New England Learning Center for Women in Transition (Greenfield, Mass.)

The New England Learning Center for Women in Transition (NELCWIT) targets the needs of women and children in largely rural Franklin County, Massachusetts who have experienced domestic or sexual abuse. NELCWIT was the brainchild of a collective of Franklin County women who, particularly influenced by the self-help ethos of 1970s feminism, devised a means of raising awareness and providing solutions for violence in the home. Working at a time when municipal agencies offered no services for women leaving abusive homes and law enforcement routinely encouraged battered wives to make amends with their husbands, the founders established NELCWIT as a direct service and support agency. Rejecting the prevailing mentality that domestic abuse was a matter to be settled within the family and that it was primarily the fault of the victim, NELCWIT compelled local social service agencies to consider the hands-on approach to preventing and resolving domestic violence.

The group opened an office in 1976, relying solely, at first, on volunteered staff and resources to offer counseling, information, and an ad hoc shelter program that housed women and children fleeing abusive situations in the private homes of supporters. By the late 1970s, successful fundraising efforts and job funding disbursed through the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) allowed NELCWIT's programming to flourish. NELCWIT established a space that functioned exclusively as an emergency shelter and networked successfully with other women's groups and social service and law enforcement agencies to devise solutions to domestic violence and sexual abuse. Unfortunately, the service was much needed: rural isolation made it difficult for many victims to get the psychological and material support necessary to escape abusive situations, and the region's high unemployment and economic hardships produced a stressful atmosphere that contributed to family violence.

At its inception, the group functioned as a strictly feminist, anti-hierarchical enterprise. Administration was managed collectively, "personal sharing" was on most meeting agendas, and "process meetings" assured that no single volunteer or employee exercised too much influence. Around 1980, at the height of its rise to prominence as a self-starting and well-utilized service provider, local selectmen pulled NELCWIT's CETA funding, citing the organization's collective administration (which was seen as providing insufficient oversight) and "anti-male" bias as justification. NELCWIT waged a successful battle to recapture the funding, but the impasse marked the first of several funding crises and a shift to a more traditional administrative structure (although the organization continued to be led and staffed primarily by women). Its longevity and status as a pioneer in the field of providing shelter, support, and prevention of domestic abuse helped to establish it as a recipient of United Way funding and as an influential player in the social services landscape of Franklin County. While NELCWIT has not abandoned its core mission of addressing domestic abuse, its programming has branched out to include outreach to abusers and efforts to stop racism. NELCWIT remains an active organization.

Women's shelter.

Founded in 1976 in Greenfield, Mass., NELCWIT is the oldest continuously-run battered women's shelter in New England. It serves Franklin County and the North Quabbin region of western Massachusetts. In addition to providing safe shelter for women and children who are in need, NELCWIT provides counseling, legal assistance, and a 24-hour hotline for victims of domestic violence or sexual abuse, as well as community education for area schools, professionals, and other groups.