Be The Change You Want to See in the World
MonaLou Callery, Executive Director of NATN
As a woman who once lived in a private war zone behind closed doors, known as domestic violence, I so often struggled with the reality of trying to figure what to do, where to go and how to survive if I ever did get out alive.
Fast forward the tape twenty five years later. I have worked in shelters, state agencies, court settings, and domestic violence agencies, and I’ve found that the screening of victims calling for help is becoming much more rigid and inflexible. Victims are being screened out and re-victimized.
We are forgetting the childhood trauma and the horrific abuse that all too often has led some of these victims of domestic violence down a road that would numb those memories by self medicating the mind and body through prescription pills, drugs and alcohol… whatever was available so the feelings could stay buried far beneath the surface.
In 2001, I decided it was time to act on what I knew, what I had learned from all those programs. I decided to tap into all those wonderful experts – the survivors themselves and those I had met over the years – to open a program that would educate the professionals who come in contact with victims of domestic violence. We’re talking the difficult cases. The victims of abuse that ended up in prison, prostitutes, and the women struggling with alcohol and/or drug addiction.
I believed that if a woman had a safe home, a community of support, resources to help, and someone to believe in her when she didn’t believe in herself, that the chances of her feeling, knowing, and living safe in a society that once didn’t help her be safe would be realized.
She could blossom, grow and come to know that she mattered. The National Advocacy & Training Network opened its doors in 2001 to provide training across the country. The Support, Education, Empowerment & Directions (SEEDs) opened the first home, the Marilyn House in 2003, and the Diane House in 2006, both named after the generosity of the home’s key funders.
If you’re struggling to escape abuse, or have escaped and found difficulty navigating the system, please reach out to us, or the National Domestic Violence Hotline, at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233).
