The most significant factor in ADV’s work with battered women is to assist them in identifying and dealing with their feelings and attitudes regarding domestic violence and to explore with them available options for changing their situations. This “empowerment” approach is designed to promote a woman’s ability to make her own choices and develop independent living skills in a violence-free environment.
Shelter Program Services Include:
- Up to 30 days of emergency shelter
- Emotional support
- Individual and group counseling (weekly and daily as needed)
- Transportation
- Food, clothing and personal supplies
- A children’s program with respite child care and children’s counseling (including a state-licensed child development center) providing specialized case management, individual and group counseling, advocacy, structured and free play and parenting education
- Parenting groups to encourage positive parenting, improved nutrition, and fun family activities which promote alternatives to violence
- Specialized mental health therapy by a licensed therapist
- Ongoing advocacy and referrals necessary to secure medical, social service, financial, housing and other assistance.

In addition, ADV works to teach clients to become self-sufficient through advocacy and networking with numerous community agencies and services providers. While clients are in shelter, they may access employment/job training, housing programs, literacy training, health services, mental health, substance abuse, personal care, income support/subsistence/household establishment, and law enforcement referrals.
What Our Partners are Saying
“Working with ADV as a business partner has been very rewarding. If I were talking to colleagues in our industry about what would be the return for investment in helping others, I’d say it goes beyond one person. It permeates throughout your entire organization. It’s a shot in the arm. Every time we do an event with ADV, the associates who participate are rejuvenated. They come back feeling very, very good about being able to make a difference. For every dollar invested, I’d say you get a return of a thousand percent in morale … unifying your troops. As a business person, the impact to your morale is priceless. In our mind, a big part of what ADV is accomplishing is the rehabilitation of families. In our mind, we feel that’s a place where we can be very impactful. People just jump at the opportunity to work with ADV.”
Mark Torres
“The reputation of ADV is phenomenal. This organization is over the top. It’s our leadership and our staff. There is nothing else like us. It’s the most loving and compassionate agency. I don’t know how anybody could do it any better.”
Ann Macias
“When we first decided to partner with ADV, we did so just because we had shared the same kinds of goals. But the more I worked with the ADV team, the more I realized that this is an incredible community of people. Everything that’s done is done very, very, very well. There is a standard of excellence that permeates the ADV community. Being able to work with people who are such respectable people, people I have such a great deal of respect for, no matter what they’re doing, they’re doing it at the 110 percent level. Advocacy, counseling, shelter, children’s program. In this time, when a lot of things are done in a shoddy fashion, it is such a great thing to be able to partner with an agency that is committed to such excellence. Sometimes in a nonprofit, you’re not really a business. This is a nonprofit with integrity and strength and authenticity. If there’s violence anywhere, there’s violence everywhere. People must act in support of life.”
Rev. Janet Westall
“Our involvement with ADV has impacted every associate at every level. No matter how large or how small their involvement has been. Because they see the results of what they are doing. They see the impact that they’re making. I can’t say enough about ADV. Not just for what they do for individuals, but for how they interact within the community. How they deport themselves when they’re at organizational meetings or at other affairs. They’re always there and positive. It’s, ‘We’re here, we’re going to make a difference and we’re going to make lives better.’ There’s no self-doubt. It’s all very positive. The belief in what they’re doing, in the organization and the people within the organization, having the staff that your’re confident with, having the families come in out of the worst of circumstances and knowing that they are going to be safe. That this is a sanctuary for them. It’s probably one of the best jobs you can have.”