Board Of Directors
President
Rev. Mark Kloha
Past President
Larry Higgins
Vice President
Alison Christie
Secretary
Penny Qualls
Treasurer
Michael Robinson
Additional Board Members
- David Cannoy
- Susan Fried
- Bruce Davis
- Jane Layman
- Pam Fultz
- Dianne Clement
- Mary Shortridge
- Marty Vannatter
Administrative
Staff
Executive Director
Ann
Perkins
Client Services Coordinator
Vicki Hill
Public Relations &
Outreach Services Coordinator
Diane Donahue
Interim Coordinator of Transitional Services
Shana
Michael
Legal Advocates
Ruth Boggs,
B.A., CDVA
Nikki
Watkins
Children's Advocate
Melissa Faulkner
Executive Assistant
Mary Hill
House and Maintenance Manager
Tonia
Steele
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Who We Are....
The History of Safe
Harbor
Beginning with a vision in the late 1970's,
a group of mental health workers, social
service personnel, local law
enforcement, court officials, attorneys
and staff of the
YWCA in Ashland sat down to consider
the solutions to the ever increasing
problem of domestic violence within
their own community.
Reeling from national media attention
received from a 1979 Lou Harris Poll
conducted in the Commonwealth that
revealed that 78,000 women in Kentucky
surveyed, admitted to being physically
beaten or assaulted by their partner in
the previous year, attention was drawn
to Kentucky's desperate need for
services for battered women and
children, and in particular to families
living in Northeastern Kentucky. Soon
after in 1983,
Pathways Inc., a community mental
health center was granted funds to
provide counseling and legal services to
victims. Immediately, the
toll-free number was flooded with
emergency phone calls from women who
needed temporary, safe shelter.
With Pathways' vast resources in the ten
county regions known as
FIVCO and Gateway, Safe Harbor
became an "umbrella" agency with
financial assistance from the Cabinet
for Human Resources and technical
support from the Kentucky Domestic
Violence Association, opening it's
Emergency Shelter in downtown Ashland in
1983. Soon thereafter, victims and their
children flocked to the safe house. Not
long after-it was apparent the modest
facility was inadequate to meet the
needs of victims throughout the FIVCO
district.
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Safe Harbor's initial innovators went back
to the drawing board and once again obtained
a lease on a 40 room facility from the
Commonwealth. Staff and volunteers
pitched in to renovate, making the facility
habitable and by January of 1985,
Ashland
Oil helped provide the finishing touches
with some badly needed financial resources
and furniture, curtains and linens were
assembled and moved into the newly painted
rooms. In the fall of 1989, Safe Harbor
opened another shelter in Morehead,
Kentucky, known as
"Doves." In the years that followed, the
Morehead shelter grew and on July 1st, 1993
became an independent private, non-profit
organization.
Today, Safe Harbor of Northeast Kentucky,
Inc. has evolved into one of the largest
domestic violence programs across
Northeastern Kentucky providing a holistic
array of services for battered women and
their children while becoming this regions
leading expert and clearinghouse for
domestic violence services. |
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