Let’s Keep Our Teens Safe: Understanding Dating Violence

February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month (TDVAM), a national effort to raise awareness about abuse in teen and 20-something relationships and promote programs that prevent it. Locally, AVDA (Aid to Victims of Domestic Abuse) works with schools, programs for...

Overcoming Tragedy to Begin Again

In November of 2015, Andrea Thibodeaux came to AVDA seeking legal custody of her then two-year-old granddaughter, Audrey. Several months earlier, Audrey’s father had brutally murdered Audrey’s mother. Audrey’s mother had tried to protect herself and her daughter by...

AVDA Attorney Spotlight

  AVDA’s Legal Advocacy Program provides free legal representation in family law matters to victims of domestic violence in Harris and Fort Bend County courts. We have attorneys who are dedicated to obtaining protective orders, and others who focus on divorce,...

AVDA Summer Interns: Law Students with Eyes on the Future

  Since 2006, AVDA has actively recruited summer Legal Interns from ABA-accredited law schools for clerkships in family-law litigation. They work side-by-side AVDA’s eight trauma-informed attorneys and eight paralegals, aiding with legal research, drafting...

Domestic Violence: Private Violence or Public Health Crisis?

AVDA stands with other Houston-area, nonprofit organizations that serve family violence victims in opposition to the recent ruling that disallows the asylum requests of victims of domestic violence. This one decision has turned back the clock on four decades of...

Get the Facts on Teen Dating Abuse

Did you know that one in three adolescents in the U.S. is a victim of physical, sexual, emotional or verbal abuse from a dating partner, a figure that far exceeds rates of other types of youth violence? Throughout the month of February, AVDA (Aid to Victims of...