A $30,000 grant from the California Endowment has been awarded to The Center to help launch a new women’s community initiative. The money will be used to fund an 18-month long community-wide needs assessment and planning process that will eventually help expand the current Women’s Resource Center.

The Women’s Resource Center is conceptualized as a program that will provide LBT women with: an LBT-friendly drop-in space; culturally appropriate health education materials; health and social service resources and referrals; community building activities; and a central meeting point for the diverse LBT groups beginning to form in San Diego.

“What the needs assessment will do is enable us to do focus groups and interviews to find out exactly what the primary needs are of the women’s community in San Diego, which is a diverse group,” said AJ Davis Defeo, the director of The Center’s Public Policy Department, who is currently supervising the resource center.

The needs assessment process will use specifically designed focus groups and interviews to ask and answer the questions, “In 2004, what are the primary needs of each of the diverse groups that are a part of the LBT women’s community,” and “What are the existing resources to help meet the specific needs of those groups?” The planning portion of the grant will utilize the information gathered from the assessment to produce service plans designed to meet those diverse needs, as well as utilize the information uncovered about existing resources to begin to create a web-based resource list for the LBT women’s community.

“We are enormously grateful for the opportunity provided by this grant,” said Center Executive Director Delores Jacobs. “The San Diego women’s community is comprised of sub-groups of women who have very specific language, cultural, age, gender-identity and health needs. We are thrilled to have a chance to better understand those diverse needs and to begin to plan programs and services to address them.”

The Center is currently looking to hire a part-time coordinator for the needs assessment and eventually an evaluation expert to provide a professional analysis of all the data that is gathered.

“We are really thankful for all of the time, energy, and expertise provided by S. Ballard and Kate Somers of California Western Law School’s Pride Law student group,” said Davis-DeFeo. “Not only have they volunteered their time to help start-up the Women’s Resource Center, but they took the time away from their busy law student schedules to help identify, write and submit this grant proposal. Their commitment to these issues has made an enormous difference and it’s an amazing example of what community women can accomplish together.”

Currently The Center’s Women’s Resource Center is located on the main floor of their facility at 3909 Centre St. in Hillcrest. Among the services available are support groups for women with breast cancer, relationship violence treatment and intervention programs, and the Toni Atkins Lesbian Health Fund. There is a women’s collection in the library, as well as meeting space and a computer with Internet access. In March The Center will begin a monthly Women’s Lecture series featuring professors from SDSU, and in January they will be launching a women’s wellness series that will be moderated by a panel of healthcare professionals.

To volunteer in the Women’s Resource Center or for more information about women’s services, contact AJ Davis-DeFeo at (619) 692-2077, ext. 212.