Women Helping Women reports rising demand in Hamilton County; asks commissioners for outreach help to expand Divert and school programs

Women Helping Women leaders gave a midyear update to the Hamilton County Board of County Commissioners on Aug. 12, 2025, reporting increased demand for crisis services, trends in lethality indicators and gaps in program reach they attributed in part to staffing constraints.

Kristen Smith Shrimplin, president and CEO of Women Helping Women, and colleagues Amber Malat (vice president of programming) and Amy Blazer (chief operating officer) presented service and prevention statistics and asked commissioners to help strengthen connections with the remaining jurisdictions and unserved school districts so the nonprofit can expand Divert (law‑enforcement response) and school‑based prevention work.

Key figures and program descriptions the organization reported include the following (figures are the organization’s statements at the Aug. 12 briefing): - 2024: the organization said it provided services to 8,500 survivors and delivered 37,000 crisis‑intervention services (organization statement). - Through second quarter 2025 in Hamilton County: the hotline logged 7,725 calls from more than 2,400 survivors; hospital advocacy reached 214 survivors across 26 hospitals; court advocacy provided 788 court‑accompaniment experiences for 400 survivors; the DVERT law‑enforcement response reported 964 responses serving 941 survivors; support groups have had 47 Hamilton County participants to date in 2025; client assistance funds aided 458 survivors with about $165,000 for housing, eviction prevention, utilities, moving costs and food. - Prevention: the group reported having served more than 1,900 community members and students in Hamilton County with prevention programming in 2025 to date. Prevent and Empower is a five‑day, school‑based program for grades 7–12; Brave Bar trains alcohol‑service establishments; WorkStrong is a workplace program for employers.

Blazer highlighted system coordination the nonprofit maintains, including court, hospital, law‑enforcement and campus partnerships. She said recent trends include a 36% increase in domestic‑violence hospital response in Hamilton County and that 49% of survivors the organization works with report some form of disability. She also said 55% of survivors reported strangulation by an abuser, a lethality indicator the organization tracks since the offense in Ohio was reclassified last year, and that 84% of the survivors they serve have at least one minor child.

Commissioners asked for additional detail about program coverage and capacity. Shrimplin and staff said DVERT currently operates in 36 jurisdictions (the presenters stated that count includes the city of Cincinnati) and that 16 schools have participated in prevention programming so far in 2025; they attributed gaps to staffing turnover and the timing of school schedules. Shrimplin and Blazer said they had recently lost and had to retrain several educators (five of six educators left earlier in the year) and asked commissioners to share contacts and help with outreach to jurisdictions and school districts.

Commissioners and staff offered to assist with outreach and to review lists of participating versus unserved jurisdictions and schools the nonprofit provided. The organization did not request a specific vote at the Aug. 12 meeting; commissioners discussed options for helping the nonprofit with connections and local outreach.