Counseling Services
Counseling can be one way victims of intimate partner violence work through their trauma and empower themselves.
Counseling Services
The clinical team empowers adult and child survivors of IPV to heal from abuse using trauma-informed and evidence-based treatments, and opens the door for survivors to engage in supportive, healthy relationships free from fear.
Program Purpose
Clinical Services Program provides short-term crisis counseling and psychotherapy to victims of intimate partner violence and their children, individually, with families and in groups. This includes physical, sexual, verbal, emotional, and/or financial abuse. Counseling can help by providing information about intimate partner violence, resources available, safety planning and reduction of trauma related symptoms. Counselors facilitate and support the client’s decision making. They offer non-judgmental help in addressing the causes and effects of intimate partner violence in the client’s life and that of their families. Counselors may teach a client stress reduction techniques, help identify and build their community supports, provide a safe place for clients to tell their story and process all that they have been through.
Eligibility
Any person interested in addressing issues of intimate partner violence is eligible for service. We provide services to adult victims, female, male or transgendered, regardless of sexual orientation. We also serve victims of teen dating violence and children who have witnessed violence perpetrated against a parent by an intimate partner. Services are primarily provided in English and Spanish, however we can make arrangements to accommodate speakers of other languages as well.
Referral Process
Call the House of Ruth’s 24-hour Hotline to be referred to adult or child & family counseling services. We have four community based counseling sites; two in Baltimore City, and one each in Prince George’s and Montgomery County. We also provide counseling services to adult and child residents in our shelter program.
The Domestically Violent Women’s Program is a program for women who have used violence in an intimate relationship. Women who are court ordered or come voluntarily are helped to examine their behavior and take responsibility for the violence. We help each woman gain honest insight into the context for the violence. In some situations, IPV survivors may have used violence in an attempt to defend herself. Other women have used violence in anticipation of the next beating. The groups’ focus is on intimate partner violence education, safety planning, healthy parenting, anger management, taking responsibility for behavioral choices, and alternatives to violence.
Crabaret
One of the highlights of the summer season. Held at Gertrude’s and the Sculpture Garden of the BMA, guests enjoy live music, drinks and crab dishes prepared by nationally renowned chef, John Shields, while watching the sun set over Baltimore.