Our Mission

Transition House works towards the prevention and cessation of domestic violence (DV) through education, outreach and intervention. To achieve our mission we provide long and short-term shelter/housing services, supportive services, youth violence prevention services and empowerment skills. Our goal is to provide these services in a diverse and culturally sensitive setting that supports and empowers families to choose lifelong freedom from domestic violence.

We strive to dispel the notion that domestic violence is inevitable, to provide violence prevention education to children and adults, to educate the community about the realities of domestic and dating violence, and to offer viable and effective intervention strategies to other providers of services to battered women and children.

Transition House provides the following services

• Emergency Shelter for women and their children
• 24 hour Crisis Hotline: 617.661.7203
• Children's Services
• Individual Counseling
• Support Groups
• Economic Readiness Program
• Outreach and Education
• Transitional Living and Permanent Supportive Housing
• Teen Dating Violence Intervention

Transition House Diversity Inclusion Statement

What is diversity? What is Transition House inclusive of?

Definition of Diversity: The condition or quality of being diverse, different, or varied. There are many dimensions of diversity, including (but not limited to): race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, immigration status, disability, class, nationality, language, age, culture, religion and educational background.

Definition of Inclusion: The condition or quality of working to understand, respect, and embrace each other and all our rich dimensions of diversity.

Definition of a Diverse and Inclusive Organization: An organization genuinely committed to diverse representation of its membership; sensitive to maintaining an open, supportive, and responsive environment; purposefully including elements of diverse cultures in its ongoing operations; and progressive in its response to issues confronting discrimination and other challenges related to diversity.

To whom does this diversity inclusion statement apply?

•  Staff
•  Clients
•  Volunteers
•  The Board of Directors
•  The service community Transition House works with

How does Transition House achieve the goal of inclusion?

Transition House strives to be inclusive in every area of the organization. We recognize that in order to truly be inclusive we must continually examine and improve our policies and practices. Below are the goals we have set in key areas of the agency.

Service Provision: Provide culturally competent direct service and administration.

Organizational Environment: Create a working and living environment and culture that is respectful and welcoming for all people.

Recruitment, Hiring, Retention, and Evaluation of Employees, Board and Volunteers: Recruit, hire and retain talented and diverse people that represent our clients and our community. Evaluate all employees, volunteers and board members based on their cultural competence and commitment to a diverse, socially just, inclusive organization.

Policy Development and Review: Develop and review policies regularly to ensure that they are inclusive of all people within the organization.

Education: Ensure that all staff, board and volunteers are well-educated about issues of diversity and domestic violence.   Provide educational opportunities to clients and community members.

Communications: Offer effective, comprehensible communication to all clients, staff, board and volunteers, taking into account language, disabilities, education, and other relevant issues.

Leadership and Strategic Planning: The Executive Director, board, and diversity committee will provide ongoing leadership in the area of diversity.

Why is Transition House committed to inclusion? How does inclusion connect to the organization's mission?

We at Transition House intend to create a community where we honor diversity and promote inclusiveness because such an environment:

• Promotes productivity and creativity in the organization, which can result in better services for our clients.
• Serves as an example for individuals within our organization, our community, and society at large.
• Is consistent with our organization's mission to work to eliminate domestic violence based on the following definition:

Domestic Violence is a form of oppression that is based partly in misogyny and sexism, but that draws on various other forms of socially reinforced discrimination to justify abusive behavior, intensify the abuse and further isolate the victim.

It is a pattern of coercive and abusive behaviors in which an adult or adolescent tries to control the thoughts, beliefs, or conduct of a person with a significant/intimate relationship to him/herself. It can include, but is not limited to, any or all of the following abuses: physical, sexual, verbal, psychological/emotional and financial.

It is the intent of abusive behavior to undermine the will of the victim and to substitute the will of the perpetrator for the will of the victim. Perpetrators abuse to achieve and maintain power over their victims.

The nature of the relationship must include physical and/or emotional proximity and intimacy, which makes escaping the abuse more difficult. This can include:

• A couple who have made a lifetime commitment such as a marriage or a civil union;
• A couple who are in an intimate (physically or emotionally) dating relationship;
• Close family members, such as brother/sister or parent/adult child;
• Individuals who, regardless of their emotional ties, share a common living environment with immediate access to one another's private spaces (i.e. roommates, not next-door neighbors in the same building);
• Two parents of a minor child;
• Or an adult who needs personal care assistance and the person providing that assistance.

Domestic Violence and Oppression

Domestic Violence is a form of oppression that is rooted in: Culture; tolerance or encouragement of battering, violence, and sexism as acceptable behavior, "boys will be boys." Systems; laws that are punitive to victims, schools or jobs that suspend someone because of the actions of the abuser, social services and shelters that make unfair requirements of survivors, or fail to understand why their services are inaccessible. Groups; families and neighborhoods that never confronting abusers or assume that victims are lying, crazy, or somehow "deserve" to be violated. Individual Oppression; in which the abusers takes control of the victim and violates their essential human rights. Working to end domestic violence, therefore, means being engaged in dismantling systemic acceptance of, or tolerance toward, inequality and oppression. Therefore, one goal of this work is to achieve a society where every person practices the principles of mutual respect, equality, dialogue, and collaboration.