Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks and Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren dedicated the month of October as Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
A report from the Willow Domestic Violence Center shows there were over 4700 reports made in 2014. In Rochester, the report rate is two and a half times more than the state-wide rate. Mayor Warren says the greatest barrier to ending the epidemic of violence is silence.
"I am excited about the fact that in the city of Rochester and in the county of Monroe, good people are no longer sitting silent."
This year, advocates are choosing to focus their efforts on the impact of children in the home.
Lisa Butt is the President and CEO of the Society for the Protection and Care of Children in Rochester. She says, prior to the 1980s, people assumed children were ignorant of domestic violence. Now, research shows violence can impact children even before they are born.
"At an early age, children's brains are becoming hard wired for later physical and emotional functioning. Exposure to domestic violence threatens this development."
With the proliferation of pink paraphernalia, you may know that October is also Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Jaime Saunders is the President of Willow Domestic Violence Center. She says even though more women are affected by violence in the home than breast cancer, cervical cancer, and ovarian cancer combined, it doesn't get as much attention.
Saunders says the reason people are more willing to rally around the breast cancer cause may be because it's blameless, but she says there are blameless victims of domestic abuse that need support, and violence in the home can impact the whole community.
"School attendance, graduation rates, unemployment, illiteracy, poor health, poverty, teen pregnancy, sexual assault, crime -- you name the community challenge, and most often family violence is lurking in the background."
