Safe Families provides mom, three kids with a fresh start

Deeaun was living in a shelter when she reached out to Safe Families in March. Married at 15 and divorced at 27, she had had an on-again, off-again relationship with her ex-husband, Mike.

“We’d always fought, but in the last year he’d gotten abusive with me and mean to the kids,” she says. “One night he got really physical, and the police came. They took me and my three kids downtown to a shelter. We didn’t even have a chance to grab toys or extra clothes, we just left.”

Deeaun and her children—six-year-old twin girls and a five-year-old boy—stayed at the shelter for two days. With no job, no money, and no plan, it was a stressful time, to say the least. Then someone at the shelter told Deeaun about Safe Families.

The idea of allowing someone else to care for the kids temporarily both appealed to her and terrified her. After talking with one of our caseworkers, Tracy Mitchell-Strong, she agreed to place the twins with a Safe Family.

They would stay there for a month while she worked as many hours as possible to save up money for a security deposit and first-month’s rent. Deeaun and her son would live with Deeaun’s mom, who could help with babysitting.

“Tracy really put me at ease — she is beyond awesome!” Deeaun says. “I loved her attitude, her spirit, and the way she helped me see that I was doing right by my kids. I don’t know what I would have done without Tracy’s support and help.”

God provided several jobs for Deeaun, and she ended up working 18-20 hours a day for the entire month. At that point, she was able to rent an apartment, find childcare, and cut her work hours to a manageable level.

“Safe Families gave me an opportunity to get myself to a stable place for my family,” Deeaun says today. “Now we are doing great.”

We think Deeaun will always remember her connection with Safe Families as a turning point—a time in which she went from stressed out and scared to settled in her own home, without the fear of violence.

That’s what Safe Families for Children is all about!