Nonprofit Employee of the Year: Cosette Grooms

Cosette Grooms, advocate office operations manager at Harmony House, is increasing staff retention of the domestic violence shelter’s largest department by leading from the front.

In addition to surviving domestic violence herself, Grooms’ background includes spending a portion of her six years working at the organization in the department she now leads – the advocate office.

After transitioning to her current role amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Grooms took the staffing crisis that Harmony House was experiencing – as well as less emotionally demanding workplaces in the community – as an opportunity to lay a new foundation for the department. Grooms says one of her first orders of business was to transform the “largely nonexistent” training procedure into a six-month process designed to fully equip staff members, who are called “advocates.”

Grooms drew from her own experience as an advocate to do so. She says she asked herself, “When I was an advocate, in what ways did I feel lost or confused?”

With this question as her guide, Grooms says she created a training process designed to ensure her team members feel like “experts.”

Training is essential to handle the difficult work that the advocate office does, and the changes Grooms made in the process are the reason the department now has more experienced staff than new hires for the first time in six years. Answering crisis calls and handling intake for new residents are among the duties of the 16 current staff members in the department. Ensuring security of the shelter also falls under their responsibility.

Grooms calls the advocate office “the beating heart of shelter” for Harmony House.

“Because it runs 24/7/365, regardless of nights, weekends, weather, holidays – there’s always an advocate there, if not several advocates there,” Grooms says.

When Grooms’ department at Harmony House is running smoothly, the whole organization benefits – spreading to the entire community. Grooms says domestic violence is more prevalent than many realize, and everyone likely knows someone experiencing it. Supporting those in danger means fostering a safer environment for us all.

“The more that we provide specialized support in our community for people who are dealing with that type of experience, the safer our overall communities become – and the more that everyone can thrive,” Grooms says.