Kay-Laurel Fischer – författare

Create compelling women's groups that deal effectively with domestic abuse  Journey Beyond Abuse and its accompanying participant's journal, Moving Beyond Abuse, give you complete tools for facilitating a powerful group with life-changing results. Used together, these unique books can help you create a program where women increase their understanding of the dynamics of abuse, feel less alone and isolated, feel empowered to make positive choices, and have a greater awareness to channels of safety. Adapt this flexible program to your group's specific needs—no two groups are the same. Journey Beyond Abuse gives you twenty-one group sessions, which you can combine to create groups of differing length and focus. The sessions are based on the successful program developed by the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation which had been used with more than 1,200 women. You'll get detailed instructions on how to facilitate each session including its goals, format, activities, and important issues that the session raises for both the participants and facilitators. This practical guide also includes an overview of the history, philosophy, and goals of this model and how to best use the program; information and tips on how to handle 28 special issues such as child care, safety and protection, and substance abuse; facilitation techniques, cofacilitation, intake and individual counseling, and recommended policies and procedures; useful appendices including reproducible forms such as a women's domestic abuse summary sheet, her goals and strengths, self-care plan; and much more.

Participant's journal helps women get even more out of their group This participant’s journal is a series of stories and questions that coordinate with the sessions provided in the facilitator’s guide, Journey Beyond Abuse. The journal can be used in coordination with a women’s group or with guidance of a counselor in other forms of support for dealing with abuse issues. The stories—based on other women’s actual abuse and group experiences—help prompt the thoughts of women in your group and confirm their own reality. The open-ended questions provide gentle direction toward gaining insights that help affirm inner strength and heal the wounds of abuse.