In the five years she has guided the Mooresville/Lake Norman office of United Family Services, Kathryn Firmin-Sellers has made some waves. Most recently, she helped lead the charge to secure dollars from the three north Mecklenburg towns to fund a victim’s advocate position, one that has already begun to address a hidden need among women and children in the Lake Norman area.
On Saturday, Sept, 24, upwards of 130 area residents have a chance to help her and her staff stir up the waters a little more by participating in the second annual Cruise for Change on Lake Norman aboard the party boat Lady of the Lake. Titled “Make Waves,” the agency’s goal is to raise $15,000 from the cruise to help support the growing menu of services offered by the local UFS office.
“There’s been this steady trajectory of growth in terms of who we can reach out to,” says Firmin-Sellers. “Last year, we served 1,400 people from this footprint across all the different service areas.”
Those clients are largely in the areas of clinical services, domestic violence and sexual assault. What may be surprising is that UFS is also among the most active credit counseling agencies in the region.
“Last year we served probably 450 clients in consumer credit and housing counseling,” says Firmin-Sellers. “We are National Foundation for Credit Counseling-certified and Housing and Urban Development-certified, so we do a lot of the foreclosure counseling that comes down from the federal government through the state, and we are one of the largest providers of foreclosure counseling.”
Much of United Family Services‘ work takes place at its office in the Oakhurst development at 624 Bailey Road, Suite 290, in Cornelius. The agency also places two part-time counselors at the Ada Jenkins Center in Davidson, one of them among the few bilingual counselors in the area.
“That co-location model really allows us to reach a different demographic,” says Firmin-Sellers. “(Clients) are usually a much lower income and they have a higher level of comfort there at Ada Jenkins. The programming is the same, but they are comfortable there and they are getting all their other supports there. We see about 130 people there in a year.”
A splashy, public event is somewhat out of the norm for United Family Services, which operates in relative anonymity. Its clients are generally private individuals, as evidenced by the hidden need for a local victim’s advocate. Statistically speaking, there should have been thousands of potential clients for the new victim’s advocate program here, but few come forward, largely because of stigma attached to domestic violence and sexual assault, and because of the perception that victims had no comprehensive local support system.
The victim’s advocate is intended for the dual purpose of filling that void and to serve as a demonstration of need for a north Mecklenburg magistrate to better serve the needs of local residents without having to travel to Charlotte.
That need is reflected in the UFS’ clientele. “In my five-year tenure, the growth has primarily been around the victim services division, so most recently all of our counselors throughout the system completed training in trauma-focused, cognitive behavioral therapy, and it’s a very specialized, evidence-based model for treating child sexual assault.”
That’s not something most like to think about, but it is a reality facing the population of Lake Norman, just like anywhere else. And the bad news is that, for UFS, business has been good.
Addressing that growth requires money, and although the agency is funded by the United Way and government grants, there’s always more need. That’s where local residents can help “Make Waves” on the Cruise for Change.
Tickets cost $60 each, which includes the three-and-one-half-hour cruise of Lake Norman, heavy hors d’oeuvres, a one-hour open bar, dancing and silent auction. In addition, raffle tickets will be sold for $5 each for a chance to win an iPad. The cruise embarks at 6:30 p.m. at Queens Landing in Mooresville.
Cruise For Change sponsors include Presbyterian Hospital, Randy Marion Automotive Group, People’s Bank, Lake Norman Currents, Lake Norman Realty, Beth Carter Law and the Lake Norman Citizen.
