Alice Housing provides safe second-stage housing and supportive counselling for women and children leaving domestic violence. Established in 1983 and located in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, it’s the largest second-stage housing organization east of Quebec, offering 19 safe housing units and having assisted over 850 families begin a new life free from violence and infused with healing and hope.

Executive director Joanne Bernard spoke with CharityVillage® about their unique organization and the ups and downs involved with moving it forward.

The organization values education as essential to women’s empowerment. Explain what that means in terms of your programming?

It’s very important for these women, they don’t want to be dependent on a government cheque and they don’t want to be dependent on a man. So we really push education here. Many women who come here finish their grade 12, go on to trades and post-secondary [education] and we support them during that journey. And I think that’s really key for a lot of women because for years they’ve been told they’re stupid, they can’t do anything, won’t be able to survive without men. When they get away from that abuse, they realize, “you know what? I can.” And they do.

We accept women from all over the country, we have women from Toronto, from BC, they come here because they’re not safe in the communities they’re in. And we had a 56-year old from BC who lived with us for two years, got her grade 12, did training and just graduated from the University of Cape Breton with a degree in environmental technology. Now she’s moving out. She lived in abuse for 30 years.

We’ve also had women become welders, electronic technicians etc. I’ve lived nine years on welfare and in those years I got a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree. I know that education is the key out of poverty for women.

But it’s not just education, is it? You take a real holistic approach to help women move on.

We provide longer term housing and more of a tenancy relationship in terms of housing — for up to two years, one of the longest in Canada. Our outcomes for women not returning to abusive situations after completing the program is 83%, whereas nationally it’s at 69%. I think that’s because our work is very holistic and women-centered. And the fact that we make it mandatory [to take part] so it isn’t just a place for them to sit without changing behaviour, attitudes or experiences. They actually come here and move forward. It’s not a place to dwell, to talk about all the bad things he did. It’s about saying, “this is what I want to do for the rest of my life, this is how I want my children to grow up and I want to be self-sufficient.”

We offer structured work groups that are psycho-educational — looking at everything from self-esteem to anger to grief over relationships. Many come from sources of abuse (they grew up in families that went through abuse) so it’s all about changing the tapes in their heads. If she comes in here and her self-worth doesn’t change in six months to a year, starting an educational program will do nothing more than set her up for failure. So we have to change attitudes and the way women feel about themselves before we look at education. Education generally comes in year two. The first year is spent working on improving self-esteem by making better choices, understanding healthy relationships, personal boundaries, repairing relationships with children.

Tell me about the unique program you geared specifically for children.

Our children’s program, Healing the Bruises, is second to none. We’ve been told it’s some of the best work being done in the province with child victims and witnesses of domestic violence. It’s difficult when you’re dealing with children; it eats a little bit of my soul seeing terrible things happening by either parent. They are truly innocent and so vulnerable to the decisions that adults in their lives make. It’s very tough to watch.

I actually developed Healing the Bruises because I saw that gap in services here. I had an experience one day of a four-year-old child slapping his mother and calling her names. He may as well have hit me. I took his hands and said, “We don’t hit here and don’t call Mommy names.” I realized we weren’t really meeting our whole mandate. This is a cycle of violence. Because we know that children that grow up in shelters have more likelihood of becoming victims or abusers in adulthood. And we’ve seen it here. So I got seed funding from the feds. And we’ve been scrambling ever since.

A child and youth counsellor works through the trauma that the children have either experienced or witnessed. We do a lot of modified art therapy, play therapy and individual counselling. She really does a lot of crises processing for children. Every time she meets with a child, she meets with the mother, too, so they work as a team. There’s often a lot of anger and distrust for obvious reasons toward both parents and a lot of regressive behaviours: bullying, self-harm.

We’ve had tremendous outcomes with the program, far exceeding our expectations when we started it five years ago. And when women know that their children’s psychological and trauma needs are being met (there’s a long waitlist for those services in Halifax), their recovery is a bit faster. Violence really takes away a woman’s ability to parent proactively.

What are your biggest challenges?

Funding is big. We’re not core funded by government. I personally fundraised about 55% of our fundraising budget this year. We get money from grants, two special events and the generosity of individuals. Healing the Bruises gets no government funding at all. Our three-year deal with Emera ends soon, so we’re scrambling to find other corporate funding.

We charge rent geared to income so that rent is never a reason why women don’t leave abuse. We don’t charge above income assistance rates for welfare. And when women are working or on another source of income, we subsidize. So we actually provide over $45,000 worth of subsidized housing in Halifax on our backs. We’ve been working on a rock-solid business plan over the past two years and we are going to government again. If it doesn’t work, we’ll go public. When I started we had 25 units, now we’re down to 18 and I have a waitlist. It’s not like they’re not being used.

Public Relations is also a challenge, getting the word out. Other organizations that do great work who get core funding have the luxury of being able to hire professional fundraisers and do PR in the community. I do it on my own. But I’m also an ED of a very demanding organization that doesn’t have the staff component it needs to do the work that’s demanded.

What are the organization’s greatest strengths?

Right now we have around 36-40 people [clients]; we’re full.

I’ve been here six years. Before I came, the organization struggled. I have a management background, I’m not a social worker, so I wanted to improve the outcomes. I built a very strong board of directors who had a lot of the same vision and passions I did. And we just moved forward. We now have great programming, great personnel.

Any lessons learned?

When I first came here, safety was a priority but not THE priority. I’ve learned over the years that it has to be for women, children and staff. I’ve also learned that just because I think something’s important and other people do too, doesn’t mean people in government think it’s as important. And it never ceases to amaze me the generosity of people from communities who get it and who help us do the work we do; it’s very gratifying. And at the end of the day not every story is going to be happy. You can’t come in here in Pollyanna glasses, thinking you’re going to help everyone. You can’t.

The Donner Awards is Canada’s largest nonprofit awards program. An award valued at $5,000 is presented to a winning organization in each of seven different categories. One of these organizations is also granted the William H. Donner Award for Excellence in the Delivery of Social Services, valued at $20,000. Learn more and apply this year at www.donnerwawards.org.

Elisa Birnbaum is a freelance journalist, producer and communications consultant living in Toronto. She is also president of Elle Communications and can be reached at: info@ellecommunications.ca.

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