http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/318465451

Confronting the cycle of violence an ecclesial response to the survivors of family violence at San Marcos

Though there have been many programs in the local church targeting the perpetuation of violent behaviors in families, not many of them have been designed to help inner city Hispanic adolescents, especially from an ecclesial theological perspective. The goals of this project were to create a higher awareness of the problem of family violence; to create and implement a psychological educational curriculum for a ten week program for adolescent survivors, ages thirteen to seventeen, of family violence; to break through the deafening "silence" of the survivors of family violence in such a way that they would be able to process, both internally and verbally, the dynamics related to the existence of abuse in their families; and to facilitate a group experience that would provide a safe, healthy environment in which the problems related to family violence could be confronted in a direct manner and overcome as much as possible. Fifteen inner city adolescents from the Chicago metropolitan area and their families participated in a ten week program at San Marcos, an ecclesial social agency under the sponsorship of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. The evaluative data at the end of the ten weeks showed that fourteen of the fifteen (93.3%) adolescents reported they had been exposed to learning new attitudes and models of behavior with which they would be able to confront in a more healthy way the reality of violence in their families. All fifteen (100%) of the adolescents reported they felt more secure and freer to speak about the theme of family violence without feeling ashamed or forced to keep a secret. This information seems to confirm that churches need to be more diligent in their openness to and awareness of the volatile problem of family violence. Intentional Christian educational programs should be part of the church's response to stop the cycle of violence in families and communities as a whole.

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