The safe house

When children no longer need the services of an emergency shelter, ELI faces a dilemma. The children are on their way to healing; however, their parents have not yet been rehabilitated. Therefore, the children cannot yet return home.

An extension of ELI's emergency shelter, the Safe House is a transitional facility where abusive or neglectful parents have the opportunity to receive therapy, parental training and guidance, and real-time parental supervision. These parents, many of whom are single mothers, visit the Safe House 3-4 times weekly, and for 3-4 hours each visit generally for a period of three months. In some cases, participating in the Safe House Program is the only way parents will be able to welcome their children back home. Operating at full capacity for three years, the Safe House is directly responsible for reuniting more than fifty families. Without the Safe House, these children would become wards of the state, shuffling between foster families or other long-term living arrangements.

ELI invests in every parent who visits the Safe House: the value of reuniting families and helping children return to their communities of origin is immeasurable.