InVEST Program

The Intimate Violence Enhanced Services Team (InVEST) is a unique program designed to provide intensive service management and assistance to individuals identified to be in potentially lethal situations. Because high risk victims often do not seek services they also do not receive safety planning or danger assessments. The organizations work together through communication, coordination, and focus on the needs of the victims and ways to creatively, support them.

InVEST was implemented by FDLE in 2006. The Attorney General’s Office expanded InVEST in 2009 to include Collier County. The Collier County InVEST Team includes The Shelter, Collier County Sheriff’s Office, Naples Police Department, Marco Police Department, State Attorney’s Office, and the Department of Children & Families. InVEST includes advocates, officers, child protection investigators, and detectives working together to create a comprehensive system of victim safety through batterer intervention models and safety planning with the survivor. Often decisions are made together about how to handle a certain situation.

Law Enforcement works to maintain batterer accountability through injunctions, monitoring, and follow up, while domestic violence advocates work with the survivor to share information, provide safety planning and aid in possible relocation. InVEST’s unique model allows law enforcement, child protection, and domestic violence centers to work together to identify victims at high risk for homicide and to enhance their possibility of receiving safety from further victimization. The key to InVEST’s success involves all of the partners working together.  InVEST offers the opportunity for collaboration among agencies starting with reaching out to the victim.  Each organization has a representative that works as a part of the team to meet the needs of the victim and keep the family safe.

Last year, The Shelter reviewed 2,136 police reports in conjunction with local law enforcement in order to provide enhanced safety planning and advocacy services for victims. This coordinated community response is working toward making sure that we bring about the social change necessary to make sure that no one is ever a victim of domestic violence and no person is ever a perpetrator.