YWCA Northeast Indiana seeks to empower individuals, support families, and unite communities to improve the quality of life. We believe that all individuals have the right to be safe and choose the direction of their lives. Our programs address norms and barriers that could cause anyone to find themselves in situations of violence, trauma, or addiction. We actively work to transform lives by creating positive change, stability, and new opportunities for our clients, their families, and the community.
YWCA provides a variety of services for women, children, men, and nonbinary individuals who have experienced domestic violence or sexual violence as well as addiction recovery services for women and their children. YWCA addresses not only our clients’ physical needs but also addresses mental health needs as well. YWCA staff work one-on-one with clients, focusing on the 8 Dimensions of Wellness (physical, mental, spiritual, financial, environmental, occupational, social, and intellectual). YWCA strives to instill a sense of hopefulness as well as provide practical tools and support for building a better future with our clients and their children.
Providing individual therapy and opportunities for critical debriefs after crisis incidents.
Offering staff Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) training, an evidence-based tool for building wellness.
Creating spaces in the new building for staff breaks that offer a restorative setting and materials.
Tuition reimbursement for staff seeking mental health or social work related degrees, both helping those staff develop skills, and also contributing to the workforce being more equipped to serve the community.
This would need to be a funder with the vision to provide the background and operational support to staff as a resource and approach to improving community outcomes.
We expect that investment in funds to develop staff wellness and skills will reduce burnout and increase the length of time staff can remain in the field of mental health either with us or in careers at other service providers, and will help develop and increase their skills and abilities to provide high-quality services to our community.
We are open to funders who might meet this entire need or select one area to contribute:
Total: $44,500 for 1st year – $36,000 for each following year
YWCA Northeast Indiana’s work addresses the mental health needs of our community by serving survivors of violence as they work through and recover from those traumas and helping people build healthy practices as they recover from substance abuse. Our staff are secondary survivors, hearing repeated stories of trauma, as well as coping with the challenges that come from the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn behaviors that our clients exhibit in reaction to what they have experienced. Many of our staff have also survived their own traumas, which is often what causes people to have an interest in the field, and helps with efficacy, but also means that some situations can cause re-traumatization.
This project is meant to strengthen the mental health, well being, and skills for staff to be able to do this work in an effective manner and while maintaining and building their own mental wellness.
Support could include: