KSLTV.com Dec 6, 2024, 6:34 PM BY
My Auntie’s House may look similar to many domestic violence shelters that are typically focused on housing victims, but it is instead focused on helping the abusers.
Cofounders Jana Fulmer and Martha Burkett Fallis built the program with the hope of keeping families together while breaking the cycle of violence.
“We wanted to have a place that focused really on interpersonal violence and working with the whole family,” Fulmer said.
Their program is based on one that they say has been about 95% successful in Israel, and they say it caters to what many families actually want.
“When you talk to families, even on scene, people who’ve just had a really horrible situation, the worst night of their life, will say, ‘I don’t want them to go to jail. I just want the violence to stop,’” Burkett Fallis said.
To enter the program, which is focused on men, offenders need to take an assessment through the Amethyst Center for Healing, the nonprofit’s parent organization. They also need to be employed enough to send support back to their families at home and have a desire to change.
“We don’t really teach little boys that it’s OK to have that whole rich range of emotion,” Fulmer said. “We want to have someone who is able to have empathy and recognize all of the emotions that that they’re having themselves, as well as the people in our lives are having.”
My Auntie’s House has been open for about a year, and so far, the cofounders believe the program is working. They said families can be carefully reunified with safety plans to help make sure the violence does not continue. Otherwise, offenders tend to start the cycle of abuse again.
“One of the things that we have seen about the population that is using violence, they don’t stay out of relationships for very long,” Burkett Fallis said.
However, for those who put in the effort, they believe there is hope.
“We don’t believe that there’s any throwaway people,” Burkett Fallis said. “We believe that all people have the ability to change if they want to make the change.”
Domestic violence resources
If you or someone you know is going through abuse, help is available.
- The Utah Domestic Violence Coalition operates a confidential statewide, 24-hour domestic abuse hotline at 1-800-897-LINK (5465).
- Resources are also available online at the Utah Domestic Violence Coalition website.
- YWCA Women in Jeopardy program: 801-537-8600
- Utah’s statewide child abuse and neglect hotline: 1-855-323-DCFS (3237)
- National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233
