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A New Start at Newhouse.
Newhouse Shelter’s 88 beds are almost always full.
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The Kansas City, Missouri-based, shelter provides sanctuary for women and children fleeing from the immediate threat of domestic violence. Often, just a few hours pass between the time one family moves out and another takes its place, says Vicki Kraft, Newhouse president and CEO.
Every year, the shelter serves 900 women and children trying to rebuild their lives following domestic violence, a pattern of coercive behavior, usually in a romantic relationship, where one person is trying to control the other. Although the majority of victims are women, a growing number of men are also reporting being victims of domestic violence, which can take many forms, Kraft says – financial, emotional, physical, and sexual. “What we see as a pattern is that once it becomes physical, the violence escalates, and, left unchecked, often it will end up in a fatality,” she explains.
WORKING TO REBUILD
Families come to Newhouse by police escort. Generally, there has been a violent incident that’s forced them to
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flee, and they’ve called 911 or the emergency hotline Newhouse operates with five other Kansas City-based shelters to help survivors find open beds. Like Newhouse, the other shelters are often at capacity, but if police identify there’s an extreme risk of fatality, the shelters will find a way to welcome them no matter what.
Once a family is safely at the shelter, Newhouse team members ensure the basic needs of the women and their families are met, whether that’s providing food, clothing, or an opportunity for sleep. After 30 days of rest and recovery, residents move into therapy and case management to rebuild their lives and work toward self-sufficiency.
“They are working through the issues that they have that are caused by the violence and destruction in their life,” Kraft says.
The nonprofit employs a court advocate that goes to domestic violence court and helps women who aren’t staying at the shelter as well as residents navigate the court system and address issues that might be barriers to their selfsufficiency, like overdue bills.
Newhouse also offers an on-site school for kindergarten through sixth-grade students, who are often one-and-a-half to two years behind in school because of the effects of the violence they’ve experienced. Here they can receive personalized attention and develop a stable, healthy routine. The school room is just a few steps from the office of the shelter’s child therapist, who is trained in different types of therapy that help kids communicate in nonverbal ways as they start to process and heal from trauma.
“We know that the key to breaking the cycle of violence that continues generations is with the children,” Kraft says.
SHIFTING ATTITUDES
Beyond providing services directly to families affected by domestic violence, Newhouse staff and volunteers go into the community to help foster understanding of domestic violence issues, providing education about domestic violence, teen-dating violence, and violence in the workplace and facilitating interactive exercises that put participants in the shoes of victims.
The exercises can provide a powerful understanding of the barriers people in abusive
GET INVOLVED
There are many ways to help support Newhouse’s mission, including a variety of volunteer opportunities and donations. newhouseshelter.org
relationships face, Kraft says. There is often a strong financial component because the abuser controls the money, and the victim doesn’t feel she can provide for herself and her family. In some cases, the victim’s support network might feel it is her role to stay, and often a woman has been threatened with further violence against herself and her children if she tries to leave.
“The abuse generally has robbed people of their selfconfidence and their belief that they can break free of this because they’ve been told, ‘You’re not of any value, you can’t do anything on your own, you can’t get a job, you can’t make decisions,’ to the point where they’ve actually started to believe that to be true, so it’s a lot to overcome,” Kraft says. “Sometimes they’re just ashamed. They don’t want to admit that it’s going on because it embarrasses them.”
The idea that women can simply leave an abusive relationship if they want to remains a common misconception, she adds. Still, she’s encouraged by the ongoing national conversation about abuse and harassment.
“I think the last year-and-a-half to two years, it has been different because I’m hearing more people say, ‘What should we be focused on?’ ‘What should we be saying?’ ‘What should we be doing to help this stop?’” Kraft says. “Before, it was always a lot of victim blaming and dismissiveness. Now it is more, ‘We want to be part of the solution of making this stop.’ ‘We want to help these neighbors of ours, these friends of ours, these family members of ours break free of this.’”
There are many ways to help support Newhouse’s mission, including a variety of volunteer opportunities and donations. Kraft also encourages community members to be the voice of domestic violence victims by contacting elected officials when there’s an opportunity to better protect victims through legislation and public policy.
Beyond making a difference in the lives of domestic violence survivors, community members who take action serve as a source of inspiration for Newhouse staff.
“Some of the abuse and brutality our families have suffered, it’s just horrifying, so hard to deal with,” Kraft shares, adding the Newhouse team finds joy in knowing they’re helping survivors discover a better path, whether it’s a tiny step or moving into a self-sufficient, violencefree situation.
“The other thing is we see people daily who don’t know anybody that’s in our shelter, but they come and help, they come and volunteer, or they bring donations. They show how much they care,” she says, “so we also see the best of humanity.” .
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