Domestic violence coalition turns 40 Local group grows with it
Michelle Robinson-Ritter, shown in her office Thursday, is director of Domestic Violence Services of Southwestern Pennsylvania, It is the 40th anniversary of the coalition that her organization works with.
Michelle Robinson-Ritter, shown working at her office Thursday, is director of Domestic Violence Services of Southwestern Pennsylvania. It is the 40th anniversary of the coalition that her organization works with.
Michelle Robinson-Ritter, shown working at her office Thursday, is director of Domestic Violence Services of Southwestern Pennsylvania, It is the 40th anniversary of the coalition that her organization works with.
Michelle Robinson-Ritter has an unusual career goal.
“We want to work ourselves out of a job,” she said, even if she knows firsthand how unlikely that is.
Robinson-Ritter is executive director of Domestic Violence Services of Southwestern Pennsylvania in Washington, one of 60 local groups that make up the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence, a statewide network of local service agencies that marks its 40th anniversary this year.
Since nine local groups banded together in 1976 to form the coalition, membership has grown to scores of organizations that serve every county in the state, offering shelter, legal help, counseling and myriad other services to victims and their children.
“We’ve come a long way in 40 years in that regard,” said Peg Dierkers, PCADV executive director.
Services available to victims in Washington and nearby counties have followed this pattern, as the group Robinson-Ritter runs has grown from a single shelter into a multi-county service agency covering the largest geographic region of any domestic violence program in the state.
Robinson-Ritter volunteered at the YWCA-run women’s shelter in Washington in the early 1980s until it closed in 1983. The YWCA reopened the shelter the next year. It incorporated as a separate organization, Washington Women’s Shelter Inc., in 1986, with Robinson-Ritter as the sole staff member.
Since then, it’s grown to 36 staff members in three counties. It opened a satellite office in Waynesburg in 1993 and began overseeing domestic violence services in Fayette County in 2010.
While it may be easier for victims to seek help, Dierkers hesitates to say whether violence between intimate partners has declined over the same period.
“I think it’s still very prevalent,” she said. “It’s hard to say if it’s less prevalent.”
According to research cited in a 2014 report by the coalition, women are overwhelmingly more likely to be on the receiving end of violence from a partner, and violent acts by men tended to be more severe.
“There’s no way we’ll ever end domestic violence if we don’t engage men and boys in talking about it,” Robinson-Ritter said.
Dr. Michael Crabtree, a Washington psychologist often consulted by county courts, said part of the challenge in curbing violence, including domestic violence, is to teach men how to handle their anger in other ways.
“The ways you’re taught to show your strength as a teenager – that’s often counter to what’s adaptive in the long run,” he said.
PCADV has aimed at the roots of domestic violence in recent years, convening statewide and southwestern advisory committees in 2012 to help coordinate and expand efforts aimed at prevention.
It backed legislation that eventually turned into a 2011 law allowing Pennsylvania schools to adopt policies outlining how officials respond to dating violence and educating students on the issue. PCADV expects to hold its third annual Father’s Day celebration this year.
“It takes a cultural shift,” Dierkers said. “Because we’re really talking about a culture that permits or condones (domestic violence).”