A phone line that provides resources for people who have committed domestic violence or are at risk of doing so is expanding to cover the entire state of Vermont.
Umbrella, a domestic and sexual violence prevention organization based in St. Johnsbury, launched the service last year. It was initially only available in the Northeast Kingdom.
“By working with folks who are causing survivors harm, we are helping to lift the burden, at least a piece of it, off of the shoulders of survivors,” said Olivia Plunkett, director of innovation and accountability programs at Umbrella.
The phone line, called the Spark, is staffed from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day of the week. The confidential service doesn’t require callers to give their names.
Responders aren’t clinicians, but they’re trained to help callers identify harmful patterns in relationships and build skills to be a safer partner, Plunkett said. Callers can be referred to local mental health or substance use treatment, or domestic violence accountability programs, depending on their needs.
“We know that talking to folks about harm that you've caused is incredibly difficult,” Plunkett said. “We just want callers to know that you don't have to already know the answers or the way through. It's really just the choice and the openness to just learn about how you might be an unsafe partner, or how you could become safer.”
Along with the phone line, the organization also runs a 26-week accountability program for men who’ve committed domestic violence. Both programs are efforts to offer a wider range of domestic violence prevention services beyond just the punitive responses in the criminal justice system, said Amanda Cochrane, executive director of Umbrella.
“Those may be helpful and might be the tools that the survivor wants to pursue, and they may not be,” Cochrane said. “And so how can we as a community provide all of the tools that survivors are able to access so that they can get what they want, which is [that] this person stops abusing them.”
The Spark received about 50 calls during its first year of operation when it was only covering the Northeast Kingdom. The program expansion was funded by the Vermont Community Foundation and the state Department of Health.
The Spark is modeled after a similar service that started in western Massachusetts in 2022. That program, A Call for Change, was the first call line for perpetrators of domestic violence in the country, according to the Boston Globe.
