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Nurturing Young Lives

Three years ago on August 23rd, staff and community partners gathered to launch our Children’s Safe Exchange and Visitation program. Continuation of these vital services was necessary after the closure of Sunflower Kids.

More than 8,000 safe visitations and exchanges have been provided since the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Services are provided from two locations in downtown Lexington and Georgetown.

“Children deserve connection and bonding without worrying about conflict, intimidation, control, and further abuse,” says Darlene Thomas, Executive Director.  

Visitation and monitored exchanges are facilitated without contact between adult parties, keeping program participants safe throughout the process. This is also beneficial to the children so they do not have to potentially witness any intimidation, manipulation, or abuse between parents.  

Thank You 

AU Associates donates the program’s Lexington office space, while Georgetown Police provides in-kind space for services in Scott County.  Partnerships with Lexington Police, Friend of the Court, and Family Court judges also support the program.

Startup funds were provided by LFUCG Department of Social Services, through the Department of Special Grants and Programs.

Primary funding for the program now comes from VOCA – Victims of Crime Act – awarded through the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet by the U.S. Department of Justice.

“When I think about my intuitive reading and your mission, the word magical comes to mind,” Tabitha Dial says. “We’re both caring about the community, as well as the individual, to support them in finding their voice.” 

When Tabitha Dial, an intuitive tarot and tea leaf reader, moved from Colorado to Lexington six years ago, she felt called to support our mission. 

“I have known a few women who have revealed their stories of domestic partner abuse to me, and I know there are many, many unheard stories that remain.” 

Tabitha began her support by offering donation-based readings at Third Street Stuff. Since then, she’s been one of our most engaged social media followers and always finds creative ways to celebrate nature-based healing on social media. 

While a member of the Autumn Vegetable and Herb CSA, Tabitha was inspired to write “Green Soup,” an award-winning poem featured in Kentucky Monthly’s Annual Writers’ Showcase. 

“When I think about my intuitive reading and your mission, the word magical comes to mind,” she says. “We’re both caring about the community, as well as the individual, to support them in finding their voice.” 

Sharon Price, Executive Director of Community Action Council, is celebrating phenomenal women across Kentucky who make no apologies for their perspectives.

Darlene Thomas, our Executive Director, recently was nominated to be interviewed by Sharon and share her story about advocating for survivors of intimate partner abuse. Bits of the interview have been captured here, with the full interview video available.

Finding the Mission

I started doing this work about 32 years ago in western Kentucky, Louisville, and then there was an opportunity to start this program in Lexington 17 years ago.

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to go to college…When I graduated, my friend called me to say they were hiring at the spouse abuse center. I didn’t even know about the spouse abuse center. How did I go through an undergraduate degree and not even learn about intimate partner violence? It just wasn’t a topic that was talked about then.

I was young, fresh out of school, and I was going to fix and change the whole world. I was really lucky there were women who took a risk with me. They mentored me and coached me. I was too big for my britches sometimes, and they didn’t let me be. They made me figure out what it meant to be in the work, and it was much bigger than me.

Mission Approach

The only way to work toward healing, for most survivors, to really know they belong to something bigger than themselves. We’re out in the country on a 40-acre farm and run cottage industries to capitalize on our strengths.

We grow flowers and make products. It’s our job to help survivors move from crisis to self-sufficiency based on their own journey — not based on what we think they should doing but what they believe they should be doing to figure out what their next steps will be.

The goal is to keep people safely in their community.

Kids need their school. Survivors need their work. They need to have their family, resources, and faith around them. But when not possible, that’s when shelter happens — when there’s no other safety mechanism — until we can figure out the next steps, get back your footing, and take back your power.

People living with us at shelter just start making their way to the farm. The kids are running and playing and riding their bicycles and feeding the horses. Next thing you know, mom is out there weeding and picking flowers and putting them on tables in the shelter. It just becomes this quiet way for people to process trauma.

Changing Systems

In order to change things, to make a better system for survivors to move from crisis to self-sufficiency, you got to be at the table to influence and policy and change.

My office is smack-dab in the middle of our shelter. I need to be around survivors. It’s what keeps me grounded in this work. The calling wasn’t to be an executive director. The calling really was to work with survivors in partnership to figure out how to continue to change systems to help protect and serve them.

I trust my instincts and my gut — and more than anything I trust survivors. When I’m going to go to the mats, I believe in it wholehearted. I can hear other opinions and learn from other people, but I can dig my feet in.

Trusting the Journey

I try to walk in the world and find people’s strengths and absorb them — and sometimes we learn what not to do — but I never take advantage of that. My core is survivors and their strength and their courage.

That’s what I carry and try to teach and help others in the field who want to do this work for a long time. You want people who believe every survivor is worthy of our time, and love, and dignity — until they learn they’re worthy of it.

Today I’m able to find the strength and the value and just meet people where they are. I also know where I am, and they begin. That’s not always true when you’re young in the field. You have a tendency to carry it, and it changes you.

You have to learn to integrate the pain and suffering of others but realize it’s not your outcome. Sometimes you have to just step back and let the journey happen. Every interaction has an impact on others.

Lifting Others

Every interaction has an impact on others. It’s so important to model and show and for every young woman to know their worth.

Unfortunately, the world teaches us that we have less value based on our skin color or gender… We have to lift young women up to know their worth and know they are loved. We have to stick together.