISBN 0897932587

[5]http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:HcpA5FyVJPsJ:www.sec.gov/spotlight/invadvcomm/finranationalfinancialcapabilitystudy.pdf+Financial+Capability+Survey&hl=en&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiLq90aOch6AVPfYQRwwYnUz_ZZeUcvS7YMcbB-7Cv42vRzsmLYwryX6METuy3O5z4itqrGNS93Qz-PmoRflKSo5KhYciEmHBpuU71x1ExkCqRz0fDdJcj6ALJiexJ3N2xZCVeC&sig=AHIEtbSqYmLY_Rw30ujPOH9irkI1oVPw2w

[6] Task force report: Social networks as mediators of social support Community Mental Health Journal Springer Netherlands 0010-3853 (Print) 1573-2789 (Online) Volume 16, Number 1 / March, 1980