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DOVE Inc is committed to partnering with diverse communities, families, and individuals impacted by domestic violence or partner violence. We promote hope, healing, safety, and social change by providing a broad range of preventive and responsive services. Hope, healing, safety, social change. Working together to end domestic and partner violence. Mailing Address: P.O. Box 690267, Quincy, MA 02269 EIN: 04-2667808 DONATE NOW Programs and Services Our advocates work tirelessly to provide safe, calm, and caring support. All services are free and confidential. IF YOU NEED IMMEDIATE HELP OR FEEL YOU ARE IN DANGER - DIAL 911 DOVE Crisis Hotline : 617.471.1234 Community Advocacy and Counseling : 617.770.4065 ext. 300 Legal Advocacy : 617. 770.4065 ext. 400 Go to Programs & Services What's Happening at DOVE Let's Dance 2025 Buy Tickets Today! DOVE Hires New Executive Director Learn More Domestic Violence Awareness Trainings - Register for Our Spring 2025 Sessions Register Here 2,479 Clients Served Through our Community-Based Advocacy Services, Children's Clinical Services, Civilian Domestic Violence Advocacy Services, Legal Advocacy Services, Quincy/Dedham District Court Outreach Services, and 24-Hour Hotline Calls 4,892 Community Members Engaged Through Outreach Presentations and Trainings, YouthSpeak Presentations on Dating Abuse, and YouthSpeak Peer Educators in High School Programs 365 Days/Year Our Emergency Shelter supports program participants to ground themselves after crisis or a period of homelessness. DOVE Support Staff ensure the safety of program participants 365 days/year 24/7. Follow Us On Social Media! Subscribe to Our Newsletter! I want to receive email updates from DOVE Submit

Dance party of the year to benefit a local domestic violence agency. Join Us! Buy Your Tickets Today! Want to Sponsor Let's Dance? Your support as an event sponsor shows our community members that you stand with us against domestic and partner violence. Click Here to View PDF I'd Love to Sponsor! Thank You To Our Sponsors! Champion Friend of DOVE Advocate Photography Provided By Game Sponsor Thank You to Our 2025 Event Commitee! Beth Porter Board Vice President Ava Melchin Hannah Marsh Cindy Ouellette Lauren McCallum Elise Tenney Let's Dance 2024 Thank you to everyone who attended Let's Dance 2024! Because of your incredible generosity and support, we raised $140,000 to sustain our programs and services. We are so grateful to every person who engaged with us at Let's Dance, took time to learn more about our organization and how we help survivors, and dedicated themselves to helping us in our mission. It is by acting together as a community that we can provide hope, healing, safety, and social change as we work to end domestic and partner violence. 1/3 All photos taken by Susan Hagstrom of Snapshots by Susan

EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE Program Brochures View General DV Information View Legal Advocacy Resources View Information for Teens & Young Adults View View LGBTQIA+ Resources Public Policy & Advocacy Resources View Chinese Resources View FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS What is domestic violence? “Domestic Violence is not an argument every once in a while or a bad mood after a rough day; it is a pattern of harmful, controlling behavior that someone uses against their partner. Domestic violence is all about power and control and may not always involve physical abuse. It can include emotional/verbal, sexual, financial, and cultural/identity-based abuse and crosses all gender, age, ability, social, ethnic, racial, and economic lines. Abuse is never mutual, and doing everything “right” will not stop it. No one deserves to be threatened, intimidated, or harmed by a partner. You do not have to leave your partner to come to DOVE. You are not alone; help is available.”

LGBTQ+ communities tend to be small. If someone feels safe and accepted as their most authentic self with only a few people, their world tends to be even smaller. LGBTQ+ survivors may only have a small circle of chosen family, which includes their partner, and may shrink even further due to the isolation typical of abusive dynamics. Thus, these survivors may share their entire support system with their abusive partner. Due to a limited number of LGBTQ+ services and spaces, the only spaces they may be out in – and therefore could talk about their relationship in – could be those their partner frequents. So, who will an LGBTQ+ survivor tell if they experience abuse? Fear of being refused services based on gender or sexual identity is a powerful barrier to seeking support. Will they be believed? Does the person they are talking to recognize the intricacies of abuse in the LGBTQ+ community? Even if they are believed and provided services, these survivors don’t know if support will be accompanied by behaviors or comments that, regardless of intention, are painful. Will staff understand their identities? To reach outside of one’s tiny community for support also necessitates recognition of one’s experience as abuse. Messaging that abuse is primarily experienced by women in heterosexual relationships is powerful in our society, and an LGBTQ+ survivor may not identify what they’re experiencing as abuse. The tiny world of an LGBTQ+ survivor could be broadened at each level by societal shifts away from homophobia and transphobia. Our work as community members is not just interpersonal. We must do our part in combatting the oppression LGBTQ+ individuals experience to make it more accessible to reach out for support and build healthier relationships free of shame, secrecy, and fear. DOVE serves survivors of all genders and sexualities. Reach out for support if you need it.

