There is so much trauma

Barb Fischer likes to be in places with room to grow.

She found the perfect spot to cultivate at Advocates of Ozaukee, the domestic violence and sexual assault agency in Saukville.

When Fischer arrived 21 years ago, the agency was serving about 200 people a year with a budget of about $360,000. Those annual totals have reached 900 and $1.3 million under Fischer’s leadership.

Programs have also expanded. A full-time child advocate, legal advocate, housing advocate and a second sexual assault staff member have been added. 

Fischer’s leadership was recently recognized when she received the Patricia Waschbisch Lifetime Achievement Award from Gov. Tony Evers. The award honors people who have provided exceptional services to survivors of domestic abuse throughout their careers and have promoted a vision of ending violence and achieving social justice. It is named after an advocate who was killed in a domestic homicide in 2013.

“The only reason I’ve been able to do this for this long and do the stuff I’ve been able to do is with community, staff and board support. I don’t do this on my own. I may come up with the idea. I may have the outline for the operation of it, but without that team none of it would happen.”

Fischer came to Advocates of Ozaukee after working for the Latino Resource Center of the United Migrant Opportunity Services (UMOS) on the south side of Milwaukee. Ozaukee Family Services Executive Director Cheri Farnsworth encouraged Fischer to apply.

Maintaining the agency’s level of services has been a challenge of late.

The federal Victims of Crime Act funding was cut from $48 million to $13 million, and Advocates of Ozaukee took a $165,000 hit. That led to moving some full-time employees to part time and letting go of some part-time employees.

“That was probably the hardest thing I had to do in the 20 years I’ve been here,” Fischer said.

Six daytime employees now do the work of eight, with two working overnight to maintain 24/7 coverage 365 days per year.

“We haven’t seen a decrease in any of our services yet but I am concerned that our staff will burn out,” Fischer said.

She tries to head that off by keeping a light office atmosphere and telling people when they should take vacation. Fischer, a married mother of two adult children, stays grounded by reading, spending time with her husband and two dogs and at the lake.

She remains motivated despite the difficult job of seeing some of society’s worst circumstances.

“What keeps me going is I get to see every day people making the hardest decisions of their lives and then flourishing,” she said. “The amount of courage it takes to walk away from a domestic violence situation is unfathomable. It’s like you’re going to start your life all over, and when you have kids it’s even harder.”

Advocates of Ozaukee doesn’t have many clients who return to abusive situations, in part because Fischer said Advocates allows people to stay at its shelter longer than others. Most shelters allow 30-day stays while Advocates of Ozaukee’s average is around 70.

It can take several days for clients just to decompress, Fischer said.

One woman in the shelter with her daughter was in the kitchen one day when someone slammed a door.

“She dove for the floor and just curled up in a fetal position,” Fischer said. 

“There’s so much trauma people are coming in with now.”

That, she said, is driven by victims  — 95% female, not counting children — trying to stay in their homes longer because of their financial situations. One woman whose husband made a high salary kept calling for years for help but didn’t want to leave and “deprive” her children of that lifestyle.

Fischer grew up in the late 1960s in Green Bay in a household “that was always about helping people out if they needed it,” she said.

Her father was a millwright and mother worked in a retail store. Her family was involved in church service activities. Fischer was the district Luther League president in high school, setting up collection drives for Christmas.

She attended the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and studied philosophy, then went to UW-Milwaukee and studied urban planning and psychology, but didn’t graduate.

Fischer started working in banking when she got involved with a political campaign with many people who worked for nonprofits. Fischer soon found her home in the nonprofit world, going from Planned Parenthood to Children’s Hospital’s Child Abuse Prevention Fund, then UMOS, which had her writing grants, which she still does at her current job.

Those have gotten harder to come by as foundations have limited their grants to more specific categories, some of which the agency doesn’t fit into, costing it tens of thousands of dollars.

“We’re having to try to be much more creative and expand our reach,” Fischer said. For the first time this year, she wrote several grant applications that went directly to the federal government.

Because of the shutdown, she is still waiting to hear back on those.

The need isn’t going away. Nationwide, the increase in awareness and advocacy has made domestic abuse less taboo. Fischer noted the NFL has run commercials, but she is still fighting misconceptions.

“I think there’s still some opinion that Ozaukee County is incredibly wealthy and we don’t need it as bad as others do because people in Ozaukee County will pick up all the slack,” she said.

That is not the case, nor is the belief “that it doesn’t happen here, that it only happens to poor people.”

More than people are welcome. The agency expanded last summer to accommodate pets, driving more growth. Fischer said 47% of people don’t leave abusive partners for fear of what would happen to their pets.

“That’s really one of the control mechanisms that a lot of abusers will use,” she said.

Sexual assault in the county isn’t as common as in other areas, which can actually make for a barrier to getting help, Fischer said. Fewer resources are available, and it’s harder for victims to find others in similar situations. Abusers, she said, will tell their victims that nobody will believe them.

“When people ask me what they can do, what I always say is if you’re blessed enough for someone to tell you, then believe them,” Fischer said.

Finding housing for clients ready to move on has become more difficult as well. Many want to stay in the area to be near family and friends, and rents have gone from $800 to $1,200 per month, in addition to a few affordable apartment buildings being turned into luxury dwellings.

Rent assistance from the United Way administered through Advocates of Ozaukee, Fischer said, has gone from $20,000 to $75,000, and not just to domestic violence victims.

Fischer has reached a point where she has no reservations in asking for money.

“The way I look at fundraising is I’m giving people the opportunity to do something really good,” she said.

The agency’s biggest financial need right now is “to be able to pay our staff and operate,” Fischer said, “and our staff members don’t get paid a lot.”

The one program that’s missing in the county, she said, is for the abusive partners. Anger management classes aren’t enough, she said. It’s one program she’d like to see added before she retires.

Retirement, though, is not yet on the horizon.

“I don’t know what I’d do,” she said.