Nyah Adams / News Director

Anna Marie’s Alliance, a domestic violence shelter in St. Cloud, just announced their partnership with Stearns County and Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid to provide supervised visitation services to families impacted by domestic violence.

The Office of Violence Against Women awarded a three-year, $550,000 grant to fund the initiative and bring the service to central Minnesota.

Executive Director of Anna Marie’s Alliance Charles Hempeck says supervised visitation and exchange programs play a crucial role in reducing the risk that many victims/survivors and their children face when leaving an abusive relationship and attempt to safely negotiate custody. He added that this partnership is critical in securing their federal grant, which will put programmatic focus on families with a history of domestic violence.

The way they expect this to work is that Anna Marie’s will oversee the program while Stearns County will provide space for the supervised visitations.

In the United States, 7 million children live in homes that have suffered from domestic violence. 15.5 million children live in places where at least one instance of domestic violence has happened within this past year.