Our History

The Mid-Shore Council on Family Violence (MSCFV) is a regional domestic violence program that has provided comprehensive services to victims of domestic violence across Maryland’s Mid-Shore, including Kent, Caroline, Talbot, Dorchester, and Queen Anne’s counties, since 1980.

MSCFV’s original mission was to help victims of domestic violence obtain safety by providing a 24-hour hotline, emergency shelter, legal services, and other resources to meet their immediate needs.

Our Beginnings

For many years, the role of programs like MSCFV was to help victims flee abusive relationships and reach safety. The cornerstone of MSCFV’s work was providing crisis services to help victims get to safety.

Over the years, we have come to recognize that reaching safety is not the end of a victim’s journey, but the beginning of their path to becoming a survivor. Our model helps victims overcome the barriers they face after reaching safety and supports them as they move from transition to self-sufficiency.

In 2002, MSCFV expanded its service model to recognize crisis as the beginning of the journey, building on that understanding to provide more victim-centered and holistic care. Today, MSCFV utilizes the Chesapeake Crisis to Self-Sufficiency Model (CCSSM)™, which focuses on helping clients move from crisis to transitional services. Our goal is for each survivor to build a life free from violence where they and their family can thrive. A case manager walks alongside each client until they reach self-sufficiency, clearly communicating the path forward:

Where you were… Where you are… Where you are going.

Also in 2002, MSCFV implemented an outcomes measurement system to track the changes victims and abusers experience while receiving services from the agency. Outcomes reflect the difference we make in people’s lives. Measuring outcomes enables us, as an agency, to continuously evaluate our effectiveness and identify ways to better serve rural victims of domestic violence.