HAVEN + Bridgercare: Best Friends Forever!
Who is HAVEN:
Bridgercare is beyond proud to sing the praise of our closest community partner – HAVEN!
HAVEN first began serving our community in 1979. This amazing organization is committed to reducing the incidence and minimizing the impact of domestic abuse on families and communities. Their services include survivor advocacy, legal advocacy, individual counseling, emergency shelter, a 24-hour support line, three support groups, and community education.
For over 40 years, HAVEN has worked to both provide safe intervention for survivors of intimate partner violence, as well as to prevent future violence from occurring. In the last year HAVEN has served 1,120 survivors: 331 received legal advocacy, 37 attended support groups, 45 received counseling, and 145 men, women, and children received shelter. HAVEN’s 24-hour support line (406-586-4111) has answered 4,513 calls for survivors, families, and community members.
COVID Update: Just like Bridgercare, HAVEN has been intensely impacted by the rippling effects of the epidemic. They too have been asked to do more than ever before with little extra support. Since the arrival of COVID-19 in our community, HAVEN has seen a 300% increase in the activity on their online chat support function. Never has our community's dedication to supporting survivors been more necessary. We know that violence is three times more likely to happen if a couple is under financial strain. Sadly, that is exactly the trend HAVEN has seen as people isolate themselves to stay healthy and the economic future of our country remains uncertain.
How We Partner:
Peer Education: While Bridgercare has been running their Peer Education group for over 25 years, it became clear that our education needed to have an even stronger emphasis on consent and healthy relationships at a young age. HAVEN and Bridgercare began co-facilitating Peer Ed in 2016 and it has been a magical and unstoppable partnership ever since! Next year, we’ll be stronger than ever with 21 Peer Educators from Bozeman High, Bozeman Field School, and Park High!
HAVENcare: In 2017, our two organizations collaborated to launch HAVENcare, a program that provides completely free services to anyone referred to Bridgercare by HAVEN. Preventing an intimate partner's reproductive choice is referred to asreproductive coercion. Research has shown that domestic violence can increase a woman's chances of becoming pregnant and the number of children she has, both because the woman may be coerced into sex and because she may be prevented from using birth control. HAVENcare increases access to reproductive healthcare for survivors by reducing financial and privacy barriers.
We share our people: From trading interns, to supporting each other’s staff, to sharing donors, Bridgercare is honored to share so much of its inner circle with HAVEN! One amazing individual who has done a lot to bring these organizations even closer together is Angie Kujala. Angie is a current Bridgercare board member, a proud survivor, and a part of HAVEN’s End the Silence speaker’s bureau. You can read about her story here and watch her in action here. Go Angie!
At the end of the day, we are so grateful for the critically important, inclusive, respectful, and hard work HAVEN does every day! Intimate partner violence is something that is so often hidden from sight and is something people don’t want to believe happens here. HAVEN continues to put this issues front and center, normalizing this reality that so many experience. HAVEN is a true, unapologetic leader in our local community that is imagining a safer and happier future for all of us. We love you HAVEN!