Nearly 20 people are physically abused every minute by a spouse or partner in the U.S., according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

A domestic violence shelter in Story County is working to provide crucial resources to survivors of domestic violence. ACCESS, or Assault Care Center Extending Shelter and Support, has served the community since 1974 and opened its first shelter in 1981.

ACCESS, which also serves Boone and Greene counties, recently made a change to a shelter model that has been gaining traction globally.

Since ACCESS altered its shelter model, the results have been objectively positive.

ACCESS began the transition to scattered site shelters, which are self-contained housing units, as the core model of its operations in July 2016. ACCESS is one of the first domestic violence shelters in the state of Iowa to operate a scattered site model but is part of what former executive director Angie Schreck described as a “movement” toward a progressive shelter model.

“When I first joined the agency, back in the fall of 2014, our shelter services looked very traditional,” said Virginia Griesheimer, interim executive director of ACCESS. “We had a large 18-bed facility and we had staff space mixed in with shelter space.”

Scattered site shelters differ from traditional shelters by allowing those within the shelter to have more control over security and their general living environments. While scattered site sheltering is not entirely uncommon, it has rarely been utilized for survivors of domestic violence and abuse.

“The conversation started when the state of Iowa changed the funding model for victims’ services,” Schreck said. “They decided not to fund as many shelters and they cited a lot of approved research that said that victims don’t need to be, basically institutionalized.”

Schreck said often times, when a victim is placed in a traditional shelter model, they end up working on social issues within the group they are now living with, rather than being able to focus on themselves. Scattered site shelters are typically individual units that allow a survivor to feel a sense of independence and security while addressing tumultuous life circumstances that include poor financial standing and strain in personal relationships.

Most of those sheltered by ACCESS are low-income people. From July 2015 through June 2016, 69 percent of resident clientele at ACCESS has a monthly income of less than $1,000.

Those at ACCESS had been considering the change for some time and a group from the Greek community approached ACCESS to purchase the building they had been using. ACCESS agreed to make the sale which forced them to expedite the process of transitioning.

“We sat down, myself, the previous executive director, and our current operations director, and tried to kind of set out a plan of what we wanted this new model to look like,” Griesheimer said. “We had all read a lot of best practice articles on scattered site sheltering, sheltering that had less, for lack of a better word, supervision built in, something that was a little bit more empowering, a little bit more independent.”

ACCESS found a landlord within Story County that was able to lease them units that fit its ambitious goals — three units with differing levels of staff-involvement and responsibility

When people initially contact ACCESS, they are asked about preferences for housing and the amount of staff involvement they would prefer.

“It depends on where people are in their healing, it depends on the severity of abuse that they are coming out of, but at least now we have options to offer people,” Griesheimer said. “I think that in itself gives them a greater sense of ‘okay, well, I get to decide how I flee and where I flee to now, which is really important.”

The unit with the most staff involvement, referred to as the “staffed unit” which Griesheimer likened to its former model, operated with staff members who answer the door, operate security and are present at all times. The unit with the second most staff involvement, the “semi-staffed unit,” was located close enough to the staffed unit so clients had access to staff when they needed, but could choose to be without staff when they felt comfortable doing so.

The biggest difference between the two units is the less staffed unit allows clients to have a key and operate its own security.

The third, “unstaffed unit,” was located miles away from the other two units and staff are only available by appointment or as-needed. Again, clients here had “full-control over the keys,” and were responsible for operating their own security.

“That was a huge change. I think we had a few partners who were a little bit skeptical of what that would look like,” Griesheimer said. “Some folks who have been part of the anti-violence movement and who have been involved in sheltering services for a long time, there is this kind of belief that clients need supervision, they need full access to staff.

“What we found as a result of this transition is that’s not the case.”

By operating a scattered site shelter, ACCESS was able to compare and contrast the results from the three varying levels of supervision and responsibility. What they found was that following the transition in 2016, clients who exited the shelter to permanent housing from the fully-staffed unit was 30 percent lower than clients leaving the semi-staffed unit.

Clients leaving the unstaffed unit were 10 percent more likely to enter permanent housing.

Griesheimer said before the transition, surveys from clients indicated they wanted more independence and more control over their space.

“They want to be able to kind of feel empowered to make decisions for themselves. This was a great way for us to actually put that into practice,” Griesheimer said.

While ACCESS has 12 beds in its current shelters, six less than the traditional model had, they were able to shelter 42 more individuals in its first year as a scattered site shelter, a near 44 percent increase. This is largely because the average length of stay for the unstaffed space was 19.7 days and the average length of stay overall for the traditional model was 35 days.

“We wanted to have what felt like individual options but still wanted to capacity to shelter the significant numbers that need sheltering,” Schreck said.

According to Schreck, ACCESS’ ideal outcome is to provide support services so victims never need to enter a shelter and they offer a bevy of other services. ACCESS provides 24-hour crisis lines, counseling, support groups, community education and various advocacy services including information and referrals for legal, medical and social service needs.

Sexual Assault Crisis Line: (515) 292-5378 or (800) 203-3488

Domestic Abuse Crisis Line: (515) 292-0519 or (855) 983-4641

Housing/Sheltering Crisis Line: (515) 292-0543 or (855) 696-2980

Phone numbers and additional services provided are courtesy of www.assaultcarecenter.org.