All people deserve to live with respect, dignity, and freedom from fear. Yet, family violence plagues the lives of millions of Americans in various lifestyles. Domestic violence occurs between parent/child, husband/wife, girlfriend/boyfriend, or a live-in partner. Domestic violence also takes many forms ranging from physical, sexual, to emotional abuse. Through newsletters, group meetings, home visits, telephone calls and participation on the Domestic Violence Response Coalition Team, the Lauderdale Urban Center staff was able to reach over a thousand individuals and provide them with information on the warning signs of domestic violence, child abuse, and childhood depression. To help publicize and stress the importance of how domestic violence affects families, the Lauderdale Urban Center staff and the Domestic Violence Response Coalition sponsored a one-act play called "A Rule of Thumb" that was performed by the Decatur Players. Eighty individuals, community leaders and representatives from local agencies attended the play. The purpose of the play was to provide dramatic voices to a compelling social problem. The Decatur Players develop and produce original plays about critical family, community, health and work-related issues. A survey was taken at the end of the play where 100% of the audience indicated that the performance was well attended, and the Players got the main point across on the issue of domestic violence.
The Lauderdale County Extension office and the Domestic Violence Response Coalition Team look forward to collaborating on other domestic violence programming efforts in the future.