CHAMPAIGN, IL: (CHAMBANA TODAY)- Courage Connection provides housing and supportive services to individuals and families who face domestic violence. They believe in the right of every person to safety and the potential of every person for success. Their mission is to ensure everyone in our community has the education, support, and resources to live in safe, healthy relationships.

Champaign-Urbana is a generous community with a deep commitment to its most vulnerable members. Indeed, the legacy agencies of Courage Connection began as grassroots, volunteer-run responses to local needs.  In 1971, A Woman’s Place opened as one of the first battered women’s shelters in Illinois. This shelter, operated by A Woman’s Fund, was started by a volunteer collective. Jacqueline Flenner, Cheryl Frank, Chris Rich, and Alice Kingston were the founding members. It operated as an independent agency until 2010.  Meanwhile, in the early 1980s, another group of determined citizens and social service providers came together to address CU’s lack of homeless facilities for women and children. The Women’s Emergency Shelter of Champaign County (WESCC) opened in June 1985.  Over time, both agencies grew, added services, and saved lives. WESCC became The Center for Women in Transition and added additional shelters and a resale store to its operations.  In 2010, The Center for Women in Transition acquired A Woman’s Place, thereby ensuring that life-saving domestic violence services would continue to be available in Champaign County. This alliance created a powerful continuum of services, connecting women in need to everything from emergency shelter to affordable permanent housing through one agency.

Today, Courage Connection celebrates the legacy of its parent organizations while focusing on a strong future for our clients and our community. As a member of the Champaign-Urbana Continuum of Care, the Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and other community collaborations, Courage Connection is committed to identifying and addressing the growing and changing needs in our community. We are always guided by our mission: To help individuals and families achieve safety, support, and success.

We talked to Arika, lead counslor at Courage Connection about the organization, her role, and community impact.

How did you start at Courage Connection?

“I have been here since April of 2010. During the day I worked here with a partnership between Champaign County Head Start, encourage connection, it was the Center for Women in transition back then. But we’ve partnered with them to be able to provide services for the women who have children. And so, we furnished a classroom at HeadStart we staffed the classroom twice a week, so that the parents could use that time to, drop their kids off and know that they were safe, and they could use that time to go fill out applications, do job interviews, and that kind of thing. And then so pretty much you know, how we tried to serve and help the whole family so if even if they had older kids that were in school, we still help them. We have 13 classrooms that are open now. Which is the largest here at Champaign County.

“I love the job, when I got the job at courage connection, that we did that collaboration back in 2010, I felt like that Job was created for me because I wanted the opportunity to be able to work with parents and children now being as being a site manager, I have the opportunity to have more influence on more families and, and children. I look at myself as like a walking resource. So even though I’m here working as a lead counselor, I’m still seeing these ladies with their kids. And I’m like, the best thing that can help you do is to get your kids in Head Start, you know, I’m saying so are, you know? I don’t know, I just always just, you know, I tell him about the services. And as much as I can, you know, get them hooked up with the right people so they can get enrolled?”

What’s the most fulfilling part of your role?

“Yeah, being able to connect with people, because even as the lead counselor when the clients when they come into the shelter, because they’re already in a vulnerable situation. And they just need to see like a kind face and somebody to be kind. Yeah, so making those connections, this is my favorite part of the job.
Tell me about your community impact and education.
We teach “Brave” through courage connection, which is a domestic violence, education and parenting. And it’s usually for people who have had their children removed due to domestic violence I teach it twice a week. And I enjoy that, because most people will look at it as a chore. But I look at it as an opportunity, to explain to people what domestic violence is, because when I started working here, all the years ago, and I took my first 40-hour DV training, I was under the impression that domestic violence was if they put their hands on you, if it was physical. I didn’t realize it was so much more than just physical until I took that class. And I was like, wow, okay. I enjoy teaching people because sometimes we just really don’t know.”
To get involved with Courage Connection visit courageconnection.org.