duhtruth

Our Location, Our Vision

Our present location is this website. It is the seed.

Our plan is to one day open a Center for the Education, Resource, and Care of Families Leaving Domestic Violence. I had to maneuver my way through many community services, legal assistance, educational departments; there were restraining orders, DHS workers, IEPs, police interviews, CARES appt., needed medical and therapeutic care. It seemed it was a constant fight to not only survive but so my children could heal and find hope to begin a new life in a world with totally different rules than that of the violent, abusive, and secretive world they knew from birth. As I struggled, day and night, I held a constant conversation with God.

I would ask: If it is this hard for me to maneuver all the elements needed to safely escape violence, how much more impossible is it for the mother who doesn't speak our language, or the mother who was herself a child of domestic violence and seriously doesn't know another way? What about the mother who has a drug or alcohol problem? Who helps the children of a mother that has ceased to function due to the daily trauma, or who helps the teenager that is afraid to leave the violence because they would not be there to protect their little brother or sister left behind?

The answer is to open a Resource Center where mothers and their children will be able to come and gently be guided through the various resources, departments, legal and educational services needed in order to remain safe while they rebuild a new home and a way of life. The nature of domestic violence forces most of these families to leave their home with little more than the clothes on their backs. Their initial needs are basic: shelter, food, clothing, diapers. Their greater needs are restraining orders, legal assistance, medical and therapeutic support, job assistance, child care, community services while they find a stable and safe place to live, educational assistance, transportation, re-parenting classes, and community support groups for both the mother and her children. So many needs can be overwhelming, but our Center will guide these mothers and support the children as we help to coordinate the needed services, and connect them with community resources.

The Center will also be a hub for the latest information, research, and resources concerning the prevention of domestic violence in both our community and individual families. We will hold educational workshops and trainings for educators and counselors who want to be up to date on the latest and most effective means to assess the problem and to safely and efficiently treat the entire family unit. We will also hold re-parenting classes for mothers who must learn how to parent without fear, to re-learn how to maintain a healthy, thriving family environment based on love and caring - not just day to day survival. There will be support groups for the children as they will need to come together and re-learn what it means to be a valued human-being, one that has a purpose in life, hope for a future, and simply knows 'how to have fun'.