Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Miami Herald - November 21, 2004
Marika Lynch, mlynch@herald.com
Rape and incest survivors. The victims of Colombian kidnappings, and torture in Haiti. All have walked into a nondescript, second floor office on downtown Miami's Southwest Third Street, seeking relief from the trauma that haunts them.
There Teresa Descilo, a licensed social worker and self-described healer, runs the Victims Services Center, a free mental-health clinic.
The clients -- the waiting list is 100 people at any given time -- not only get counseling sessions and therapy groups. Descilo, who believes in a holistic approach, has arranged for massage therapists and acupuncturists who she says work on the stress locked deep inside the body.
Descilo, 52, says that her work also helps the health of the community: "If you were able to do a survey of everybody addicted to drugs, alcohol, a survey of all the at-risk youth, people diagnosed with HIV-AIDS, you will find they suffered a traumatic event that left them less able to cope in their lives. If you remove the painful thing, you find they can function."
For years, Descilo -- a San Francisco native who moved to Miami in 1987 -- had a private counseling practice while she raised her three sons. But in 1995, while talking with a prosecutor, the conversation turned to the lack of affordable services for suffering crime victims. The idea for the center was born.
Descilo worked for 18 months without a salary to set up the center, now funded by Miami-Dade and grants. She now has a staff of 11.
In her spare time, Descilo does pro bono work too, like the court evaluation of Ernesto Joseph, one of 200 Haitians whose boat landed off the Rickenbacker Causeway in 2002. An orphan, Joseph was held at the Krome detention center even after an immigration judge granted him asylum. Descilo found his detention was causing him "irreparable harm." A judge finally ordered his release after her evaluation.
Despite the Victim Services Center's success, Descilo agonizes over the need to expand, to crack away at that 100-person waiting list.
"We have a huge way to go in having the victims of crime get as much attention as the perpetrators," Descilo said. "A huge way to go."
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