Women’s Center Gains Strength In Its 20 Years Group Gains Money, Staff, Builds Bridges To Help Battered Women

The Coeur d’Alene Women’s Center is celebrating more than just its 20th anniversary this year.

The nonprofit crisis intervention and referral group is benefiting from considerable growth in state and federal grants.

Aided by the Clinton administration’s Violence Against Women Act and Idaho Gov. Phil Batt’s Council on Domestic Violence, the center has doubled its services for domestic violence victims and watched its staff grow four-fold since 1993.

“What’s exciting about this is there’s an awareness all the way up to the federal level that domestic violence is a problem we can take care of,” said Holladay Sanderson, women’s center executive director.

This year, victims can tap into a host of new Panhandle programs, including legal assistance and a long-awaited hospital advocacy service.

Health care and law enforcement officials are touting the hospital advocacy program as an example of multi-agency cooperation. A portion of a $180,000 state grant will pay for an on-call advocate who can report to the hospital 24 hours a day when health officials report domestic violence patients or help is requested.

Kootenai County sheriff’s Capt. Ben Wolfinger said the program’s been an identified need for years, but lacked money and staff.

“Our guys aren’t trained to be counselors. We can certainly refer them or have the women’s center call them, but there wasn’t always someone who could come to the hospital at 3 in the morning,” Wolfinger said.

Roger Evans, emergency services director at Kootenai Medical Center, said the program closes a gap that independent agencies couldn’t bridge alone.

“There seemed to be a little bit looser safety net during after hours,” Evans said. “As independent agencies, we wished we had a common bond. This allows us to pick up the baton.”

When physicians and nurses suspect domestic violence or a patient requests help, they can page an advocate and within minutes have a support person present.

“Some people think ‘The (hospital staff) is just going to talk to me about my bruises. I need somebody to talk to me about my soul,”’ Evans said. “It’s an additional leverage tool to get people to come out and talk about it.”

It also may result in better statistics and tracking of domestic violence trends in North Idaho, Evans added.

Health and law enforcement officials applaud Sanderson for diplomatically drawing together agencies in pursuit of a more seamless system. Since she became director in 1993, grants, staffing and multi-agency efforts have increased significantly.

Administered through the Idaho Department of Law Enforcement, the $65,000 and $26,000 Violence Against Women Act grants this year will pay for a full-time court advocate and a half-time social worker.

Coeur d’Alene’s portion of the Governor’s Council on Domestic Violence grant ballooned from $98,000 to $181,000 this year. It will pay for a full-time shelter manager, hospital advocate, administrative assistant and a $30,000 legal assistance program contracted through Idaho Legal Aid Services. After screening, domestic violence victims in need of advice on property disputes, divorce, protection orders, custody and other legal matters will be eligible.

The center’s also purchasing two new curriculum packages - a religious response kit for churches and another for the workplace, to help businesses develop policies protecting victims and other employees. There are training seminars planned in the fall for law enforcement and the prosecutor’s office, and a five-county rape crisis advocacy campaign kicks off soon.

The drawback to the recent focus on domestic violence awareness, Sanderson said, is that it often prompts an increase in the number of people looking for help. Because the grants are short-term, local support still is crucial for general operation.

“The community has always supported the shelter, but keeping the doors open is something we always struggle with here.”

, DataTimes