The True Power of Empowerment Groups

A conversation with Maria Martinez, Director of Client Services

Empowerment is the essence of healing for survivors of intimate partner violence, defined literally as “the process of gaining freedom and power to do what you want or to control what happens to you.” Our attorneys and advocates can help survivors gain freedom in a legal and practical sense  – but what happens next?

“It’s about taking clients from the worst possible thing that they have lived through, and seeing them months later/years later saying ‘yes this happened to me, however, this is who I am today.’”

Director of Client Services, Maria Martinez, helps to answer the question of “what’s next” both for clients and for DVP’s programs. Her focus is on the fact that our clients are the ones doing the work – DVP’s job is to provide the partnership and space for them to accomplish that work. As a result, programming is constantly evolving to meet the needs of survivors. There is no better example than Maria’s Empowerment Group series.

The idea started during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic as a way to stay connected to a sense of community. Maria hosted a Zoom session once per week and was shocked by the outpouring of attendees. It became a priority to continue the Empowerment Group series when DVP services were finally allowed back in-person.

“So many of our clients had sort of paused what they were experiencing through the domestic violence to deal with COVID. It was a rollercoaster. I was hearing how angry they were about so many different things – losing a parent in another country and not being able to go, issues of food insecurity, and everything else. I wanted to create a safe place where they could come and talk.

And it just turned out to be so much more than I ever could have imagined.”

The new in-person Empowerment Group officially kicked off on March 2. For six weeks, the group would meet for an hour and a half in a large conference room, with no more than 11 attendees to ensure everyone had the chance to talk.

“Prior to starting the group, I had identified six themes. It was going to start off a healing journal writing group, but when I went into the group and met with the clients and started to hear what they were organically bringing to the table, I changed it to self-love. I would listen one week to the needs they had to discuss, then bring that as the theme for the next week.”

An important quality of the group was that it included a balance of newer and older clients, some of whom had participated in the Zoom iteration. At first, it was the more experienced clients leading and sharing stories, but by the end of the six weeks, everyone was participating freely. And it didn’t stop there:

“My intended outcome was to have the clients gain the ability to share. Which they did. But it turned out to be much more – these clients are now a support for each other. They are connected through Whatsapp and hold each other accountable. They became allies for each other.”

Another unanticipated outcome also emerged. Clients who attended the Empowerment Group series have become more confident in sharing their stories and defining their goals with others, including their DVP attorneys as Immigration Staff Attorney Lucia Cuenca explains:

“In the beginning stages of representation, many clients struggle with recalling or sharing details about their abuse, often due to trauma or shame. The Empowerment Groups help them learn new tools for expressing themselves, which is invaluable to their ability to meaningfully participate in their own cases. For example, I have one client who was extremely hesitant and unable to share details of the abuse they endured. After attending the group, the client was suddenly more comfortable identifying the patterns of abuse and the emotional impact for the first time — allowing them to move forward with filing their U visa petition and to begin to heal from the past.”

The self-love themed Empowerment Group continues on with its six-week cycle introducing more and more survivors to the community. Those who complete the six weeks are invited to continue gathering every other week. New Group series will also be added in the coming months based on themes that DVP attorneys and advocates are hearing directly from survivors as a goal or a point of frustration.

The inspiration doesn’t end there for Maria – she has a clear vision for what comes next:

“The goal for me is to empower clients to become leaders in their communities, to become a voice. Though we have amazing domestic violence organizations, we don’t have enough to serve every victim in NYC. If we’re able to have individuals who have gone through this, gone through services, gone through groups, and learn how to be a peer to someone and to support someone who has to go to court and able to say ‘hey, I’ve been there’, or to run a group or workshop — that is my goal. That these clients know that their voice is very strong, and they have a valuable message. It’s not easy, but together, we can and we will take the dreams we have and make them happen.”