As October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, I wanted to share some insight into the ongoing problem of domestic violence, especially during these unprecedented times. As someone who has experienced it myself, I know that there are so many fears and emotions that keep victims and survivors stuck; self-blame, guilt, and shame can stop us from reaching out. I am the mother of four young adults right now but during my divorce, they were four school-aged children. My ex-husband was in the law enforcement field and so, I hid the abuse for a very long time. The good news is that there are programs out there that can help survivors of domestic violence and their children. If you are a survivor, I hope you are reading this now: you are loved, you are cared for. If it is safe to do so, please find a way to make a phone call to your local domestic violence agency or to someone you trust for support. As for myself, I still struggle sometimes. I have lost a lot of friends along the way after my divorce and know how devastating the isolation can be. I gain strength, however, from a domestic violence support group at DOVE once a week and my other spiritual and social support systems. Now, I hope to share my story to make sure others don’t ever have to feel alone again. So please find somebody that you trust, make that call to your local domestic violence agency, start planning for your safety and wellbeing. You deserve to live a life free of abuse! Please stay healthy and safe! Lisa

A Joint Letter From Programs Serving Sexual and Domestic Violence Survivors Dear Speaker DeLeo, Senate President Spilka, and Policing Reform Conference Committee Members: We, the undersigned community-based sexual and domestic violence service providers, urge you to take immediate action to pass a policing reform bill that incorporates the many provisions of S.2820/H.4886 designed to increase police accountability and reduce harm in communities most impacted by police violence. Those who oppose police reform often cite the needs of victims of domestic violence and sexual assault as reasons not to place reasonable limits on police authority to use force. This argument presumes that the greatest risk to victims is the person who caused them immediate harm, and the greatest means of protection is to call the police. However, the reality for many victims and survivors is that both police action and inaction can sometimes add more harm, and these harms are disproportionately experienced by people and communities of color, immigrants, poor people, those struggling with addiction and mental illness, and so many more. As organizations who work to end sexual and domestic violence, we want you to hear directly from us that harm reduction in policing practices is essential to ensuring that law enforcement officers and the system as a whole will be more effective and more accountable to the communities they serve. Survivors repeatedly tell us that they do not want their abuser hurt, and certainly not killed, when they call for help; they want the harm to stop, to feel safe in their own homes, and for those who caused them harm to be held accountable in meaningful ways. Victims should also not have to worry that they or their children might be hurt by the very people they are calling for help. We ask that you declare that Black lives in the Commonwealth matter by supporting efforts that will reduce the harm of police-inflicted violence on our communities. Omnibus Policing Reform Priorities We see the provisions of S.2820/H.4886 as one step towards reducing the harm of structural violence in Massachusetts. In particular, the following provisions must be included in an Omnibus Policing Reform bill to improve the safety and justice for all people in the Commonwealth. 1. Ban the most violent of police tactics. We urge the Conference Committee to include strong use of force standards including a complete ban on the most violent of police tactics—chokeholds, no-knock warrants and tear gas and other chemical weapons. These violent and harmful police tactics need to be prohibited to ensure the safety of all persons who encounter a police officer. We have witnessed time and again the use of chokeholds by police officers against Black men that ultimately lead to death. This practice cannot continue. We have also seen the dangers of no-knock warrants which are disproportionately used when Black and Brown people are the suspects. Lastly, tear gas and other chemical weapons have been shown to cause serious hormonal disruption, bodily injury and even death. The Commonwealth must not allow these dangerous practices that disproportionately target and harm Black people to continue. 2. Strict limits on qualified immunity. It is imperative the Conference Committee answer the calls of the people to impose strict limits on qualified immunity to ensure that police can be held accountable when they violate people’s rights. Banning violent police tactics is meaningless if there is no way for people to hold the police accountable if they break the rules. 3. Ban on the use of facial recognition technology. Face surveillance technologies have serious racial bias flaws built into their systems. Based on research, we know this technology is extremely poor at accurately recognizing the faces of women and people of color, misclassifying darker-skinned females at an extremely higher rate than lighter-skinned males. These dangerous failings of facial recognition technology serve to supercharge racist policing. Furthermore, all survivors of sexual and domestic violence, and particularly Black survivors, should not have to worry that calling the police will result in them being wrongfully identified as a criminal or having their activity monitored. 4. Prevent sexual assault in police custody. Included as an amendment to H.4886, this provision closes a statutory loophole by prohibiting law enforcement officers from engaging in sexual conduct with persons in their custody. There is no clear ability to determine consent when power dynamics are so significant that one party has the power and ability to control another’s personal liberty. Law enforcement officers should not be able to use their role to subject a person in their custody to any unwanted sexual contact of any kind. 5. Create an Independent Oversight System with Strong Accountability Measures: Massachusetts is one of only a few states without a POST system. Any oversight body should have strong civilian representation and evidentiary standards that enable rather than deny justice. We urge the Committee to establish a POST system that is truly independent and includes strong representation from members of the public who have personal and/or professional experience with respect to the impact of structural racism on communities of color. 6. Justice Reinvestment and Opportunity in Communities Affected by Incarceration : Reducing the harm of police-inflicted violence on communities also requires investing in communities most impacted by crimes and the successes of criminal justice reform. We support investing in the Justice Reinvestment Workforce Development Fund to support communities heavily impacted by crime and the criminal justice system. Using savings from reductions in incarceration to strengthen communities & prevent crime through programs like workforce development, social enterprise & small business development, dropout prevention programs, and transitional employment improve the lives of survivors of sexual and domestic violence and their communities. 7. Commission on Structural Racism: Unfortunately, our declarations of injustice and critiques of structural racism often fall on unsympathetic ears in the absence of empirical data. Despite the numerous reports that look at racial disparities, there has not been a commission that will take a comprehensive look at the policies and practices that lead to racially disparate outcomes. In order to hone in on the policies and practices that lead these disparate outcomes we trust that you will include in the final version of the bill a commission on structural racism. This is our opportunity as a Commonwealth to invest in our communities to build a more equitable and just Commonwealth that explicitly values Black Lives, and which in doing so will also improve the ability of law enforcement to more effectively and ultimately more safely respond to domestic and sexual violence. Signed, Sue Chandler DOVE Executive Director