Rachel Larson Devine joins A Safe Place as Director of Development.
Rachel is a multi-generational Nantucket native who brings forth a diverse skill set with a foundation of strong organization, communications, attention to detail, and creative vision.
Appointed to the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women’s Cape & Island’s Commission in February 2022, Rachel is the current Visibility Chair.
She is also a professional photographer, avid writer, and a strong advocate for domestic violence education and reform.
Rachel has an innate passion for life and an energy that drives her to constantly explore and break down the impossible. Her greatest achievement and inspiration will always be her son, Cullen.
Date Smart is a ten week program for students in grades 6-8, designed to allow Nantucket Boys & Girls Club members a space to examine their feelings about dating and relationships while encouraging teens to become community advocates for healthy relationships based on equality and respect.
Teens learn to build skills that promote positive relationships free of violence and abuse.
If you are interested in learning more about the Date Smart program, please reach out to Crystal for more information.
November Community Resource Event
On November 19th, A Safe Place and SourceHub hosted a free community resource event at Nantucket High School, with twenty-two non-profits providing information to our local community in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Nearly 150 people stopped by to receive information and other resources.
Thank you to everyone who made this event a success!
A Safe Place’s Child Witness to Violence Program continues to support children and teens through our youth sports groups under the stewardship of Bryan Frascati, M.S., LMHC.
The group sports program is designed to improve peer relationships and teach interpersonal interaction skills that serve to facilitate success in both the classroom and home settings. Currently, A Safe Place is offering children and teens impacted by abuse and or violence the opportunity to skill build through the sport of hockey.
A Safe Place would like to thank Great Point Properties for their recent donation toward our youth sports and social skills program. Your donation helps create impactful moments and foundational support for our youngest members of the Nantucket community.
Thank you to the Nantucket New School for thinking of us with this very special delivery!
Have you heard of Tony Porter and his mission to end gender based violence while promoting healthy, respectful manhood?
Tony is an author, educator, activist and the Chief Executive Officer of A Call to Men.
A Call To Men engages men and boys to think critically at the roots in how they view women as well as their own healthy collective. It also examines how culture and the media may be reinforcing these harmful beliefs.
A Message about Healthy Manhood from A Call to Men:
“Healthy, respectful manhood means valuing and respecting women, girls, and LGBQ, Trans, and nonbinary people — and respecting and valuing oneself by striving to live authentically.
The practice of healthy manhood is the path out of the Man Box, and it is essential to preventing violence and pursuing equity in our society. A Call to Men coined the term the Man Box to illustrate the collective socialization of men. In the Man Box, men are expected to be strong, successful, powerful, dominating, fearless, in control, and emotionless. In the Man Box, women are viewed as objects, as the property of men, and as having less value than men. The teachings of the Man Box allow violence against women, girls, and those at the margins of the margins to persist. The Man Box perpetuates a heterosexist norm that devalues all those who don’t conform to a gender binary.
By breaking out of the Man Box, male-identified people become healthier and help to build and sustain more equitable communities.”
The biggest obstacle that survivors of domestic violence are currently experiencing on Nantucket when trying to leave their perpetrators, is the lack of housing options.
As we all know, finding housing on Nantucket presents a real and on-going challenge when it comes to availability and affordability. Housing remains a real issue on and off-island, with Cape Cod also in crisis with housing options and domestic violence agencies being at capacity.
A Safe Place’s Housing Search Coordinator, Iris Shore, is partnering with clients as they navigate the daunting search for a place to live on island.
If you or someone you know has ideas or leads, please reach out.
