SAFE Harbor director, staff provide victims of domestic violence with a way out

By Karen Peterson

Leader Staff

RONAN — Melissa King has a purpose in her life.

After taking over as executive director of SAFE Harbor last fall, she works daily to provide a safe haven for women who have been involved in domestic violence situations.

“Our number one goal is safety,” King said. “Our mission is to provide safety, nurturing, and healing to victims, both adults and children.”

King saw the firsthand effects of domestic violence by working in a Texas prison as a social and chemical dependency worker, but after 10 years, she found herself looking for something more, so she moved to Spokane for a time to get her master’s degree in social work.

“I’ve always been a social worker at heart,” she said.

With her experiences and her degree, King felt that she could reach more people by working with an agency.

“This job came open and it’s nonprofit. I wanted that more than a corporate position,” she said.

King was also interested in working with Native Americans and the reservation was a perfect place to get started, she said.

“My heritage is Native American, and seeing unhealthy relationships over and over is why I decided to go into this field of work,” she said.

And King has found purpose in helping people.

“What I’m doing now is social work. It’s really social injustice,” she said. “I like this field because I can see a correlation between mental health and domestic violence. And people need help to overcome that.”

At the shelter, King manages the budget, works on community outreach projects and helps her staff of three other women provide services to victims of domestic violence.

“A victim can come in and get shelter, food, nutrition classes, life skills and in collaboration with DOVES we provide a support group to link them with other woman. Children are given counseling, too. First, we look at their immediate needs, getting stability and housing,” she said.

Victims come to the shelter after having left a perpetrator or “unsafe” incident, King said. And for a lot of woman the shelter is the only safe place they can escape to.

“We have provided help to 1,350 victims in the past year,” King said. “That is a good number for small towns. But Lake County is big and I hope the numbers mean that more woman are reporting.”

Getting out of a situation and finding a shelter can be one of the hardest things that a woman can do, King said.

“They have so much fear and they’ve been isolated for so long,” she said. “But these woman are very strong. They come here and they are in and out, getting their lives back together. Because they can do it once they feel valued.”

Grants and a few local fundraisers provide funding for the shelter but they are still scraping by.

“The Tribe really helps us get grants and we are thankful for their support,” she said. “But those grants don’t cover all of our expenses. We need money for things that the grants don’t cover like fixing a car for a woman so she can get to work or provide heat in the winter — the basics.”

King dreams of expanding the shelter and offering more services to those in need but it takes time, she says.

“I’d like to give these woman more in the form of treatment. They’ve left a war zone at home and the way the system is right now they are forced to work the next day. People do it but it makes it difficult. I just think we can do more to help these woman,” King said.

Safe Harbor’s 24- hour hotline is 676-0800 and they can be found online at www.safeharbormt.org