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She Won’t Try to Rescue You…
But She’s There to Help
BY KIMBERLY GARTS CRUM
‘How can this gentle person possibly understand what
you have been through?Imagine you have come to the
emergency room for injuries you received in a fight with
your spouse. Your mouth bleeds, and one eye swells
shut. You feel strangely ashamed and absolutely alone,
in spite of the concerned nurses and doctors coming in
and out of your curtained room. A nurse asks if you will
see an advocate from the Center for Women and
Families — the crisis shelter you’ve almost called once
or twice.
Even if you were thinking clearly, it seems there would
be no good choices. You no longer have close friends
because they were “bad influences.” You’ve stayed
away from your family because he does not like them.
And so you wonder: Should you go home because you
love him? Or should you leave because you fear him?
A petite woman peeks around the curtain, and asks to
enter. She looks out of place in the emergency room.
Dressed neatly in a blue denim dress, she is soft-
spoken, a pretty woman with big brown eyes and a
sprinkling of freckles across her nose. She is Dana,
your advocate from the Center for Women and Families.
How can this gentle person possibly understand what
you have been through? Yet, there is something about the look in her eyes that tells
you she understands. She will not share a personal experience with you. Her role is
to listen .
Dana is not a social worker or psychologist, paid in tangible cash for her visits to
emergency rooms. She is a volunteer who receives spiritual reimbursement for her
services. As far as she’s concerned, God wants her to give something back to her
community. “Through all my years, somebody was always there to help me,” she
says. She learned about volunteer opportunities at the Center in a woman’s Bible
study group at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville. “This fell into my lap.”
A nursing student during the day, Dana now volunteers at the Center as an advocate
for domestic violence and/or rape crisis calls on designated nights or weekends.
Thirty-one long-term hospital responders are trained by the Center to work one or
more on-call shifts per month. The volunteers are a diverse group with two things in
common: a commitment to victims of domestic violence, and the successful
completion of 40 hours of comprehensive training.
As with all hospital responders, Dana will not try to protect or rescue you. She will not
insist that you go to an emergency shelter. The last thing you need right now is for
some stranger to walk in the room and try to control you, like he does. If you decide
to return home, she will help you develop a safety plan. If you decide to leave, she
can tell you how to file an emergency protective order. She can secure shelter for
you, if you wish, at one of the Center’s two campuses in the Kentucky/Indiana metro
area. As a hospital responder, she will inform you of the group support and
counseling services available to victims inside or outside of shelters.
“Everyone at the Center is passionate about domestic violence either because they
have had personal experience or someone close to them has,” says Janet Sonner,
volunteer coordinator for the Center. Sonner performs the knotty task of screening
potential volunteers to ensure that memories of past experiences will not trigger
unmanageable emotions or prevent objectivity with clients. Only after applicants have
been screened, can they begin the 40 hours of training seminars. “I couldn’t believe I
had to be interviewed to be a volunteer!” Dana says. In retrospect, she liked the
screening process. She appreciates how the Center takes volunteering seriously,
and she welcomes its ongoing offer of structure and direction. Dana applauds the
Center staff: “I was truly amazed at how caring everyone is, and how down to earth.
Dana recently completed the intensive training program of lectures, role-plays,
movies, interactive exercises, and serious soul-searching “One of the things I found
surprising was not how training would equip me to help others — but how I will grow
as well,” she says. “We learned about taking care of ourselves so we can be of
service to others.” Training was “a great reminder of things I need to practice —
personal boundaries and being accountable for myself so I can be a mirror for
others.”
In addition to her role as hospital responder, Dana will also serve as an educator for
the Voices of Strength, the Center’s speakers bureau. She is energized by the
chance to challenge ignorance about domestic violence. “People in general are
uneducated about domestic violence, how children are treated in homes affected by
violence or other kinds of abuse,” she says. “Domestic violence is a learned
behavior.” Children who witness violence in their home are likely to repeat it, either
as perpetrator or victim. Dana wants children and adults to be able to recognize the
subtle beginnings of family violence — how it starts with the behaviors that isolate
and intimidate, before it becomes physical. “I feel like if somebody had taken the
time to [educate] me, my journey in life would be totally different.” Though Dana
prefers not to discuss her own traumatic life experiences, she admits she “got off to a
rocky start.” But the road she travels seems smoother now. With surprised humility,
she says “(Look) how far I’ve come — being able to help somebody!”
Staggering Statistics
• 85 percent of the victims of domestic violence are women.
• 30 percent of Americans say they know a woman who has been physically or
sexually assaulted by an intimate partner in the last year.
• 31 percent of American women report being physically or sexually abused by a
husband or boyfriend.
• 40 percent of girls, age 14 to 17, report knowing someone their age who has been
hit or beaten by a boyfriend.
• More than half of female victims of intimate violence live in houses with children
under the age of 12.
(Source: Family Violence Prevention Fund, www.endabuse.org/resources/facts).
You Can Help:
• Call for yourself, or refer others, to the 24-hour toll-free Center for Women and
Families Crisis Center: (877) 803-7577.
• Contact www.thecenteronline.org/locations.php for information on the eight program
offices and two shelters in Kentucky and Indiana.
• Invite a speaker from the Center’s Voices of Strength to visit your church,
workplace, school or civic group.
• Become a Center advocate in any one of the following ways: visit hospitals, answer
the crisis phone, befriend a child, accompany victims to court, tutor English, be an
interpreter, speak to community groups, plan special events, or work in the office.
• If you have more money than time, or a house crowded with gently used items,
contact the Center to donate at www.thecenteronline.org/donate.php.
KIMBERLEY GARTS CRUM is a regular contributer to Today’s Woman.
