Oral history interview with New Horizons Advisory Committee Members

Author / Creator

Madigan, Linda

Available as

Physical

Summary

Sue was on the advisory board early on in the program around 1980 while Mary and Bev joined in the early '90s after the board more or less didn't exist and was reinstated to oversee the transition ...

Sue was on the advisory board early on in the program around 1980 while Mary and Bev joined in the early '90s after the board more or less didn't exist and was reinstated to oversee the transition of New Horizons from a YWCA dependent program to a fully independent program. They remember that separation as being somewhat painful. It seems to Sue at least feasible that a good portion of the advisory board consisted of practitioners in mental health and the AODA field for consultation purposes, although she hadn't really thought of it at the time. New Horizons has strengths like good, dedicated people trying to help and educate women and children and occasionally men who find themselves in abusive situations as well as doing a good job of educating the community on the pervasiveness of this problem and the fact that there is help for it while dealing with its weaknesses such as being underfunded and unable to really network and get the perspectives of other departments who deal with the issue. Bev mentioned that there is a statute in place saying that Human Services board members cannot be on board like New Horizons as it would be a conflict of interest. It's a political issue that she feels is a problem because to cut all people who have experience with agencies such as New Horizons from being involved is going to lead to a less effective board. It's also a direction she'd like to see the advisory board go in to meet in the building and see what's going on in order to know the needs of the organization more fully. They'd like to see a day when the message has sunk into the society and prevention takes the place of intervention, however, for now they believe that La Crosse understands the need for a shelter and have embraced what New Horizons is and what they do. Nevertheless, the message is still very important or the community will forget that the need is still there.

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