Women's Center

Mission Statement:

The mission of the Women’s Center, Inc. is to provide a haven and assistance to women and their families who are in need as a result of domestic violence, rape or sexual assault. The Women’s Center also joins others in the struggle to eliminate violence in our society.

Contact Info:

• Women’s Center, Inc.
• 850 North 4th Street, Coeur d’Alene, ID 83814
• (208) 664-9303 Business Office and 24-Hour Domestic Violence Hotline
• (208) 245-1542 Benewah County Business Office and 24-Hour Hotline
• (208) 661-2522 Rape/Sexual Assault 24-Hour Crisis Line
• (208) 664-1443 Kootenai County 24-Hour Crisis Line
• (208) 667-5346 FAX
• wcgen@adelphia.net
• http://www.womenscentercda.org

Services Provided:

The Women’s Center Shelter provides emergency shelter and temporary residence to women and children who are in imminent danger of domestic violence and/or sexual assault. When a victim seeks assistance from the legal system to provide protection and lawful recourse, s/he is confronted with a complex system that must be navigated; our Court Advocacy Program assists survivors of domestic violence and rape/sexual assault.

Our Outreach and Education Program provides professionally structured education presentations for community groups, law enforcement, students, schools, volunteers and agencies that fall into our scope of services. This program seeks to improve response to victims, raise awareness of the issues, break stereotypes associated with domestic violence and sexual assault, teach safety and preventative measures and educate the community at large about the services Women’s Center, Inc. offers.

The Sexual Assault Program is dedicated to assisting and supporting victims of sexual assault in five northern Idaho counties (Kootenai, Bonner, Boundary, Shoshone and Benewah) offering a 24-hour staffed hotline, extensive crisis intervention, information and referral for other relevant services, and advocacy and accompaniment services to victims, their families and secondary victims. This program also organizes and participates in community awareness activities.

The Children’s Center Program, funded in part by the Soroptimists International of Coeur d’Alene, offers free counseling and therapy to adults and children who have experienced/witnessed domestic violence and/or rape/sexual assault. Our counseling services are offered to men, women and children of any race, religion or economic status who calls Women’s Center, Inc. for assistance as part of our information and referral service. The program also provides a weekly support group for adult female survivors of domestic violence and a special weekly teen support group.

Our Volunteer Coordinator heads up the Crisis Intervention Training, a 32-hour training program and is also responsible for the recruitment and retention of volunteers. These core services are confidential, do not increase vulnerability and serve as the first step toward safety and recovery.

Our Women’s Center Thrift Store is our entrepreneurial branch and assists our organization in two very important ways. First, it serves as an outlet to meet the clothing and household needs of our families, by providing adults and children with clothing, shoes, and coats for everyday use, for important job interviews, promotions, or for other special occasions. When a family leaves the shelter, they often need cookware, dinnerware, bedding, towels and other necessities to set up in a new home. Women’s Center, Inc. provides each family needing assistance with a voucher, so that they can shop for whatever they need free of charge. The profits from the store help our organization with operating expenses such as office rent, telecommunications, copying, office supplies, and so on. These are day-to-day expenses that grants don’t cover. So, while we tend to the everyday needs of the people we serve, the Thrift Store tends to our everyday needs!

Long range goals for Women’s Center, Inc. include active participation with others in the community to target areas that help reduce the occurrences of domestic violence, rape and sexual assault. It is our vision to seek out opportunities to join with private and public entities through collaborative partnerships to achieve this goal.

About:

Twenty-nine years ago three families in the Coeur d’Alene area opened their homes to help victims of domestic violence. These homes were called “safe houses” and the families that opened them need to be commended for their bravery. At this time there were no laws to protect women against violence and abusers could keep them imprisoned without fear of retribution. At this time there were no shelters for battered women; the National Organization for Women was just forming a taskforce to examine the problem and establish the need for shelters. At this time, women working the same job as men earned 60% less money. At this time, women did not have equal access to credit and loans. At this time, women did not have equal access to educational, economic and political systems. Many states had laws that actually protected the abuser by condoning abuse toward their wives and children, especially those laws that relegated women and children to chattel of their husbands and fathers. The problem of domestic violence was rooted in the historical attitudes toward women, the economy and inadequacies in legal and social service systems. At this time, people running safe houses were on their own, without legal protection and helping battered wives was a very dangerous activity.

Today Women’s Center, Inc. serves all people, regardless of race, sex, age, marital status, sexual orientation, religion and economic status seeking assistance for domestic violence and rape and/or sexual assault. Our target population remains by tradition primarily women and children. Sadly we are still a violent society and the need for our services hasn’t diminished over the years. In fact, demand for our services in Kootenai County has increased 300% since 2000.

Our work is crisis intervention.

We assist individuals and families during turmoil and change, focusing on safety. We don’t have many opportunities to follow up with the people we serve. We never know if contact will endanger their lives. This year, with the help of a student who is also a survivor of domestic violence, we are able to present success stories within the community. We hope to present these stories in their entirety during October, “Domestic Violence Awareness” month. These are a few excerpts from persons who came to us as victims and left as survivors:

Survivors:

“My bruised and battered photos sit in a sealed envelope at the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Department. I was only able to pull through all of this because I ran to the Women’s Center and asked for help. Those women that helped me, saved my life and my sanity. They believed in me. I began believing in myself. As Court Advocates they empowered me with the strength I needed when I had to be face-to-face with the man that thought so little of me that he wanted to see me dead. It was through the Women’s Center that I decided I could go back to college…”

“The scars are deeply etched in her heart. They will never go away. She feels like a wonderful human being having been through life saving counseling with the Women’s Center. Going back to college, and getting her Bachelors Degree in Accounting also helped in her process of healing…”

“After her release from the hospital to reconstruct her nose, jaw and repair the seven inch knife wound in her neck, she came to the Women’s Center where they helped her with two train tickets back to her family in another state. She went back to school and began to climb the corporate ladder of success…”

It is an honor to have these stories shared with us and with the community by these brave and victorious women. Last year we provided services to over 1,300 victims of domestic violence and 139 victims of rape/sexual assault. We logged 8,376 phone calls for assistance. The Coeur d’Alene community is very supportive of our organization and the United Way is one of the ways individuals and businesses choose to support the work we do in the community. Our organization’s ability to help others would be greatly diminished without the support of the United Way. Thank you United Way of Kootenai County!!

| next