Local Leaders Create ‘Domestic Violence Survivor Support Fund’ for New Canaan Residents

Nonprofit, municipal, medical and public safety leaders in New Canaan last week announced the creation of a new fund designed to help those impacted by domestic violence—long described as the town’s number-one violent crime.

Created by the New Canaan Abuse Prevention Partnership in collaboration with the New Canaan Community Foundation, among other local agencies, the “Domestic Violence Survivor Support Fund” will confidentially provide access safe housing, meet basic needs and cover emergency expenses—including childcare—for survivors.

“The thing that we all want to do is break the cycle of violence,” Dede Bartlett, founder of the New Canaan Abuse Prevention Partnership, said Friday during a presentation on the new fund to local leaders held at Town Hall. “We don’t want her kids to become the perpetrators in the future. I look upon this as a very practical investment in helping people move forward so that you do not have to have this conversation 10 years from now.”

Administered by NCCF, the fund “will provide a direct, easy, practical way for people like us, and groups, and organizations to directly support our citizens who are in crisis,” Bartlett said.

Those attending the presentation included New Canaan Police Chief John DiFederico, NCCF President and CEO Lauren Patterson, members of the Board of Selectmen, New Canaan Department of Youth and Family Services Coordinator Jackie D’Louhy, St. A’s Monsignor Rob Kinnally, state Rep. Tom O’Dea (R-125th) and representatives from the Domestic Violence Crisis Center, local services organizations and New Canaan Moms.

Patterson said the Domestic Violence Survivor Support Fund has been built on an established and confidential model that provides emergency financial assistance for New Canaan residents specifically. 

“We can also keep track of the volume of demands and report that back to the community and back to the Abuse Prevention Partnership and other partners and rely on the team at Human Services and at Domestic Violence Crisis Center as really the strongest referrals, though we’ll, I imagine, still see a bigger network,” she said. “We will report back to this group the volume of giving that we see. New Canaan tends to step up when they realize there is a need within their community and with their neighbors. And so I’m hopeful that we can address this to the degree that, that’s really necessary given the trends we’re seeing right now.”

Those trends are very concerning, Bartlett said.

For example, in the first six months of this year, New Canaan Police have responded to 32 calls categorized as “Family Disputes” compared to 41 for all of 2025. 

“The numbers continue to go in the wrong direction,” Bartlett said. “Twenty-one [domestic violence-related] arrests in six months for this year versus 26 for all of last year. The thing that worries me the most is that 17 kids were in these homes versus 20 for all of ’25. But as the chief and I were saying, this is not all of the incidents in New Canaan. There were a whole number of others that came through mandated reporters like doctors, people coming to Jackie’s office.”

It’s also unclear how large the number of incidents are because so many go unreported, Bartlett said.

“The Community Foundation did a survey that some of you remember last year in which 134 people at home were concerned about their safety and someone at their home,” she said. “Lauren tells me that they’re going to do another survey this fall, and based on what I’ve already told you, what the chief has reported, we expect there to be more, a lot more. More than 80% of the clients Jackie sees have suffered or are currently suffering from abuse.”

Though for two-plus decades New Canaan has led area towns in raising awareness of the problem, “much more needs to be done,” she said.

D’Louhy said that domestic violence survivors “face the most barriers to safety and stability.”

“No one should have to be between abuse and homelessness,” she said. “Emergency financial assistance gives survivors the freedom to choose safety. Assistance may include things like—because it goes above and beyond what we’re already helping families with—so this would be emergency housing, security deposits, safety-related expenses, replacement of essential personal items, and other urgent needs that cannot be met through traditional funding sources.”