Carrie Curtis

New women’s shelter director to focus on education

Carrie Curtis, the new executive director of the Women’s Shelter of Central Arkansas in Conway, stands in her office. She started volunteering at the women’s shelter in 1999 when a friend sought help at the shelter. Curtis is wearing a pendant from the Broken China Jewelry project, which raises money for the shelter.
Carrie Curtis, the new executive director of the Women’s Shelter of Central Arkansas in Conway, stands in her office. She started volunteering at the women’s shelter in 1999 when a friend sought help at the shelter. Curtis is wearing a pendant from the Broken China Jewelry project, which raises money for the shelter.

Carrie Curtis said she doesn’t have domestic violence in her background, but in 1999, her best friend was abused and went to the Women’s Shelter of Central Arkansas in Conway.

“I trained to become a volunteer,” Curtis said, adding that she didn’t know such a facility existed. “I’d never heard of the concept.”

The 38-year-old worked her way up and started April 1 as executive director of the women’s shelter. Former executive director Beth Goodrich left to take the top position at the Arkansas Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

Curtis said the first shelter residents she interacted with made a lasting impression on her, and they kept in touch.

“It was a very horrible case,” Curtis said. The woman was suicidal. “She was held hostage and repeatedly sexually abused by her partner. She still gives me too much credit for changing her mind about suicide.

“That moment redefined a lot of things for me — just listening to someone and pointing out their self-value and how much that could affect them. I was pretty much hooked after that. It felt way better than sitting in a cubicle.”

Curtis, who grew up in Pangburn, was an outgoing child. She found herself consistently visiting the school principal’s office for talking too much, and she said she always knew she wanted to work with people.

She came to Conway to attend the University of Central Arkansas, and she’s never left.

“I thought I wanted to go into nursing,” she said. “I found out quickly some of the sciences were a little more than I wanted to do.”

She graduated in 1998 with a degree in family and consumer sciences and worked for Acxiom’s on-site day care during college, and afterward for a time as assistant director. Curtis said she had a knack for working with the kids who got in trouble.

Her next job was for an insurance company, sitting in an isolated cubicle, which did not fit her social personality.

After volunteering in 1999 at the women’s shelter, she became a child advocate.

In addition to facilitating the children’s support groups, Curtis worked with the mothers. For example, she showed them how to discipline their children using time-outs.

“There’s an uneven relationship between moms and children coming out of those [abusive] relationships. Moms haven’t been able to discipline, or they don’t know how, coming out of a skewed environment.”

When there was a turnover in staff, Curtis said, she did a little bit of everything — she even trained Goodrich, who started as a weekend advocate. “She was very calm, cool and collected in many situations. She is a great friend to me,” Curtis said.

Goodrich said Curtis trained her in 2005.

“She is compassionate, competent and has all the skills necessary to do this job justice,” Goodrich said. “I’m proud of her accomplishments.”

Curtis supervised immediate staff, was the senior case manager with women, coordinated transportation and more.

Through it all, Curtis said, she never lost contact with the clients.

The shelter has room for 18 to 22 women and children, with portable cribs set up and more than one person sleeping in a bed, she said. The number of residents ebbs and flows, and they come from Arkansas, as well as out of state.

It’s a 30-day program, and the women have to look for employment. However, they can stay longer, if circumstances dictate.

“The focus is empowerment for them to realize, you can be out here and on your own, and you can do this,” she said.

Funding is always a challenge, she said, and it’s down this year.

The Violence Against Women Act helps pay salaries, and funding comes from a Community Development Block Grant, Domestic Peace and the United Way of Central Arkansas. A Broken China Jewelry project, in which volunteers make pendants out of broken dishes, also provides income, but those sales are down, Curtis said.

A benefit golf tournament is scheduled for June, and the Faulkner County Leadership Institute has adopted the women’s shelter as a project and will add a bathroom to the shelter this summer, which she said will help.

“In a perfect world, we would probably start over in a new facility designed for the environment,” Curtis said.

Curtis said her No. 1 goal is to educate the public about domestic violence.

“I want us to continue talking to the community about how big a problem this is. Twice as many women are affected by domestic violence than breast cancer — and it’s preventable,” she said.

Abusers — 85 percent are male — often don’t fit the image people have of them.

They’re not wearing a T-shirt, “waving a gun and cussing the Walmart cashier. They are charming; then, they’re conniving and manipulative,” Curtis said. “It is six months down the road, and [the women] say, ‘Where did my life go?’

“It’s like erosion from water. It’s slow, and you’re in

really deep.”

She said the stigma abused women face has not improved in the 17 years she’s been working at the shelter.

Curtis said abusers often threaten women that if they leave or tell anyone, they will harm the women or their children. Also, they often emotionally abuse the women and denigrate their self-worth.

“[The abused women are] convinced — they’re taught — that they’re worth nothing and that no one will believe them.

“Most women will tell you the physical abuse is recoverable — the emotional, psychological abuse is harder. It’s daily.

“It’s not as simple as, ‘Why doesn’t she leave?’”

Curtis said an acquaintance from elementary school contacted her on Facebook and said she has been in hiding. She won’t tell her story of abuse, Curtis said, “because when she has, no one believed her,” because the abuser’s public persona was so different from how he treated the woman at home.

Curtis said she has worked with three women who all had the same abuser in Conway. In one case, he handcuffed a woman to a tree and beat her with a horse whip, Curtis said.

“What needs to happen is him be stopped,” she said.

Although it can be emotionally draining to work at a shelter, Curtis said, the supportive staff helps, and they all have a good sense of humor.

“I’m not all saintlike; I get frustrated,” she said.

Although the domestic-violence issue is overwhelming, she looks for small victories, as well as big ones.

“It is a success to me if someone is there for a day, and if they get anything out of it and know there’s a place to go.”

Curtis is still in touch with a former shelter resident who has twins and who got what she said was an excellent-paying job and moved out. She left her abuser and is thriving.

The woman and her children recently came to see Curtis.

“Those twins running and hugging me — that fills my cup for six months. You take those moments, and you hold those, and you know you’ve done good for at least one day,” she said.

Although she prefers to stay out of the limelight, Curtis said she had community members who encouraged her to apply for the executive director’s position.

“I know I love the shelter and want only better for it. It was a transition that seemed to work,” she said.

Curtis said she and her friend from 1999 “are still tight today,” and the woman is no longer a victim of abuse.

Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.

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