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October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month
"Just like the lotus, we too have the ability to rise from the mud, bloom out of the darkness, and radiate into the world."
Some Facts About
Domestic Violence
In just one day in 2025, the 20th Annual Domestic Violence Counts report found that domestic violence programs served more than 84,000 victims of domestic violence across the United States.
Domestic violence is a leading cause of homelessness, especially for women and children. Studies have found that 80% of homeless women with children have previously experienced domestic violence, and that as many as 57% of all homeless women report domestic violence as the immediate cause of their homelessness.
The 20th Annual Domestic Violence Counts Report states that on survey day in 2025, more than 13,000 survivor requests for help went unmet because programs lacked sufficient resources, funding, and/or staffing. The majority of these requests were for emergency shelter, hotels, motels, transitional housing, and other housing.
Project WISH
Project WISH launched in October 2025 after YESCCC leadership successfully transferred a grant that funded the now closed The Safe Center. Funding received through this grant has played a pivotal role in helping restore counseling services for victims of domestic violence in Nassau County. Project WISH serves children (ages 0-18) exposed to Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and their abused parents. The program provides family-centered, trauma-informed, and developmentally responsive services including counseling, advocacy, and referral/linkage to other service providers. Its goals are to increase resilience and help families heal by strengthening relationships between children and their non-abusive parents and building community among survivors.
Since October 2025, over 60 children and parents have received individual, family, or group counseling services through Project WISH, nearly double our projected number for the first year of the project.
Our Family Support Group was developed and implemented in March of 2026 and 15 families (a total of 34 parents and children) have participated so far this year.
The lotus flower is a cross-cultural symbol of strength and resilience due to its ability to overcome adversity and thrive, despite growing in muddy and unpleasant waters. The lotus artwork pictured above was created by children and parents engaged in Project WISH. Each family created a petal of the flower, which embodied their wishes, hopes, goals, and dreams for the future. Families then added their petals to the flower and worked together to create the mud, representing the things they want to leave behind.
About the Lotus Flower Art
If you are experiencing an emergency, please dial 911 or contact
the Long Island Crisis Center.
If you would like to schedule an appointment to talk to a Project WISH counselor, please call (516) 799-3203.
For additional information and resources, please click here.
