SPARK is a program co-led by the DA’s Office Victim Services Division and CORA (Community Overcoming Relationship Abuse) and in collaboration with law enforcement partners. Through SPARK, San Mateo County endeavors to ensure that families that come into contact with police for situations involving domestic violence are identified and the adult survivor—and their child(ren)—are offered and, pending parent consent, provided with the mental health services needed to support their healing and disrupt intergenerational cycles of abuse.
Why we need SPARK
While a variety of resources exist to support adult victims of domestic violence, children who have witnessed violence often do not receive or have access to comparable support (Reif et al., 2020). Notably, these children are at a higher risk of falling into similar patterns of violence in their future, either as victims or perpetrators (United States Department of Justice, 2020). San Mateo County aims to address this vulnerability through the Shaping Positive and Resilient Kids (SPARK) Program. SPARK aims to end the cycle of abuse and, in so doing, improve the health, safety, and wellbeing of San Mateo County’s children, families, and communities.
We accept that domestic violence between two adults warrants intervention through legal, educational, mental, and physical modalities. No one questions that when adults are caught in this dynamic that they need support to change their patterns and to learn to live a life of safety and respect. Often the focus on children and what they are learning and carrying into the next generation can get lost. For example, if the adults engage in various assistance, but don’t actively ask for their children to participate or receive help, the children may or may not be invited to these services and may not receive them. Consequently, although the identified adults may change their patterns, the violence and abuse that the children live through has still been learned and may not have been addressed. Additionally, we know that even when children aren’t “in the room”, being in a home where adults are abusive to each other still affects the learning that child receives and carries with them into adulthood.
SPARK aims to disrupt the cycle of violence by focusing on four strategies:
1. Systematic identification and referral of domestic violence survivors with children to SPARK;
2. Provide prompt and extensive outreach to contact referred families and enroll them in SPARK;
3. Expand pathways for children exposed to domestic violence to obtain mental health support;
4. Expand case management services designed to sustain families’ utilization of services and create a pathway for mental health support.
SPARK Year 1 Snapshot
For more information about SPARK, please review our Theory of Change.