But She’s There to Help
BY KIMBERLY GARTS CRUM
‘How can this gentle person possibly understand what
you have been through?Imagine you have come to the
emergency room for injuries you received in a fight with
your spouse. Your mouth bleeds, and one eye swells
shut. You feel strangely ashamed and absolutely alone,
in spite of the concerned nurses and doctors coming in
and out of your curtained room. A nurse asks if you will
see an advocate from the Center for Women and
Families — the crisis shelter you’ve almost called once
or twice.
Even if you were thinking clearly, it seems there would
be no good choices. You no longer have close friends
because they were “bad influences.” You’ve stayed
away from your family because he does not like them.
And so you wonder: Should you go home because you
love him? Or should you leave because you fear him?
A petite woman peeks around the curtain, and asks to
enter. She looks out of place in the emergency room.
Dressed neatly in a blue denim dress, she is soft-
spoken, a pretty woman with big brown eyes and a
sprinkling of freckles across her nose. She is Dana,
your advocate from the Center for Women and Families.
How can this gentle person possibly understand what
you have been through? Yet, there is something about the look in her eyes that tells
you she understands. She will not share a personal experience with you. Her role is
to listen .
Dana is not a social worker or psychologist, paid in tangible cash for her visits to
emergency rooms. She is a volunteer who receives spiritual reimbursement for her
services. As far as she’s concerned, God wants her to give something back to her
community. “Through all my years, somebody was always there to help me,” she
says. She learned about volunteer opportunities at the Center in a woman’s Bible
study group at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville. “This fell into my lap.”
A nursing student during the day, Dana now volunteers at the Center as an advocate
for domestic violence and/or rape crisis calls on designated nights or weekends.
Thirty-one long-term hospital responders are trained by the Center to work one or
more on-call shifts per month. The volunteers are a diverse group with two things in
common: a commitment to victims of domestic violence, and the successful
completion of 40 hours of comprehensive training.
As with all hospital responders, Dana will not try to protect or rescue you. She will not
insist that you go to an emergency shelter. The last thing you need right now is for
some stranger to walk in the room and try to control you, like he does. If you decide
to return home, she will help you develop a safety plan. If you decide to leave, she
can tell you how to file an emergency protective order. She can secure shelter for
you, if you wish, at one of the Center’s two campuses in the Kentucky/Indiana metro
area. As a hospital responder, she will inform you of the group support and
counseling services available to victims inside or outside of shelters.
“Everyone at the Center is passionate about domestic violence either because they
have had personal experience or someone close to them has,” says Janet Sonner,
volunteer coordinator for the Center. Sonner performs the knotty task of screening
potential volunteers to ensure that memories of past experiences will not trigger
unmanageable emotions or prevent objectivity with clients. Only after applicants have
been screened, can they begin the 40 hours of training seminars. “I couldn’t believe I
had to be interviewed to be a volunteer!” Dana says. In retrospect, she liked the
screening process. She appreciates how the Center takes volunteering seriously,
and she welcomes its ongoing offer of structure and direction. Dana applauds the
Center staff: “I was truly amazed at how caring everyone is, and how down to earth.
Dana recently completed the intensive training program of lectures, role-plays,
movies, interactive exercises, and serious soul-searching “One of the things I found
surprising was not how training would equip me to help others — but how I will grow
as well,” she says. “We learned about taking care of ourselves so we can be of
service to others.” Training was “a great reminder of things I need to practice —
personal boundaries and being accountable for myself so I can be a mirror for
others.”
In addition to her role as hospital responder, Dana will also serve as an educator for
the Voices of Strength, the Center’s speakers bureau. She is energized by the
chance to challenge ignorance about domestic violence. “People in general are
uneducated about domestic violence, how children are treated in homes affected by
violence or other kinds of abuse,” she says. “Domestic violence is a learned
behavior.” Children who witness violence in their home are likely to repeat it, either
as perpetrator or victim. Dana wants children and adults to be able to recognize the
subtle beginnings of family violence — how it starts with the behaviors that isolate
and intimidate, before it becomes physical. “I feel like if somebody had taken the
time to [educate] me, my journey in life would be totally different.” Though Dana
prefers not to discuss her own traumatic life experiences, she admits she “got off to a
rocky start.” But the road she travels seems smoother now. With surprised humility,
she says “(Look) how far I’ve come — being able to help somebody!”
Staggering Statistics
• 85 percent of the victims of domestic violence are women.
• 30 percent of Americans say they know a woman who has been physically or
sexually assaulted by an intimate partner in the last year.
• 31 percent of American women report being physically or sexually abused by a
husband or boyfriend.
• 40 percent of girls, age 14 to 17, report knowing someone their age who has been
hit or beaten by a boyfriend.
• More than half of female victims of intimate violence live in houses with children
under the age of 12.
(Source: Family Violence Prevention Fund, www.endabuse.org/resources/facts).
You Can Help:
• Call for yourself, or refer others, to the 24-hour toll-free Center for Women and
Families Crisis Center: (877) 803-7577.
• Contact www.thecenteronline.org/locations.php for information on the eight program
offices and two shelters in Kentucky and Indiana.
• Invite a speaker from the Center’s Voices of Strength to visit your church,
workplace, school or civic group.
• Become a Center advocate in any one of the following ways: visit hospitals, answer
the crisis phone, befriend a child, accompany victims to court, tutor English, be an
interpreter, speak to community groups, plan special events, or work in the office.
• If you have more money than time, or a house crowded with gently used items,
contact the Center to donate at www.thecenteronline.org/donate.php.
KIMBERLEY GARTS CRUM is a regular contributer to Today’s Woman.