Seeds of Change: Transitional Housing Program
From The Mustard Seed, Summer 2011
By Jennifer Tibbetts, Transitional Housing Program Manager
Throughout this year, the CMC Transitional Housing Program’s Empowerment Committee has been growing in momentum. The women in the group continue to hone their business skills through various projects including a Women’s Equality Day event and the sale of handmade bracelets.
The women’s most recent endeavor was to apply to present at Whispers & Screams, a state-wide conference for service providers that work with the female population. Their proposal, entitled “Speak for Yourself: Empowering Young Women to Use Their Voice,” was accepted!
At Whispers & Screams, the women were able to provide the participants of the conference with a presentation that included information of their journey as they developed the Empowerment Committee as well as tools that participants could carry with them to their own agencies and apply to the population that they work with. We were also able to display information about the Catherine McAuley Center at the conference and sell the women’s handmade bracelets. Additionally, the Catherine McAuley Center was selected as the recipient of the silent auction proceeds that were collected at Whispers & Screams.
As the program manager, I have been able to witness the transformations that have occurred in so many of the women in the Transitional Housing Program. Seeing these women have enough self-confidence to present their ideas and stories to a group of professionals was truly amazing. The women on the Empowerment Committee have helped to strengthen the program’s female responsive components by creating relationships, developing a safe environment, and regaining their self-confidence to create a community of sisterhood that is extraordinary. With this strength, anything is possible, and I feel privileged that I can be a passenger in their journey.
