THE VOICE OF THE VOICELESS AWARD The Honorable Tara T. Shephard
The Voice of the Voiceless Award recognizes an individual who uses their voice to speak out for victims of child sexual abuse and neglect who are unable to do so themselves. Resiliency and hard work are the hallmarks of Representative Tara Shephard’s life, and they are the values she has worked hard to instill in the many girls and young women she has inspired to aspire over decades of advocacy and serving others. Now in her first term in the Arkansas State House of Representatives, she is using her position to continue the service that has its roots in community involvement and volunteerism. She has helped to get the statute of limitations laws expanded for reporting abuse, and gained national attention for her bill to put opioid overdose kits in Arkansas schools. Shephard’s father is her role model. “I tell people all the time that one of the proudest moments of my life was to see my dad, a big strong man, putting on that uniform and going off to war,” she says, adding that her father served three tours of duty in Desert Storm, Iraq and Afghanistan. “These were also some of the saddest moments of my life, because I didn’t
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know whether my dad would be coming home. But he is my example of fighting for the rights of others by any means necessary. My strength and toughness — resiliency — I got from my dad.” As an adult, she laughs, this translates into her “severely unhealthy work habits,” because she doesn’t stop until she gets results. After earning her B.A. and M.A. degrees in criminal justice, Shephard took a position as program director of the Arkansas Juvenile Assessment and Treatment Center (AJAT). “I was just drawn to the idea of working with justice-involved individuals, she says, “and believed I had the fortitude to make a difference in their lives.” Her journey into advocacy for vulnerable girls began in 2001 when she became clinical coordinator for City Girls in Chicago. As supervisor of this residential substance abuse treatment program for teen girls ages 13-18, she received an invitation in 2002 to speak on substance abuse at a conference called Just Us Girls. She was both overwhelmed and inspired by what she experienced there. Upon arrival “all I saw was rows and rows of buses,” she says, “and when I went in, I saw a sea of girls, 3,000 or more. I thought ‘this is the most fabulous thing I have ever seen in my life! If I ever get the opportunity, I will most definitely do something like this.’” Fast forwarding a few years, she returned to Arkansas and AJAT. In 2010 she was invited by then- Senator Tracy Steele to participate in a leadership class hosted by the Stand Foundation. At the end of the course, attendees were required to complete a community service project and Shephard’s thoughts went immediately to the Just Us Girls conference. “I started running around, talking to everyone about this extraordinary experience in Chicago, telling them I wanted to bring it to Arkansas, and asking if they would help me. And pretty much, everyone said ‘No,’” she laughs. She essentially was told she had to have a business in order to establish credibility. “That’s when resiliency kicked in, and I began to work on establishing the non-profit. Then I found out I needed money to start the business,” she adds. “My dad helped me with the funds to start the non-profit, Delta Community Based Services.” With this base, Shephard partnered with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) and in 2011 began hosting the annual At-Promise Girls Empowerment Conference there, which continued until 2018. Its purpose, Shephard says, was to talk about things that are most impactful to girls, and to be gender-responsive. Girls traveled from all over the state to attend the open-registration event, and the 12–18-year-olds were primarily black. Over 400 girls attended the 2018 event, a 120% increase over the inaugural conference. Anyone could volunteer at the conferences, she says, but only women
