Our Mission - Faces of Hope Victim Center

Our Mission

Faces of Hope Foundation’s mission is to reduce victimization with a safety net of crisis services.

We achieve this by meeting the medical, legal, safety, education, and basic needs of individuals and families in a warm and welcoming environment. Specifically, we help those affected by domestic violence, sexual violence, child abuse, elder abuse, and stalking.

Our values encapsulate our vision for those that we serve: Hope, healing, justice, safety, and empowerment.

The purpose of the Center is to facilitate a coordinated community response to interpersonal violence that improves outcomes and enables victims to access all of the services they need from a single location. This requires robust partnerships with government and community-based agencies. Co-location means our combined efforts reduce the potential that individuals and families in crisis will miss vital resources. It also reduces the number of times that they must retell their story to minimize further trauma. Ultimately, the Center fosters a heightened community vigilance that comes from partners looking for innovations through the same lens; rapid learning that comes from continuous feedback; and an immediacy of action from a unified and simultaneous response.

Our History

Faces of Hope Victim Center was spearheaded by Ada County and stemmed primarily from the leadership and initiative of three individuals.

In 2004, Ada County Prosecuting Attorney, Greg Bower, along with Prosecuting Attorney’s Jan Bennetts and Jean Fisher, convened a multi-jurisdictional planning body to develop a community victim-assistance center. The initiative involved law enforcement, medical providers, and social service agencies. It also included a local strategic planning firm and an architectural firm to design a multi-agency facility to serve clients. In 2006, Ada County incorporated FACES Family Justice Center, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, with doors opening the same year. The goal: to provide proactive, team-orientated, victim-centered services and education to those that experience abuse and neglect.

A decade after its inception, in April 2016, the Center reorganized:

Ada County oversees daily operations and provides the building/utilities at no cost.
Faces of Hope Foundation fills a fundamental gap in community resources at the Center by providing essential services that are not covered by insurance, victims’ compensation, or other community resources. The Foundation also takes on a leadership role in the Center, and provides specialized trainings for gold-standard care by the multi-disciplinary team.
Each of the seventeen partner organizations then covers and controls its own program within the Center, and collaborates with all other partners for a coordinated response.

In 2016, in addition to reorganization, the Center changed its name from FACES Family Justice Center to Faces of Hope Victim Center. We want people to know that we are a safety net for all individuals, not just families. We also want people to know that we do not mandate law enforcement reporting for adults, if they are not ready. Our name change promotes one of our greatest strengths: we provide “hope” to individuals and families who have not experienced such empowerment because of their victimization.

As a haven, our continued presence and unduplicated services are essential to the health and safety of the Treasure Valley.

Guiding Principles

Victim Centered and Driven

Shaping services by asking individuals what they need
Promoting victim autonomy and empowerment

Safety Focused

Increasing safety and promoting healing for individuals and families
Abusers are never allowed on site, anytime.

Culturally Competent

Celebrating and welcoming diversity
Anyone who has experienced abuse is welcome here

Integrated Response

Promoting a culture that supports effective collaboration
Transforming and enhancing systems’ response
Commitment to evidence-based best practices

Knowledge and Prevention

Enhancing community awareness
Commitment to end interpersonal violence

One door: We use a coordinated approach, offering services designed to break the cycle of interpersonal violence. Medical providers, law enforcement, prosecutors, civil/legal providers, social workers, counselors, and advocates work together, to streamline how we help people. We know our model works, based on documented outcomes:

Increased community support services
Increased safety and autonomy, which empowers individuals and families
Reduced fear and anxiety, recantation and minimization for those suffering from abuse
Increased prosecution of offenders
Reduced costs because all services are in one place
Streamlined process
Fewer suicides and less deaths at the hands of abusers