Trauma-Informed Care During the Christmas Season

Valerie Harkins, Director of the Maternity Housing Coalition, interviews Suzanne Burns from Foundation House about serving women during the Christmas season who have experienced trauma. While most of us see this time of year as a season of joy, traditions, and celebrations, we recognize that for others, it is a difficult season to navigate as challenging family relationships, trauma, or loss may trigger negative emotions. Find out how you can help your clients to find healing and hope as you celebrate the birth of Jesus together.

Click Here to Access the Recorded Webinar

Sponsor: Option Line

Breaking the Cycle of Domestic Violence

Women seeking help from maternity homes are often caught up in a cycle of domestic abuse. Ashley Potts, Founder and Executive Director of Selah Creek Maternity Home, explains how homes  can prepare to serve victims of abuse by learning as much about trauma-informed care as possible, and most importantly, learning to listen and develop trust. Listen in as Ashley shares how she and her team have helped women go from feeling that domestic violence is just the “normal” of relationships, to making cycle-breaking choices that will have a lasting effect on generations to come.

You can reach Ashley Potts at ashley@selahcreek.org or visit www.selahcreek.org

Sponsored by: Heart and Home

Mental Health First Aid

Housing Specialist, Valerie Humes interviews Vanessa Rock (Good Counsel Homes) about the importance of teaching your staff how to safely and effectively respond to a mental health crisis. There are simple steps that staff/volunteers can learn that will help to create a safe environment for all residents in a home as well as for clients at pregnancy centers.

This episode is sponsored by Go for the Gold
Call 937-262-7010 for more on Go for the Gold!

Arise Daughter – Abortion Recovery Awareness Month

Sylvia Blakely, RN, MS joins Beth Diemert in this episode as we highlight Abortion Recovery Awareness Month. Through her ministry at www.AriseDaughter.org, Sylvia meets men and women where they are and walks alongside them on a path to healing. Beth and Sylvia also discuss how we can best serve women who are facing the trauma and regret of chemical abortion.

 

Breaking the Shackles of Shame

With a deep passion for working with women, Dinah Monahan gives some basic pointers on overcoming the lies of shame so as to live in the truth.  She touches on the “fingerprints of shame” that appear in the lives of shame-bound women and discusses the path of surrender by daily Giving God Your Worst.  Dinah closes by introducing some of the free materials that she has made available with hopes that those in the pregnancy help movement can bring healing to shame in their own lives and in the lives of their clients.

Additional Resources

Exposing the Lies

Cynthia Miller, the Counselor & Life Coach of Heart of Hope, speaks with passion about the work of exposing the lies that women believe and replacing those lies with truth.  Using a beautiful illustration of coal and diamonds, she gives practical methods that can be used within the work to allow the Word of God to bring about transformation in the lives of the women we serve.

Additional Resources:

Sponsored by OptionLine.org

OptionLine.org

The L.O.V.E. Approach for Everyone

Cindi Boston-Bilotta interviews Dr. Peggy Hartshorn about her latest book, The L.O.V.E. Approach.

In 1994, Dr. Hartshorn developed The L.O.V.E. Approach manual to explain how Christ-centered pregnancy help center volunteers can build relationships with women facing difficult pregnancies and help them resolve issues and problems in a life-affirming way. It has been in continuous use around the world, taught by Heartbeat International since then (person to person and now on-line).

It was originally inspired by the lessons she learned from painful experience, the hard way, as a young wife, mother, and passionate Christian volunteer, almost 50 years ago.

In this narrative version of the L.O.V.E. Approach, she offers the four steps to you and the larger Christian community in the expectation that you will also find them powerful in your own relationships and ministries.

Additional Resources:

 

Sex Trafficking – The Women Who Escape and Need Shelter

Jeanne Allert operates The Samaritan Women, a residential restorative care program for women who have been exploited by trafficking. The power-packed podcast talks about the intersection points with maternity homes and invites programs to think about creating “safe within” environments, ways to detox from a highly “private universe”, and how to help women reclaim their boundaries.

In this podcast, Jeanne Allert of The Samaritan Women lays out the field of residential options for women coming out of sex trafficking using four ideas.  While the maternity housing world doesn’t have the same language, it has similar concepts.  It is instructive to hear her thoughts on the field of residential care for persons coming out of crisis.

The first point of intervention is emergency care and includes things like emergency rooms, jails, and safe houses. On the continuum of care, these programs focus on the point of rescue or escape as well as the point of apprehension by law enforcement.  Women may or may not be interested in change at this point.

Next are programs that focus on stabilization, generally short-term programs (i.e. 90-days) where the woman may be living with a foot in the world of transformative care and a foot in ongoing connection to the world of her victimization.  Long-term care takes place in restorative care programs, the third type of program.  It is in these programs that Allert describes the focus as asking the question, “What is the new life you are aspiring to have?”  She suggests that clients spend 90% of time on building that new life and 10% of time on dealing with “trauma residue” issues.

In her experience, some of the important lessons of this phase are teaching the residents to have natural relationships and to assert boundaries.  The final stage is graduate care where the emphasis is on ongoing support during social entry and independent living.  During this time, having a supportive and accountable community is a crucial tool.

As of October 2019, there were 103 open residential programs that specialized in victims of trafficking.  These programs accounted for approximately 1000 beds.

“One of the ways that media has done a disservice to us is to create a hyper-reality of danger,” Allert asserts.  She argues that the relational bond that the woman has experienced with her abuser (i.e. as a parent-figure, boyfriend, baby daddy) makes her more at risk of choosing to go back rather than the abuser coming to find the client.  “It’s less about physical security and more about building a belief of being ‘safe within’,” Allert explains.

Rather than outside threats, the client is more of a danger to herself via self-harm, destructive decision making, and other negative behaviors.

Additional Resources

  • https://instituteforsheltercare.org/

Dealing with Addiction: The Early Stages of Recovery

In this podcast, Andrea McAdam shares the policies and approach of The LIGHT House in working with young women in the early stages of recovery. Listen to her thoughts on how addiction factors into serving their community well especially related to intakes, dirty drug tests, and organizational relationships.

Tackling the topic of Trauma Informed Care

Heartbeat International Housing Specialist Mary Peterson interviews Peggy Forrest with Our Lady’s Inn discusses the research and training involved in implementing trauma informed care within their pregnancy help organization.

Additional Resources: