In Chester County, a nonprofit helps survivors of domestic violence by addressing roots of trauma | Philly Gives

Domestic violence counselor Michele Camburn can chart the painful legacy of violence in her own family.

Two nieces and a nephew dead of drug overdoses.

That’s one of the reasons why Camburn is so committed to helping survivors of violence at the Domestic Violence Center of Chester County. “I’m so grateful I can do this,” Camburn said. “It’s joyous work. It’s hope.”

Yes, the dollars donated to the Domestic Violence Center of Chester County pay for immediate needs: short- and long-term housing, legal representation, counseling, food, clothing, child services, and the tools needed to build a community. But they also buy a safer tomorrow, two or three generations into the future.

Although Camburn didn’t grow up in Chester County, what her family experienced over generations is typical in domestic abuse situations — wherever they occur.

As youngsters, Camburn and her four siblings lived in a violent household. Her mother was beaten regularly by her father. He choked her mother so much that bruises appeared on her neck.

The children weren’t spared. Camburn went to Catholic school with obvious welts on her legs and no one said anything.

Camburn’s parents split up. “My mother started to get help when her five children were wild animals,” Camburn said. Camburn became pregnant early. “I was a terrible mother,” she said, although her children are now fine.

She and her siblings, now also fine, struggled with crime and substance abuse. Some of it impacted their children — two generations away from their grandmother, who was also abused as a child — three generations in all.

“Generational trauma reverberates through my family,” Camburn said. “It has to stop somewhere.”

It explains the urgency and compassion with which she treats the center’s clients such as Robin, who, like other clients at the center, wanted desperately to tell their stories so they could save others from domestic abuse.

“The more we share our stories, the more people realize that it can happen to anybody, and it doesn’t matter your socioeconomic status or your education,” said Robin, who would only agree to be interviewed if her last name was not used because of concern for her family’s safety.

“Help is here,” she said. “Reach out your hand.”

At the Domestic Violence Center of Chester County, help comes in many forms.

Most important is a hotline where a trained person answers the phone 24 hours a day. There are outreach centers in Phoenixville, Coatesville, Oxford, and Kennett Square, with services also provided in Spanish.

Over its 49 years in existence, the center has built strong relationships with the county’s police departments.

“We train law enforcement on how to identify and refer survivors to our organization when they are on the scene,” said Dolly Wideman-Scott, the center’s chief executive officer.

The center implemented its Lethality Assessment Program, which consists of an 11-question survey that police administer when answering a domestic violence call. Taking the abused person aside, officers ask 11 questions about spying, choking, threats to kill or injure, the accessibility of a gun, and even the presence of a child in the household who is not the abuser’s.

Depending on the result, the police may call the hotline and transport the person immediately to an emergency shelter, the location of which is not disclosed and where no one is turned away.

In the fiscal year ending in June, officers in all of Chester County’s departments administered a total of 501 screenings, earmarking 319 of them as situations of high danger, and calling the hotline 242 times. As a result, 258 people sought follow-up services through the center.

Since January, three people in Chester County have died from domestic violence and four more deaths are suspicious, up from zero in 2023.

“What people don’t know is that domestic abuse is a crime,” Wideman-Scott said.

Many people, she said, also don’t know that violent behavior is unacceptable and not the norm. “Some people believe it’s a way of life,” she said, and it’s those people who may go on to be abused or to abuse others, continuing a generational cycle of violence.

The center tries to tackle that element of abuse through education. One in three teens, regardless of gender identity, experiences some form of dating abuse each year, the center’s website says in explaining why it will send an educator to talk to young people about abuse, sex trafficking, and healthy relationships.

“We’re at the high school level teaching them good relationships, making their friends accountable for bad behavior,” Wideman-Scott said.

One in three teens experiences some form of dating abuse each year.

Two programs run by the center, Coaching Boys into Men and Coaching Girls Beyond the Game, help coaches and athletic directors integrate short 15 to 20-minute talks on bullying, aggression, and consent into weekly locker room conversations with young people as they begin to develop relationships.

It’s important because once the cycle begins, it takes hard work and counseling for it to end.

“This organization helped me get away from my abuser,” said Robin. “They provided me a path.”

Robin’s story began in her childhood. Her father, whom she adored, abandoned the family. “That was the end of my happy life,” she said. “I thought I did something wrong because I was the last person to see him before he left.”

