More than a shelter

“YWCA is more than a shelter,” says Erin Proch now, who has served as YWCA’s CEO since 2008.

A host of programs and services are offered to help women and their children find their pathway to independence. “It’s their journey, but it’s our mission to help support them,” says Prochnow, who leads a team of roughly 80 people who work in the emergency shelter and at A Child’s World, a nationally accredited public childcare center in Fargo licensed for 127 children.

YWCA does more than provide a safe place to stay. It helps the women heal physically, emotionally and spiritually. Women who have been abused by those they once trusted now receive education readiness and employment training to help them regain their confidence to take their place in the workforce.

Finding affordable childcare is a big concern for women at the shelter. The shelter’s on-site licensed daycare provides care for up to 29 children staying at the shelter on scholarships and served 655 children in 2017. YWCA partners with Fargo Public Schools to offer the on-site Study Buddies, an afterschool program that helps children staying at the shelter to succeed academically.

Because these women and children have come from unhealthy situations, a Sanford registered nurse stationed within the shelter provides care and education. Through a new respite care program started in 2017, two beds are dedicated to homeless women who are too frail to recover from illness or injury on the streets, but not ill enough to be hospitalized. YWCA partners with Sanford Health, Essentia Health and a local shelter for men, the New Life Center, in the respite care program. In the last quarter of 2017, five women received 56 nights of respite care in the shelter.