Beckley Register-Herald – Celena Roby has spent the last six years looking over her shoulder just in case she sees him — the man who abused her for 11 years and who held her captive in a bathroom while her two children begged him not to hurt their mother. She left home with her two boys, $12 in her pocket and no idea where to turn. Read
Roby was one of the lucky ones; she got out and she got help from a domestic violence center where she’s still receiving some services. But the services she got early on — an advocate to help with a protective order, counseling, legal services and job placement — were almost as crucial for her survival as the escape from the abuse.
“They took the time to invest in me,” Roby said. “With their help I discovered I could not only survive, but thrive.”
But those services so important to Roby and the thousands of West Virginia women and men who suffer intimate partner abuse are struggling to keep the doors open as federal and state funding, and even private grant funding, shrinks.
