A formidable alliance is taking shape as Metro Health gears up with the city to tackle the alarming rise in domestic violence. The numbers speak volumes—a staggering 33,656 calls for family violence have echoed through the San Antonio Police Department's dispatch between January 1 and November 15 this year. Something had to be done, and it seems the wheels are finally, if slowly, beginning to turn as reported by FOX San Antonio.
At the heart of this push is Marta Prada Pelaez, the seasoned CEO of Family Violence Prevention Services, who has been battling to both stop domestic violence and help those caught in its vicious cycle for about 35 years. "The impact is serious. It's severe, it can be lethal," she alarmingly stated. According to FOX San Antonio, Prada Pelaez highlighted that it's especially the cases involving children that lay bare the deep scars left by such violence.
Both Metro Health and Prada Pelaez know all too well that one agency alone can't possibly hope to effectively counter this scourge. "It takes several organizations working together, and that brought us to the idea of creating a plan that works for everyone," Erica Haller-Stevenson of Metro Health articulated in a statement obtained by News 4 San Antonio. This collective effort is shaping up as a five-year Violence Prevention Strategic Plan that opts to prioritize prevention and offer stout support for victims.
Sprawling over 30 pages, it is set to ramp up mental health services, forge strong community partnerships, and bring about an education wave for the public on what resources are readily available. Haller-Stevenson has put it plainly: "If we all try to just attack everything in our own directions, we don't make a lot of change."
Echoing this sentiment, Prada Pelaez told FOX San Antonio, "This is a true community effort." The aim? To finally ensure that everyone is pulling on the same rope in the same direction at the same time—as opposed to a fragmented approach where various organizations try hard but ultimately may not make a difference.
