Marveling at the Women's Resilience, Strength, & Growth

By Kathy Malone, LPC   

I was introduced to Sheffield Place via the Off the Wall event in the old Airline Museum. 

 

I was inspired, went on a facility tour, and was asked by Kelly Welch, CEO, to join the Sheffield Place Board.  It was a welcoming and warm environment and it enabled me to learn from the ground up how a successful non-profit is run.  I got to see what was involved in the day to day operations, as well as the fundraising, financial and governance side of Sheffield Place.  

 

I have been on the Sheffield board working in some capacity since 2018.  In the last few years, I have mainly helped out in clinical capacity and supporting staff. I am a Licensed Professional Counselor, and have experience working with trauma.  I love learning about our client care and advocating for our programs and staff. In this capacity I really saw how amazing the Sheffield Place staff and leadership team is, and how important and difficult it is to live out our mission. 

Kathy (right) with husband Pete at the
dedication of the SEVI House in 2021.

I am very proud of the work we are doing at Sheffield, and how we are doing it.

 

We work with women who have lived at the margins of society, and are often in very dire circumstances when they and their children walk through our door.  

 

Our approach to working with them, supporting them and loving them begins with seeing their innate humanity and dignity.  We treat them with respect, and compassion, even when they don’t always treat themselves, each other, us, or our property with respect.  We give them a safe space to heal from their trauma, and support to learn new behaviors. We set boundaries for their safety, model behaviors that will enable them to live within societies boundaries. We support them in getting addiction and mental health treatment.  We follow with on-going therapy and case management support to scaffold them to independent living.   We provide resources to help them become job ready, and find employment. We help them learn skills to parent better, and model ways to love and create attachment bonds with their children.

 

Then we wait, watch, hope, and marvel at their resilience, strength and growth.  We watch many of them become self-sufficient.  

 

We also accept (which is really hard) when they choose to walk away from the support and go back to homelessness, toxic relationships or using. We often welcome them back when they are ready to continue their recovery journey.

 

I feel uplifted, proud and honored to be a part of this organization (and sometimes saddened by the reality of how hard this work and world is).