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First Step tells Harrisonburg council domestic-violence indicators have increased; agency opens second shelter
Summary
First Step executive director Candy Phillips told the council on April 22 that hotline calls and indicators of high-risk intimate-partner violence rose in 2024, citing increases in screenings, reported strangulation and sheltering; the agency opened a second shelter in March and received state accreditation in 2024.
Candy Phillips, executive director of First Step, briefed the Harrisonburg City Council during public comment on April 22, 2025, reporting an increase in domestic-violence calls and high-risk indicators and thanking the city for continued support.
Phillips said First Step — the local nonprofit that provides comprehensive services to survivors of domestic violence and their children in the City of Harrisonburg and Rockingham County — answered 6,644 hotline calls in 2024. The agency served 223 adult survivors and 52 children in 2024 and sheltered 56 adults and 47 children; Phillips said those shelter numbers represented a 12% increase from 2023 and a 28% increase compared with five years earlier.
Phillips described the agency’s partnership with the Harrisonburg Police Department and its participation in a lethality assessment program funded initially by the state attorney general’s office. She said First Step completed 74 lethality screenings in 2022 and 79 in 2024 and that the number of survivors assessed at highest risk rose from 45 in 2022 to 55 in 2024. On the specific screening question, “Have you experienced strangulation or been choked by your partner?” Phillips said the recorded count rose from 38 in 2022 to 50 in 2024. “So that number is rising. So it’s very, very scary,” she told council.
Phillips said counseling services are currently supported through the city’s ARPA mental-health funding. She also noted operational milestones: First Step opened a second shelter location in the city in March 2025 (the space is leased to the agency at no cost by a private donor but First Step covers utilities) and in July 2024 the agency achieved accreditation under the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services.
Phillips thanked the city and its staff for partnering with First Step on referrals and funding and for helping the agency serve survivors and families. Mayor Keira Reid and other council members thanked Phillips and acknowledged the agency’s work during the meeting.
