Saved by Their Surroundings

One helpful factor in healing from psychic wounds is a pleasant environment. In fact, the head of women's services at Michigan’s Grace Centers of Hope calls it the "magic ingredient" in rebuilding the lives of survivors of sex trafficking. It demonstrates to clients that people care about them.

Pam Clark, PhD, has had striking success in helping survivors of human trafficking reclaim their lives. She says that at least some of her success in building Grace Centers from nothing 33 years ago to two residential homes and 62 transitional houses today is that she works with volunteers who help amplify the messages she provides as a counselor.

Her message to the women she works with is that they are valuable and worthy of a better life. As Clark explains, “We do what many shelters like ours do, including life skills classes, one-on-one with counselors, treatment for addictions, lessons in parenting.

Magic Ingredient

But the “magic ingredient” that convinces clients that people care about them is providing them with beautiful rooms.. She has a host of volunteers who take the time to make the survivors’ rooms attractive. They sew pillows and quilts, and they haunt Etsy and thrift stores to make the rooms appealing and homey.

Clark has seen that it changes how people feel about themselves. “It really matters,” she insists.

Clark gives the example of a woman who, while being trafficked and controlled by drugs, was forced by her abuser to steal. The woman ended up in prison, living in a dorm with 50 other women. The prison beds were two feet apart and next to her was a fellow inmate with two crying kids who kept the formerly trafficked woman from sleeping. Her self-esteem was in tatters. “She just assumed that what happened to her was her entire identity,” explains Clark.

When the former inmate arrived at Grace Center and first saw the room she’d be inhabiting for the next year, she asked Clark, “This is my room?” Her eyes filled with tears, as she said in wonderment, “I get to live here?”

“I want the surroundings to be homey and classy, so residents feel good being here," Clark says. She’s found that the environment on the outside can change people on the inside. When the residents experience that they are important and valued, it changes their self-image, and good things follow.

Having a spruced-up environment is just one part of the Grace Center experience. The women have one-on-one counseling every day, and they learn financial skills, parenting skills. In addition, there are classes on addiction, healing form abuse, and 12 steps,

A Force Multiplier

The gifts and the decorating work that the volunteers provide are only one part of Grace Center’s program, but Clark views them as a genuine force multiplier. She feels her work as a counselor is made easier by an atmosphere that aims to be uplifting.

In her view, “It’s all about how you make people feel.” She knows that when people feel valued, and when someone sews a pillow or a quilt for them, and they get to choose the colors, they get to experience that others believe they’re important. “It’s a big part of the healing process,” she notes.

"There is forgiveness and complete acceptance," she adds. "We try to show this to them every day as we love on them and treat them with the utmost respect.

She feels that it’s impossible to overestimate the impact that the attractive surroundings have on the residents. Surroundings can spur a change in self-image from “I’m a throw away person” to “I’m valued! There are people who care about me.”

Homemade pillow slips, and quilts and rooms that look inviting aren’t a replacement for therapy or counseling. Still, the small, inexpensive items can facilitate their healing work.