We are excited to announce that we have successfully transitioned our Survivor Driven Services to a shared leadership structure between Olivia Montgomery, our new Services Director, and Alexis Harden, in a newly created position, Housing Director. By replicating our co-leadership model for our survivor-facing services, we have divided responsibilities between advocacy response and housing programs. Leveraging and braiding the wealth of experience in community research and racial and gender advocacy that Olivia brings to the role, with the extensive knowledge in local youth and family housing interventions Alexis holds, this partnership has been seamlessly working with our staff community to assess, align and enhance our shared commitment to survivors.
The benefits of this change have been quick and consistent over the last few months with a breadth of successes, including new and re-imagined partnerships with organizations like 4Tomorrow, the only culturally specific DV organization in Bellevue serving Latinx survivors, as well as For Goodness Cakes, an organization both feeding and feeding-into the development of youth in Washington. In addition, strategic changes have been made to our internal staffing structure to remove barriers, exponentially increasing response times for all survivors seeking services
For survivors, these changes show up as in-person family support for families in our housing programs. Families have enjoyed building community through outings to the aquarium, zoo, and museum, as well as participating in LifeWire’s survivor-centered BBQs, complete with food, games, and prizes. And, in our newly organized office space equipped with a resource room stocked with hygiene items, diapers, and children’s art supplies. We look forward to future developments and are thankful to Olivia and Alexis for their commitment to collective leadership and leading efforts to open a path to safety, stability, and healing for all survivors and their families.
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