Every year, Nellie’s sees more children than women come through our shelter doors — that’s because when a mom flees violence, more than one child often comes with her. These children didn’t choose to come to Nellie’s, their mothers did. They were torn away from their life, their schools, their friends and their belongings, and thrust into new surroundings. Our job is to support every one of them in their unique healing process, making them feel safe, cared for, and at home. And thanks to Rowan Goldman, our new Child & Youth Program Team Lead, we’re now supporting the children — and their mothers — at Nellie’s more than ever before.
Rowan started her role at Nellie’s in December 2023, eager to help foster a safe and positive environment for the children staying here. At her last job, Rowan worked with survivors of sexual assault and violence, and she learned about Nellie’s through the empowerment self-defense programs being hosted for the survivors there.
“When I was working with survivors of sexual violence, one thing that I recognized was a gap in that empowerment piece, and a gap in the ability to give these women their power back after what they’ve experienced,” explains Rowan. “A lot of the supports out there, and a lot of the court cases these women go through, end up disempowering them and re-traumatizing them. And I think that seeing the Nellie’s way of doing empowerment self-defense and their way of interacting with the community and survivors, made me really recognize the value of including these empowerment pieces into the work that we do.”
For our children’s program, like with all of our community and in-shelter programming, our goals are focused around education, advocacy, social justice, and safety. Currently, we are running two structured programs per day, in addition to drop-in hours — and during the summer months, we’ve bumped this up to three or four programs per day. Some of the regular programs include a gratitude program, homework hour, outdoor play activities, and sing-along music classes with Rainbow Songs Foundation. Support for life skills are also included in our regular programming, such as proper handwashing, tying shoes, and self-regulation tools.
“I’m hoping that we can create an environment in the shelter where the children can feel safe and happy, and that this environment can be more of a safe and positive experience rather than the negativity that often comes with moving into shelters” says Rowan. “And then also making sure that we’re providing these children with the support and skills that they need, because often children who have experienced or witnessed violence have long-term impacts from that. So we’re making sure we’re providing all of the skills possible so that they can have long, healthy, prosperous lives.”
Although she runs our children’s program, Rowan makes it clear that her work goes well beyond supporting the children at Nellie’s — at the root, it’s about supporting women. “We see huge benefits for the women as well, just by having the ability to not have to entertain your child all day long and getting extra support,” explains Rowan. “We try to provide as much support to the mothers as well as the children — the mothers are kind of the baseline for their children.” Rowan says that each week she spends time chatting with the moms staying at Nellie’s, in order to validate and support them through their parenting journey.
“These services are so important — they’re the safety net that allow people to step away and get the support that they need and make that difference in their lives, so that they can really become who they want to be,” says Rowan. “Without donor support, we can’t give them all of this. We can’t reach all of these goals. We wouldn’t be able to give them the life skills support, the resiliency, the empowerment — that wouldn’t be possible without our donors.”