SafeHaven Announces new Strangulation Response Team
TARRANT COUNTY, TX (July 17, 2023) – SafeHaven of Tarrant County, in collaboration with Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth, announced Monday the addition of the agency’s new Strangulation Response Team. The team, composed of SafeHaven’s High Risk Team case managers, will respond 24/7 to hospitalized domestic violence victims who have been identified as having experienced strangulation by their intimate partner.
According to the Training Institute on Strangulation Prevention, strangulation is one of the best predictors for a future homicide. In fact, victims who were previously strangled by their intimate partner are 800 times more likely to die at the hands of that abuser.
The Strangulation Response Team is a new program under the SafeHaven-managed Tarrant County Domestic Violence High Risk Team (DVHRT) and seeks to further reduce the number of intimate partner homicides in Tarrant County. SafeHaven’s High Risk Team case managers will meet with victims hospitalized at Texas Health Fort Worth and provide information about SafeHaven resources, including case management, emergency shelter, counseling, legal assistance and more.
Expansion of this service to other area hospitals is expected in the next few months.
SafeHaven President and CEO, Kathryn Jacob, LMSW, believes the new service will provide a missing link between victims and life-saving SafeHaven resources.
“Our local fatality review team meets regularly to discuss the previous year’s domestic violence homicides, and the ones that stick out the most for me are the victims who did not know SafeHaven’s life-saving resources were there for them, local and free of charge,” Jacob said. “The Strangulation Response Team will meet the most high-risk victims where they are, and we are hopeful that in turn, intimate partner homicides will decrease in our county.”
Strangulation is one of the most dangerous forms of violence but unlike other types of trauma, it can be difficult to detect. Less than 50 percent of strangulation victims suffer visible injury from the assault, making it easy to minimize or even overlook, according to Cindy Burnette, director of Texas Health's Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) Program.
“Texas Health’s team of forensic nurses have received specialized strangulation training to assess and identify hard to detect injuries and then collaborate with our other medical professionals to provide the appropriate medical interventions,” Burnette said. “But beyond the immediate medical care, we know the importance of connecting victims to community resources available to help protect their physical and emotional health and safety. With SafeHaven providing face-to-face advocacy in real time, I believe victims will be much more open to accepting help to get in a safe place.”
About the Tarrant County Domestic Violence High Risk Team
The Domestic Violence High Risk Team (DVHRT) model is an approach designed to address and respond to cases of domestic violence with a high risk of serious harm or lethality.
In 2016, Tarrant County saw its highest year on record at the time, with 16 domestic violence homicides, and SafeHaven implemented the county’s DVHRT the next year to combat this growing issue. Since then, with the exception of 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic, the number has steadily dropped, and in 2021 Tarrant County saw just seven intimate partner homicides. While the fatality review report for 2022 will be published this October, SafeHaven believes the homicide number will have dropped yet again.
The DVHRT model includes programmatic activities to save the lives of domestic violence victims while providing intensive, comprehensive case management to our community’s most vulnerable when the shelter intervention isn’t always the answer. The team, led by SafeHaven, works to keep victims safe and hold offenders accountable.
About SafeHaven of Tarrant County
SafeHaven’s mission is to end domestic violence through safety, support, prevention and social change.
Tarrant County’s only state-designated family violence program, SafeHaven has enabled thousands of women and children to rebuild safe, independent lives for more than 40 years. Vital services include the county’s only 24-hour emergency shelters, 24-hour crisis hotline, legal services, children’s programming, and evidence-based prevention curriculum. The agency also operates the county’s largest accredited program for domestic violence offenders.
We believe everyone deserves relationships that are free of fear, so we confront domestic violence in our community at every level - walking alongside survivors at every step in their journey and working with our community to drive solutions that improve our response to this pervasive problem.
About Texas Health Resources
Texas Health Resources is a faith-based, nonprofit health system that cares for more patients in North Texas than any other provider. With a service area that consists of 16 counties and more than 7 million people, the system is committed to providing quality, coordinated care through its Texas Health Physicians Group and 29 hospital locations under the banners of Texas Health Presbyterian, Texas Health Arlington Memorial, Texas Health Harris Methodist and Texas Health Huguley. Texas Health access points and services, ranging from acute-care hospitals and trauma centers to outpatient facilities and home health and preventive services, provide the full continuum of care for all stages of life. The system has more than 4,100 licensed hospital beds, 6,400 physicians with active staff privileges and more than 28,000 employees. For more information about Texas Health, call 1-877-THR-WELL, or visit www.texashealth.org.