Monarch 61 opens new center to support survivors of domestic abuse

Sep. 2—For women who have experienced trauma, Monarch 61 is a place for them to find healing.

Nicole Walton, founder of Monarch 61, recognized there was a need for long-term aftercare for women in the River Valley. Walton is also a sexual assault nurse examiner at the Crisis Center in Fort Smith.

"Our targets are specifically generational poverty," Walton said. "Women that are victims of sexual assault and women who are victims of domestic violence. That's really where our heart lies."

Monarch 61, which held its grand opening Sept. 1, is a free creative healing space for women offering art classes, wellness classes as well as a mentoring program.

Recently, it began a class called Rise which is a four-week program for women of sexual assault and domestic violence.

"It's all about learning how to feel their body again," Walton said. "How to love their body, building self-esteem and self-awareness where maybe that has been closed for quite some time."

Recently, the 100 Families initiative met at Monarch 61 to share their missions for helping those who have suffered from domestic abuse. The discussion included Penny Burns, CEO of the Crisis Intervention Center in Fort Smith, Genevieve Strickland of the Morgan Nick Foundation, and Nicole Walton of Monarch 61.

100 Families is an organization that utilizes existing community resources to help bring families out of a crisis. Currently, in Crawford County, the group is serving 119 families, 42 of them have someone who has experienced abuse in the last year.

Through all these connected organizations anyone who has experienced trauma has a place to heal and find help and the demographics served typically vary from children to adult men and women.

"We're predominantly female, " Burns said. "Eight out of 10 are female, but the calls from men are about 60/40."

Burns said not everyone who is in poverty considers themselves in crisis, and not everyone in crisis is in poverty. The demographic they typically meet is in the middle that makes too much money to qualify for government assistance, but cannot sustain themselves without a secondary income, like an abusive spouse.

"The demographic we see is not the one who will qualify for any benefits immediately," Burns said. "It's a separate kind of crisis."

Monarch 61 services are all free, which is important to Walton.

"We don't want to create any type of gap between one woman or another woman. We're all in this together," Walton said.

One in five women have experienced sexual assault, and for children, that number drops to one in three under the age of 18.

While anyone can seek help from any group, Monarch 61 deals primarily with women, the Crisis Intervention Center helps men and women, and The Morgan Nick Foundation helps adults and children if they have gone missing.

One thing that all three organizations need is more people to help add programs and expand their resources for the community. Especially in helping children because as Burns said, children in trauma become adults in trauma.

Monarch 61 is located at 105 North 28th Street in Van Buren and can be contacted at info@monarch61.com.

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