Voices of Hope of Lincoln Inc

Voices of Hope provides free and confidential services in Lincoln for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and related forms of abuse. Our services are available free to men and women as well as family members, friends, and supporters of victims of these crimes.

Last year, we provided face-to-face services to over 1,500 adult victims and 400 children. Of these, 95% were women and their children in need of our help. Our challenge is that while the demand for our services are increasing, we are experiencing decreased or flat-lined funding from many of our funding sources.

Voices of Hope's services are focused on providing an immediate response to victims in need of our help and in ensuring the safety of those victims. Services include:

• 24-Hour Crisis Line. Our staff and trained volunteers answer our 24-hour a day crisis line every day of the year. Last year, we answered over 7,500 client-related calls on our crisis line and office phones. 
• 24-hour Advocacy in response to calls from hospital emergency rooms or law enforcement for assistance with a victim.
• Daily walk-in services, providing safety planning, assistance with protection orders, short-term counseling, referral to resources.  
• Basic needs provision – diapers, toiletries, gas cards, food card, bus ticket out of town, phone cards, etc.
• Support Groups and Short-term Counseling to help  victims move forward from the crisis stage through support and information. 
• On-Campus Advocate available at Nebraska Wesleyan provides services to students, faculty & staff
• Community Education – We raise awareness and provide education to groups such as social workers, mental health workers, and law enforcement. We also focus on prevention by talking with middle school, high school and college students on topics such as healthy relationships, dating violence and date rape.

No day is ever the same at Voices of Home nor are the needs of those who come to us for help. We most often see or talk to victims at their time of crisis.  Our priority is to assess their safety and determine their most immediate needs, which may be a protection order, transportation to a safe place, money for food, diapers, lock changes, furniture movers, or it may be the most immediate need is for someone to listen and tell you they understand.

A Client’s Story

Recently a women came to Voices of Hope with her young daughter. They were fleeing from a domestic violence situation and had been living out of a car for the past two days and nights. The mother was out of money and had only two bags of clothes for herself and her daughter. She had fled from her abuser with no real plan of where to go. She was terrified because she had tried to leave one other time but her abuser found her and threatened to hurt her daughter if she didn't return home with him. She felt this time she had to leave the city before he found her again. Our advocates arranged for a safe place for them to stay for the night and then worked with her to develop a longer term safety plan for them. The next day we had arranged for shelter for them in another community. Our advocates bought the woman and her daugher bus tickets, purchased some food for them to have with them on the bus, and transported them to the bus station and waited with them until they were safetly on the bus. After a long bus drive that day, they safely arrived at the other community where an advocate from the shelter met them and brought them to safety.