Florida Department of Health in Putnam County is a Certified Sexual Violence Center and here to help you. Our counselors/advocates assist with sexual violence, domestic violence, and other victims of crime.

Help is available 24 hours a Day, Seven Days a Week

Contact us directly Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 386-326-3200. 

We are located at 2801 Kennedy St., Palatka, FL 32177.

Your Safety is Important

Your safety is important and making informed decisions about staying or leaving an abusive relationship is critical to your safety. You are the expert in your own life and the only one who knows what is right and safe for you.

We have trained advocates who are dedicated to assisting you with finding options and developing your safety plan.

Available Services

• 24 hour crisis intervention
• Information, support, and advocacy with law enforcement and the court system
• Individual, family, group, and child therapy services
• Victim advocacy within the legal, medical, social, and economic channels
• Assistance in obtaining injunctions for protection
• Assistance with filing crime compensation claims

Victims' Rights

Anyone who has been the victim of a sexual crime needs compassion, sensitivity, and caring. Dealing with the feelings and issues resulting from the crime can be overwhelming and confusing. Services including hotline, crisis intervention and advocacy are available to you free of charge from your local certified rape crisis center.

• To have an advocate from a certified rape crisis center with you during the forensic examination
• To be told of judicial proceedings and scheduling changes
• To have information about the release of the offender from incarceration from a county or municipal jail, juvenile detention facility, or residential commitment facility
• To tell the prosecutor what you want to happen in the case
• To request restitution
• To give an verbal or written impact statement

Rape crisis centers are required to protect your confidentiality (section 90.5035, Florida Statutes). Unless you specifically ask them in writing with your signature to release information about you, they will not.

Domestic Violence

Domestic Violence is a pattern of controlling behaviors, violence or threats of violence, that one person uses to establish power over an intimate partner in order to control that partner's actions and activities. Domestic violence is not a disagreement, a marital spat, or an anger management problem. Domestic violence is abusive, disrespectful, and hurtful behaviors that one intimate partner chooses to use against the other partner.

Domestic violence can affect anyone. If you are a victim of abuse, you are NEVER to blame - it is NOT your fault. The abuse can be physical, sexual, emotional, psychological, and economic or a combination of many types of abuse. 

You may be experiencing domestic violence if your partner is doing any of these or other unwanted behaviors:

• Hurting you physically - slapping, hair pulling, strangling, hitting, kicking, grabbing, excessively squeezing or shaking, twisting your arms, burning you, or intentionally injuring you in any way
• Using your children against you
• Calling you names and hurting you emotionally
• Harming your pets
• Acting with extreme jealousy and possessiveness
• Isolating you from family and friends
• Threatening to commit suicide or to kill you
• Controlling your money
• Withholding medical help
• Stalking you
• Demanding unwanted physical contact
• Hiding assistive devices
• Minimizing destructive behavior

Resources

• Putnam County Sexual Violence Helpline: 386-983-1358
• Florida Council Against Sexual Violence: 888-956-7273
• Putnam County Sheriff's Office: 386-329-0800
• Lee Conlee House Domestic Violence Center: 386-325-3141
• Elder Helpline: 800-962-2873
• Suicide Hotline: 800-784-2433
• National Center on Elder Abuse