School has started and the end of hot summer days lies ahead, but you still have a chance to enjoy a bit of summer on the back of your Harley. The 6th Annual Kacie's Ride for Hope rolls into action on Saturday, September 10, 2011.

Kacie's Ride for Hope gets bigger every year, attracting motorcycle enthusiasts from all over Northern California who gather together to raise awareness and to end domestic violence. Kacie's Ride for Hope ~ Bikers united for an end to domestic Violence was started 6 years ago by Pat Barron as a memorial in remembrance of his sister Kathleen "Kacie" Barron, after she was murdered by her estranged lover in 2006. Kacie was a gregarious, caring woman with a kind heart who often opened her home to women and children escaping domestic violence. She was also an active volunteer with The Center for Violence-free Relationships and believed in the work we do. Kacie was an avid biker and the route through Hope Valley was selected for the memorial run because it was one of her favorites.

The full-day Kacie's Ride affair begins at the Bell Tower on Placerville's historic Main Street. The quiet of the morning is soon overtaken by the powerful sound of bikes as they gather together to raise awareness about domestic violence. After a brief heart-felt ceremony, the riders take to the road on highway 50 heading east bound toward Echo Summit, south on Highway 88 through to Mormon Immigrant Trail. Taking a left at Sly Park Lake riders will continue on to the El Dorado Fire Fighter's Memorial Hall in Diamond Springs for the end-of-the-day festivities. There will be hot-off-the-grill grub, live music, and more raffle prizes than you can shake a stick at. The grand prize this year is a 22 ton log splitter with chainsaw donated by Camino Outdoor Power.

To register for or for more information visit the website at www.kaciesrideforhope.com

Pat and his wife Sharon invite you all out for good times for a good cause! See y'all there!  

The culmination of a year-long project to move The Center into the next phase of organizational development kicked off on August 1st with the implementation of our new client tracking software.

So you might be thinking... new software so what? What's the big deal and why is it so important that it gets an article in the Enews letter? How will new software help with reaching our ultimate goal of ending domestic violence and sexual assault in our community? The answer... this new software is magic!!! Called Efforts To Outcomes or ETO, it will help us clearly demonstrate our effectiveness to ourselves, our clients and our funders.

Our main goal here at The Center is to end domestic violence and sexual assault in our community. But we struggled with how to track actual progress toward that ultimate goal. ETO will enable The Center to measure a variety of data that will show client growth, allow staff to have easy access to that data, and be a versatile system that will allow for easy analysis of data.

Jana Pingle, the super volunteer who donated hundreds of hours of her valuable time, stated; "The Center struggled with the process of counting, tracking and reporting services each month by creating, pulling and compiling statistics from a multitude of manual and input data sources.  While we could count and report services provided, we were not able to track direct cause and effect between staff efforts and client outcomes.  Without this information, we were unable to craft our case management and delivery system to maximize best efforts and document successful client outcomes."  So we'll be able to see what is working, and what is not working and be able to concentrate our efforts on successful program delivery.

Jana also reported that ETO provides The Center with an easy-to-use and customizable case management software and performance management software that includes features for tracking activities, measuring outcomes and providing us with the information needed for performance management. 

With ETO we can:

• Relate service delivery efforts to their outcomes
• Monitor the effectiveness of our efforts
• Understand where we are having the greatest impact
• Adjust and continuously improve our service model
• Identify, replicate and share best practices
• Report successes in minutes, not days or weeks by manually manipulating compiled data
• Attract more funding

The Center is excited to enter the next phase of development and we look forward to sharing some of the incredible data and success stories that we are able to track with our new fabulous software!

Center staff on ETO Kick off day!

The voice of The Center's 'SPECIAL VOLUNTEER UNIT', would like to take this opportunity to honor one of our special volunteers, Faith Mendez. Faith has volunteered with The Center since March 2010 and her dedication and compassion is truly making a difference in the lives of domestic violence and sexual assault survivors

Recently, Faith initiated a book club for teens. Faith and the book club use reading as a method to empower youth with knowledge that may help them create healthy relationships. Faith's outreach to the under- served teen community brings The Center's mission alive by providing violence prevention education to teens.  

Got teens in your home?  Why not have them check out some of these awesome books...For Faith's  recommended reading for teens click here! 

Domestic violence is a learned behavior. According to the National Council on Child Abuse and Family Violence, "Battering is a learned behavior.... Many batterers were raised in a violent home where they witnessed the abuse of their mother, siblings, or perhaps were themselves a victim of childhood abuse. Witnessing domestic violence in the childhood home is the most common risk factor for becoming a batterer in adulthood." Since domestic violence is a learned behavior, it can be unlearned and that's what The Center's Positive Solutions classes are all about.

Men's Alternatives to Abusive Patterns (MAAP) and Changing Abusive Patterns (CAP, for women) programs are certified by El Dorado County as a 52-week program that satisfies the court requirement for people convicted of domestic violence offenses.  These programs teach members about the dynamics of violence, power-over strategies, non-violent behavior, nonviolent communication (NVC), and role definition. It is designed to help men map out a healthier course for their life that includes a nonviolent lifestyle, and to help women discover a healthier way to resolve conflict and heal from past abuse. These small groups meet weekly for a full year to learn, share their experiences, and gain some new tools to help increase their ability to resolve conflicts in a constructive way.  We are excited about partnering with people and helping them become better partners, parents and individuals.

In December of 2010, The Center sent a list of clients who had graduated from MAAP & CAP programs in 2007 and 2008 to the District Attorney's office. We asked them to check to see if any of the graduates had re-offended.  The response from the DA's office was extremely encouraging.  In their reply, they stated: "After checking the El Dorado County cases, our records show no new domestic violence charges."

The Center is very proud to be playing a part in changing the lives of people in our community. Please contact us if you would like learn more about the Positive Solutions program at The Center.