From: "Texoma Coalition" Subject:

HoustonChronicle.com - Battered women seeking help are often met by a busy
signalHoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: Houston
& Texas

March 4, 2006, 11:24PM



Battered women seeking help are often met by a busy signal

New technology to expand national hot line's capacity

By LIZ AUSTIN
Associated Press


AUSTIN - The last thing a battered woman wants to hear when she calls the
National Domestic Violence Hotline is a busy signal.

But that was happening more frequently in recent years, as the hot line's
equipment struggled to keep up with monthly call volumes that jumped from 7,000
in 1996 to 16,500 today.

Hot-line workers hope innovative technology unveiled last month will put an end
to those problems and let them answer more calls, handle them more quickly and
help more women.

In the weeks since the system went online in early February, the average call
length has fallen from 20 minutes to between five and seven minutes, said Sheryl
Cates, the hot line's executive director. That adds up with workers handling up
to 600 calls each day.

"This is truly a day of dreams coming true," Cates said.

The technology, developed and donated by companies including Microsoft, Dell and
AOL, includes mapping software, networked computers and 72 phone lines, three
times as many as the hot line had before.

Rather than flipping through paper maps and lists of shelters, hot-line workers
now can type in the caller's location and use mapping software to find help
nearby, whether it's emergency transportation or a shelter with workers who
speak her language.

And instead of just giving the victim a list of shelter phone numbers and hoping
she has the time and courage to call, hot-line workers can make conference calls
and find a place that has room.

Experts estimate that between 2 million and 4 million women in the United States
are battered each year, and more than half of the victims live with children
younger than 12. Government studies have found that on average more than three
women are killed by their husbands or boyfriends every day.

U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., who wrote the legislation that created the hot
line, said a crucial key step in reversing those statistics is convincing women
they don't have to take the abuse. The hot line's workers are a powerful ally in
that fight, he said.

"You give them a reason to believe they can make it," he said.

Hot-line worker Rose Garcia, 48, knows how difficult it is to ask for help and
how devastating it would be to get a busy signal.

Garcia and her three children left her physically and verbally abusive husband
12 1/2 years ago, staying in a Fort Worth shelter until she could rebuild her
life. She eventually began volunteering there and then moved to Austin to help
open the hot line.

"I thank God today that I am not a statistic," she said. "I can stand tall and
have a strong voice and let women know like myself that they can live
violence-free and succeed in life."






HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: Houston &
Texas
This article is: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/3700338.html


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