Members of the Carbon County Child and Family Collaborative Board shared initiatives of their individual programs with other board members during Wednesday's meeting held at the Carbon County Emergency Center, Jim Thorpe.

The group meets about six times a year to share information about their upcoming programs, initiatives, funding goals and grants, plus to celebrate each other's successes.While last month's program centered on the heartache of suicide through a parent's perspective, this month's program celebrated the success of SHINE program's Victory Garden and focused on the services that are provided by Domestic Violence Service Center, Wilkes-Barre.Tammy Rodgers and Jolene Miraglia of the Domestic Violence Service shared information about the services they provide to abused women and their children.Miraglia said that Domestic Violence Service started in 1976 in Wilkes-Barre and expanded to Carbon County in 1999.Miraglia talked about some of the services they provide.• 24 hour hot line for victims and survivors of domestic violence. A victim call anytime of the day 365 days and seven days a week and will able to able to speak to a trained counselor advocate.• Emergency shelter where victims who are in an unsafe situation can come to stay at a moments notice. Often the women come with their children. The children can be traumatized by the situation. At the shelter, children and moms can attend support groups. Plus the agency works with local school district and provides counseling and ongoing therapy.• Children advocate is available for children at the center.• Mental health advocate available, also for drug and alcohol abuse issues.• Advocate for rape survivors.• Help for people in unhealthy relationships.• Provides community support groups.• Provides a transitional home for homeless women who do not have anywhere to go after the emergency shelter. Woman can stay for up to one year. The goal of this of the program is to help women obtain and maintain self-sufficiency. They also offer post residential services to assure they are maintaining self-sufficiency.For additional information about the Domestic Violence Service Center, call the hot line at 1 (800) 424-5600. All services are free and confidential.Rodgers said she will talk to group who wants to listen."I'm a big advocate of domestic violence," said Rogers. "Many people do not realize how much domestic violence is in the community. "In actuality, everyone in here knows someone in a domestic violence situation."Rogers said she goes into schools and talks to they youngest children from kindergarten to second grade about boundaries because domestic does not happen out of the blue, but is a progression of circumstances and behaviors that this person has.She said she starts off telling children that hands are not for hitting and leads into talking about bullying to third and fourth graders."I tell them that anyone who bullies at that age will more than likely be in jail two or three times by the time they are 21 years of age," said Rogers.In the high school, Rogers talks about healthy relationships.She said that in high school a lot of children don't understand relationships."It's not a healthy relationship with power and control issues," she said. "People don't start off who are married in domestic violence relationships."Rogers said she will visit church groups, train agencies and in the workplace to tell them what a healthy relationship is and the options they have when they realize they are in an unhealthy relationship."People will see where they might be tension between couples," she said. "With the healthy initiatives, you can see the interaction change between the couples.Miraglia noted that in Carbon County over 300 clients for the last fiscal year were serviced by the Domestic Violence Service Center.The meeting concluded with a video presentation of the SHINE Victory Garden presented by Marie Johns and George Roberts of Blue Ridge Communications TV-13.