Organizations help Arkansans affected by domestic violence

Arkansas typically ranks in the top 10 states for domestic violence homicide, according to Beth Sanders, executive director of the Arkansas Coalition Against Domestic Violence in Little Rock.

Megan McBroome, director of development for the Women and Children First shelter in Little Rock, said that, in 2022, 45 Arkansans — 23 women, 15 men and seven children — were killed by their abusers.

“To just be candid, that number isn’t decreasing. We’re not going from year to year where domestic violence is healing itself and people are learning to have healthy relationships where there are no red flags,” McBroome said.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, which McBroome said offers an opportunity to highlight how this issue affects Arkansans as well as the round-the-clock support organizations across the state that provide to victims of physical, emotional, mental, verbal and financial abuse.

Sanders said Arkansas typically ranks in the top 10 states for domestic violence

homicide. A contributing factor could be that fewer than half of its counties have shelters, which are key to helping victims, she said. There are 30 coalition member programs, as well as another four or five that are not coalition members, serving 75 counties, Sanders said.

The existing shelters don’t have enough beds to meet the need, she said.

The largest shelters, for example, can house up to 60 victims, “which seems like a large number, but if you’re talking Little Rock or the Northwest Arkansas metro? That is not a lot of beds,” Sanders said. “And they stay full. Honestly, any program in our state could instantaneously double the number of beds they have and also be instantaneously full. Empty bed space is not common.”

Shelters do have a resource in the coalition, though. Every state in the country has this kind of organization, Sanders said. Started in 1981, Arkansas’ coalition serves as a clearinghouse for all things related to domestic violence in the state, she added.

The coalition’s main job is to help emergency shelters statewide, Sanders said.

The coalition provides training, technical assistance and program monitoring, and ensures that shelters are within state and federal guidelines. It also teaches law enforcement, medical personnel, corporations and other groups about domestic violence and trains them on how to respond to it in the context of their work, she said.

In addition, the coalition works to educate Arkansans about any public policy changes that would affect victims, tabulates the state’s domestic violence homicide number and reports that number to federal authorities, she said.

SHELTERS OFFER HELP

Using October as Domestic Violence Awareness Month “is giving our survivors their voice back and reminding people that there is hope out there,” McBroome said. “We know that domestic violence is something kind of gritty to talk about and people want to shy away from it, so we really take the month of October to give them their voice back.”

At Women and Children First, victims from anywhere, not just Arkansas, are welcome and can get the help they need to “seek that independence and break that cycle,” she said.

One of the 12 programs Women and Children First offers is a 24-hour statewide domestic violence hotline. The hotline’s phone number is (501) 376-3219, or victims can call toll-free by dialing (800) 332-4443.

It also hosts Camp HOPE for children who have been exposed to domestic violence and offers court advocacy services, a counseling program and transitional housing. Transitional housing is provided to victims when they are able to leave the emergency shelter but still need some services.

Formed in 1989, Margie’s Haven House is another active Arkansas shelter.

While it is the only domestic violence shelter in rural Cleburne County, Shannon Haward, the shelter’s lead victim advocate and programs coordinator, said victims from everywhere are welcome.

The shelter provides court advocacy, help with housing, support groups, and food and clothing vouchers. It also partners with Red Rover and a local vet to board victims’ pets until safe housing outside the shelter is found for the victims. Margie’s Haven House also has a canine “moral support manager” called Misty. She is a boxer that comes with Haward to the shelter every day.

“I got her three years ago; she’s been here since she was 8 weeks old,” Haward said. “She’s got no special training, but I guess growing up here she sees different people and different emotions and she’s just like, the greatest.”

Last year, Margie’s Haven House helped more than 185 people, including people from out of state, Haward said. Executive Director Shoshana Wells added, “A lot of people, when they get into a situation in another state, they want to find a rural place to get far, far away. … We’re considered extremely rural.”

There is also a faith-based option for domestic abuse survivors seeking support.

Dorcas House in Little Rock is open to both women and their children “from any kind of walk of life,” said Elizabeth Childress, director of residential services. Dorcas house is also the only domestic violence shelter in the state that accepts teenage sons with their mothers, she said. Men cannot stay there.

The nine-to-12-month program Dorcas House offers includes classes, required individual therapy and group sessions, Childress said. The classes cover topics like trauma recovery, parenting, anger management, relationships, communication, childhood sexual abuse recovery, financial literacy and work preparedness. Each phase of the program is around three months long, she said. The length varies because classes may need to be canceled or rescheduled for holidays and to accommodate the volunteer teachers’ schedules.

The program is free, and participants are not allowed to have jobs while enrolled.

“We want them to focus on their healing,” Childress said. “And that’s super important to us, so we partner with them and just really allow them to reinvent themselves.

“We definitely have that mindset of like, ‘I don’t want to put a Band-Aid on something,’” she said. “I want to be able to give some real-life change to somebody.”

Women and children can receive housing assistance from Dorcas House for up to three years if the women enroll in its work program after completing the main program. Those in the work program can move into transitional housing and pay a smaller fee to live there. Childress said this allows the women to keep about 75% of their income and continue getting other types of support from Dorcas House. As of mid-October, there were 13 women in the work program, she said.

MEN ARE VICTIMS, TOO

Arkansas is also home to the anti-domestic violence organization Family Violence Prevention, which offers mental health services through a contract with a local therapist and grant funding, said Director Billie Grady. It offers daily support groups and case management as well.

The organization operates a women’s shelter and a men’s shelter in Batesville. The men’s shelter, The Taylor House, is the first shelter in the nation to be exclusive to men, Grady said. It opened in October 2015 and has a male-only staff. Shelter Manager Noel Sims noted that “some women’s shelters take men, but they’re co-ed. Our shelter is separate.”

“We try to let men have their privacy. Having a house specifically designed for men with male staff has worked real well,” Grady said.

Karin Huffman, a court advocate with Family Violence Prevention, described the men’s shelter as a trailblazing effort.

“It’s a lot harder for a man to come forward and say they’ve been in a domestic violence situation, but, then again, there hasn’t been a place for them to go,” she said. “Hopefully, in the next generation, in the next decade or so, we’re going to be able to see men coming forward and asking more readily for help than we have in the past.”

Grady said the men The Taylor House serves come from all over the country, and it is “beginning to be known as a safe place to come.”

Sims said working with men at The Taylor House can be difficult due to the stigma around them being victims of abuse.

“Well, the women’s house, when they get there they’re pretty forthright about what they’ve been through,” he said. “The men we have to dig it out of.” Men can also receive services at the Women and Children First shelter in Little Rock, where they have their own area and bathroom.

However, much of society is focused on addressing intimate partner violence involving a male abusing his female partner because that is the type which is most likely to lead to homicide, Sanders said. And she said there are barriers to reporting other types due to the associated stigmas.

For example, LGBTQ+ victims abused by their samesex partners may fear their abusers’ outing them to their friends and family members, Sanders said.

Domestic violence can occur in any kind of relationship, not just a sexual relationship, Haward with Margie’s Haven House said. Childress with Dorcas House said the relationship doesn’t have to be romantic either.

“It is a power and control dynamic,” Haward said. “The abuser has to have power and control over the victim whether it be emotionally, physically, mentally, financially, spiritually. Domestic violence could be between you and your sister. If y’all are living together, it could be domestic violence.”

Childress said, “There’s all kinds of twisted ways that people will abuse others, and we are intentional about helping people out of any situation when it comes to that.

“It can be far more nuanced than you think.”