Rodney Dwyer's first day as executive director of the Family Violence Center was Aug. 3. He succeeded Pat Reiser, who stepped down June 30 after four years as director. Family Violence Center and its 23-member staff provide emergency shelter and counseling for battered women and their children. Dwyer was previously a home health and hospice consultant for accounting firm BKD LLP in Springfield.
Q: What is the purpose of Family Violence Center?
A: The residents come in and they've been abused, neglected, beaten, carrying bruises you can see and those you can't see, and we do everything we can to help them and heal them. We're not just providing shelter; we're helping them get their self-esteem back and build their self-worth. We educate them about issues related to domestic violence ... so they can never have to go back to that situation.
Q: What led you to the organization?
A: While I was at BKD, just as part of our community service, I started volunteering here at the Family Violence Center, and I really fell in love with the place. I'd do everything from taking out the trash to answering phones in the hotline office. The hotline is 24 hours, and since it's staffed all the time, residents can go there to get whatever they need, whether it's an extra roll of toilet paper or a toothbrush or just someone to talk to. That's what I started doing, and I just got hooked.
Q: How does your previous experience help you in this job?
A: I come from a financial background, and dealing with the finances of the nonprofit - which is a big job of the executive director - will benefit from that. But I've also been in positions of management that stand to help here. I have a (Master of Business Administration), which helps with management and human resources. I also minored in psychology in college. I've always had a great interest in that, and that helps a lot just in talking to people and helping them.
Q: What are your immediate goals for the organization?
A: My goal is to get the people who need our help independent and on their own, so they can sustain a violence-free life. Now how do we do that? There are a wide variety of improvements that have to happen in order to get there. I'm not saying we're doing a bad job at all - May was our 33rd birthday, and a lot of great things have happened to help thousands of women. I would just like to ... make sure we're doing absolutely everything possible to help as many women and children as possible. We are a 100-bed facility, including women and children, and we're fairly low-census right now - we're only at 37 percent capacity.
Q: How is the center reacting to the current economic downturn?
A: Right now, we're aware but not panicked. (Reiser) did a great job of getting the agency into a stable financial position, and that's what she's leaving me to carry on. But in this environment, grant funding is starting to dry up a little bit. ... The economy is also going to affect our donations long-range as others tighten their belts as well. We're in good shape, but we're wary of the economic environment.[[In-content Ad]]
An updated Lawrence County Health Department facility is under construction in a new development area on the south side of Mount Vernon, according to project officials.