Her mother couldn’t cope and turned to drugs and alcohol. “There were days that all I had to eat was oatmeal and what they gave us in school,” she said.

Her older siblings were allowed to live safely with grandparents, but Robin, as the youngest, had to stay with her mother. “I thought, ‘Why am I not important enough to be taken care of?’”

Her low self-esteem made her the perfect target for someone like her future husband, who set up a duality common in abusive relationships. What at first seemed like love turned out to be control. He would drive her to and from high school — apparently a caring act, but one that meant she gradually lost her friendships.

They married at 20 and had three children. She was a stay-at-home mom, determined to raise her children without the chaos she experienced growing up. It also meant she had no money of her own.

“Looking back on my life, he was controlling me from the start,” she said.

He would tally grocery store receipts against items purchased and change given. It had better add up. People, including relatives on both sides, soon stopped visiting because he would make a fuss over small issues, like whether someone’s purse on a table could slightly scratch the surface. “He made them feel on edge. They were uncomfortable,” Robin said.

Her husband, she said, never hit her. His abuse was always covert, and so damaged her health that she is now unable to work. He deliberately triggered her asthma attacks, she said.

One night in January, at 2:30 in the morning, her husband chose to scrub the shower in the adjacent bathroom with strong cleansers he knew would cause her to wheeze uncontrollably.

Unable to stabilize her breathing, Robin went to the emergency room. ER staff asked her husband why he was cleaning the bathroom in the middle of the night.

“Right there and then I knew he was trying to kill me,” she said. “It felt like a punch in the gut.”

Hospital staffers put her immediately in touch with the center. Although she didn’t know it at the time, her adult daughter also intervened, calling the local police to get her an escort.

“When the police came, my ex was taken aback,” she said. The police told him they were there so she could pick up some things because she was going to be away for a couple of days. “I know that if the police weren’t there, he probably wouldn’t have let me go.”

The back-to-back asthma attacks caused a host of health problems that eventually put her in the hospital in a coma and left her with lasting, painful nerve damage.

The center has helped her with housing and food. It provided free counseling that helped her understand the generational roots of her abuse.

“It’s not your fault,” Camburn would tell her over and over. All three of Robin’s children are fine. Two are in therapy.

The center also provided legal assistance in filing both temporary and permanent protection from abuse orders. Besides lawyers, the center employs legal advocates and recruits volunteers who accompany people like Robin to court.

“I was a fish out of water,” Robin said. “They understood the process and could explain it. They made my children feel at ease. They could hold my hand and provide me with a smiling face to show me that it was going to be OK.”

Jane M. Von Bergen spent more than 25 years as a reporter and editor at The Inquirer. janevonbtheater@gmail.com

This article is part of a series about Philly Gives — a community fund to support nonprofits through end-of-year giving. To learn more about Philly Gives, including how to donate, visit phillygives.org.

Mission: To reduce domestic violence in Chester County by supporting survivors and advancing prevention strategies

People served: 1,852 survivors and 5,448 through education programs

Annual spend: $3.1 million in fiscal 2024

Point of pride: Help is available 24 hours a day. The center’s strong relationship with local police forces through its Lethality Assessment Program helps officers to quickly get abused people in imminent danger to safety.

You can help: Direct volunteers support participants in court, answer hotline calls, clean and ready shelter rooms, present workshops, and host tables at community events. Volunteers also help with housing repairs and landscaping, organize supplies and donations, and assist with fundraising. dvcccpa.org/become-a-volunteer

Support: phillygives.org/philly-gives/

Connect: P.O. Box 832, West Chester, PA 19381, or online at dvcccpa.org

To get help:

888-711-6270 (Chester County)

800-932-4632 (Pennsylvania)

800-572-7233 (New Jersey)

302-762-6110 (Delaware)

800-799-7253 (National)

$25 can help purchase a pharmacy gift card or provide transportation for a family to reach a safe house.

$50 offers one night of safe lodging and amenities including nourishing food for a family, clothing, toiletries.

$100 helps with staffing and materials for an evening support group, including snacks and providing solace for both adults and children.

$200 ensures free legal representation for temporary and final protection from abuse order and support provided by legal advocates.

$250 provides one week of transitional housing, offering stability to a family striving for independence. Support includes food, clothing, toiletries, and other amenities.