“This Program Is a Lifeline”: Expect Respect Team Speaks Out as City Considers $23K Cut to Teen Violence Intervention and Prevention Program

Written by Danielle Fletcher

As the Austin City Council works to finalize this year’s budget, members of SAFE’s Expect Respect team showed up at City Hall to make one thing clear: cutting funding to youth crisis intervention isn’t a discretionary cut — it’s a decision with life-or-death consequences.

Expect Respect provides individual and group counseling, safety planning, education, and crisis intervention for teens and children navigating dating violence, family violence, and sexual assault. Two members of that team — Shannon Sandrea, Senior Director of Expect Respect, and Savannah Knight, a licensed clinical social worker and counselor with the program — met with City Council and explained, in plain terms, what’s at stake if the City moves forward with proposed cuts.

“My work is personal”

Shannon Sandrea has worked with teens in the Austin community for almost 30 years. She told Council she learned only the day before her testimony, through a memorandum from the City’s Chief Financial Officer, that Expect Respect was slated for funding cuts.

Her connection to this work traces back to the 2003 death of 15-year-old Ortralla Mosley, who was killed by her 16-year-old ex-boyfriend at Northeast High School, in front of her peers, during the school day. In the aftermath, the Austin community came together to make sure young people experiencing relationship abuse would have access to support, counseling, safety planning, and intervention. That response became the foundation of Expect Respect.

Three decades later, Sandrea described a program woven into the fabric of Austin’s schools and social service network — infrastructure, she emphasized, that “did not happen overnight,” but was built through years of collaboration and trust.

She was direct about the cost of further cuts:

“Each cut compounds the last, reducing our ability to provide consistent life-saving services to youth.”

“We meet children on the worst days of their lives”

Savannah Knight, a District 7 resident and licensed clinical social worker, described what Expect Respect actually looks like day to day. While the program is often labeled “violence prevention,” Knight was clear that its role goes far beyond that label.

“We intervene at the point of crisis. We meet children on the worst days of their lives.”

Knight noted that the City has already reduced Expect Respect’s funding by 10% — and now a second 10% cut is on the table. For a program she described as a genuine lifeline for Austin’s youth and children, she asked Council directly not to take that lifeline away.

Why this matters for Austin

Expect Respect isn’t a luxury expense — it’s part of the crisis-response infrastructure Austin built after a tragedy, sustained through decades of partnership with schools and community agencies. Every funding reduction doesn’t just shrink a budget line; it shrinks the number of young people who have somewhere safe to go when they’re navigating abuse, often with no other support available to them.

As the City finalizes its budget this year, Shannon and Savannah’s testimony is a reminder of what’s actually on the line: not a program, but the young people who depend on it.