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Published Wednesday, February 01, 2012 in Local

Photo by Jeffrey Leo

Enjoying one of the new Bright Spaces rooms at Community Welcome House are, from left, house manager Deanne Kwon, board member Carole Ann Fields and executive director Linda Kirkpatrick.

Domestic violence increases in Coweta, local shelter trying to help

By Rebecca Leftwich

The Newnan Times-Herald

A downturn in the economy has led to an increase in domestic violence, and Coweta County's Community Welcome House reports it served 742 women and children in 2011 through Safe Haven admissions and outreach programs.

"What we're seeing is pretty incredible," said Linda Kirkpatrick, executive director, at the Welcome House Board of Directors meeting Monday evening. "You look at these survivors and their children who were acting out because they didn't understand what was going on, and now the children sing the blessing every night at dinner while holding hands. We're making a difference for all these people."

"Getting out of these situations changes lives," board chairman Raymond Grote said.

In addition to emergency shelter/transitional housing, Welcome House provides legal advocacy through outreach domestic violence assistance. Kirkpatrick said the program works with women who decide to stay in abusive homes to create emergency plans, navigate the court system and monitor court-mandated class attendance.

"We have seen a rise in the need for outreach," Kirkpatrick said. "The calls we are receiving seem to be increasingly more vital to the health and safety of those we serve. They seem desperate in wanting help."

"What you do and the staff does every day blows me away," Grote told Kirkpatrick. "The impact every dollar we spend has on those women and children means the world to me."

Welcome House admitted 62 women and 40 children into its emergency shelter and served another 530 women and children through outreach.

Local donations and a Bright Horizons Foundation grant helped build and furnish an art room, a playroom and an infant/toddler room, and three Internet volunteers are remotely helping with Welcome House's website and newsletter as well as researching grants.

Kirkpatrick said Welcome House's greatest need is corporate and business partners, and she told board members about several grants for which she has applied. Safe Haven has several maintenance projects pending, including paving, flooring, painting and reframing of doors as well as repairing of a privacy fence.

Overall, though, "the organization is extremely healthy," Grote said.

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