Domestic violence hotlines -- Comtrea officials advise those who experience domestic violence to call the agency’s A Safe Place hotline at 636-232-2301 or the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for help. Both lines are open around the clock. Calls are confidential.
Barb Tenholder doesn’t necessarily have the statistics to back it up, but she said there’s a serious domestic violence problem in Jefferson County that’s not letting up, especially as the pandemic and its effects go on.
“What can I tell you about domestic violence in Jefferson County? I can tell you our shelter is always full. As soon as someone moves out, we have another come in later that same day,” said Tenholder, the director of Comtrea’s A Safe Place, the county’s only shelter for women escaping domestic abuse and sexual assault.
The shelter has six rooms that can accommodate a woman and her children, as many as 25 or so people.
Tenholder said when the facility is at capacity, staff members provide referrals to shelters in St. Louis, St. Louis County and Bonne Terre.
“They’re always full, too, though,” she said.
During 2020, staff at A Safe Place had to turn away 1,282 people (women and their children), she said.
When that’s the case, staff members work to help the woman and her family find a church or other organization to pay for a hotel stay for two or three days, or some other alternatives, Tenholder said.
“We help them develop an escape plan,” she said. “We work with other resources, make sure they’re calling back
capacity, staff members provide referrals to shelters in St. Louis, St. Louis County and Bonne Terre.
“They’re always full, too, though,” she said.
During 2020, staff at A Safe Place had to turn away 1,282 people (women and their children), she said.
When that’s the case, staff members work to help the woman and her family find a church or other organization to pay for a hotel stay for two or three days, or some other alternatives, Tenholder said.
“We help them develop an escape plan,” she said. “We work with other resources, make sure they’re calling back when we do have an empty room. We’ll make sure they find someplace safe.”
COVID-19 makes bad
situation worse
Tenholder said the demand for the shelter’s services has never been in question, and the ongoing pandemic has exacerbated the dysfunction in some households.
“Before the pandemic, when the abuser would go out, or go to work, the victim would have some time to plan – to make phone calls, to find a place to take her family,” she said.
But, with people out of work or staying home more because of the pandemic, it makes an already stressful situation worse, Tenholder said.
However, Tenholder said, the pandemic didn’t cause men to become abusers – it just made it easier for their abusive behavior to move to the forefront.
“We’ve learned that you don’t just become an abuser,” she said. “It’s something that’s learned, usually in the dysfunctional home a person has grown up in. It’s part of their belief system. You believe you have the right to control someone else’s life, and you back that up with physical or psychological means, or both. They convince the woman that if she makes a report, that the authorities will take the kids away and she believes him. They control them by money, or with sexual abuse.
“And the psychological abuse can be even worse than the physical. Wounds can heal, but it can take years to heal the problems of psychological abuse. And we’ve found that 90 percent of the women who are at our shelter have had some sort of psychological abuse.”
Tolerating abuse also is a learned behavior, Tenholder said.
“We’ve learned by talking with the women who come to our shelter that the ones who come from a functional family background tend to stop abuse from their mate early in the process, much earlier than a woman who’s grown up in a different kind of home,” she said.
“They come to expect that abuse is a part of how families function. They can look in the early stages that their husband or boyfriend controlling their behavior is a form of love, rather than abuse.
“For both men and women, the key is trying to break the cycle from being passed on from generation to generation.”
A Safe Place remains open
Tenholder credited her staff with keeping A Safe Place open, even during the worst times of the pandemic.
“We had grave concerns about
COVID, but my staff kept coming to work. We are open and staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week and there were always people here. We put in safety measures and made sure our staff and residents were kept as safe as possible. We kept our doors open, and that wasn’t the case at other shelters around the state. My staff was sometimes exhausted, but they kept coming. They don’t come here for the paycheck; they come here because of their hearts.”
Unfortunately, Tenholder said, while some of the stresses of the pandemic may be lessening, the demand for services for domestic violence victims is constant, which can wear on those who work on the front lines of a shelter.
“If you look at it that way, it can get overwhelming,” she said. “But all of us who work here have discovered that you have to focus on your successes. Every family that arrives here is a success story because they’ve taken the first step. Every woman and her family who leaves here to start a new life, that’s a success story.”
Want to help? Here’s how
Comtrea is always seeking assistance for A Safe Place as well as Mary’s House of Hope, a transitional housing complex for women who need long-term assistance moving from the shelter into a different life.
For information on donating to A Safe Place or Mary’s House of Hope, go to comtrea.org.