My internship at a domestic violence shelter has been a great experience and I am very glad I got the opportunity to do it, but there are definitely some critiques of the organization I have found, along with the positive things going on.  The organization is broken into three sectors: legal, shelter, and administration.  During this semester, the administrative sector has been completely reconstructed, the shelter has flooded and needed to have most of the structure replaced, and the legal sector has lost employees.  Needless to say, it has been hectic.

There was a dire need for an Executive Director of the organization because there was no one really in charge.  There were two people leading the administration and a supervisor at the legal and shelter sectors, but there was not any staff at the top.  This was the first change to be made.  An Executive Director was brought in to fix some of the things going on in the organization.  The main concern was getting the budget back on track.  This has been accomplished very well and within a short couple months, she has gotten payroll on track and gotten more grants awarded to the organization.  She also has put an evaluation process into play which will really help the staff better understand what is expected of them.  I have a lot of faith that this position will really help in a variety of ways.  Without a leader, there is just so much disorganization.

The legal sector does great work and I am very proud of their part of the organization.  They help people who need to get restraining orders on their partner due to domestic violence.  They help anyone who comes into their office and don’t discriminate.  I had the least experience working with this sector other than helping with their data entry, but I think they are the most on track.  They have a system and it works, and so I don’t see why they would mess with that system.

The shelter sector is where I have spent most of my time.  This is also where I see the most problems.  The shelter is run very poorly and there is a lot of disorganization.  The staff doesn’t know what exactly is expected of them, and the supervisor of the staff is very disorganized herself.  The more educated staff and interns are not used well, and are asked to do things such as cleaning and laundry instead of completing tasks they are very capable of. Instead older, uneducated staff is put in charge of the main responsibilities.  Education is not the only factor into making a good employee, but it is very important as an advocate for victims of domestic violence.  There is a lot of victim blaming and criticizing.  I blame this on a lack of training and knowledge on these staff and supervisor’s part.

Overall, I do think the organization does do good work, but in my opinion the shelter sector has a lot of work to do.  The number one thing to be done is more training and education for the supervisor because with lack of an educated authority the whole structure falls apart.  After educating and training the supervisor, the other staff needs to be better trained.  The legal and administrative sectors seem to be on their way, and I believe they will be on track very soon.