The board of directors at Middle Way House announced Monday it has selected Debra Morrow as its new executive director.
Morrow, 49, first came to Middle Way House as a client in 2005, and the staff helped her overcome the trauma of the abuse she had experienced. She said she has had the position of community service coordinator for the past seven years.
“It seems so surreal that twelve years ago I was a client living at the Rise with my children, and today I am the executive director,” Morrow said. “To me this is a testimony for the services provided by Middle Way House staff.”
Middle Way House is a nonprofit agency that serves as an emergency shelter and rape crisis center in Bloomington. It has been open since 1971, and it serves six counties in southern Indiana.
After former executive director Toby Strout announced her retirement, the Middle Way House board of directors spent months searching for a new director to continue leading the agency in a positive direction, according to a Middle Way House press release.
Board president Michael DeNunzio said in the release the search for the new executive was both wide and deep and the board was pleased to select Morrow to lead Middle Way House into its next era.
“In the seven-plus years Debra has been with Middle Way, she has shown an unshakable commitment to the community, her colleagues, and the clients and residents,” DeNunzio said in the release.
Strout, who was the executive director since 1987, said she was happy with the board’s selection and feels confident in Morrow’s ability to lead Middle Way House.
“We have worked together for more than ten years and for all those years, I’ve been nothing but impressed with her intelligence, her insight, her work ethic, and her kind regard for all those who give their talents to the work at Middle Way and all those who make use of the resources we have to share,” Strout said in the release.
Since she first arrived at Middle Way House, Strout has been Morrow’s role model, hero and mentor, Morrow said.
“I was always impressed with the dedication she had to this agency and the dedication to the mission, the cause and everything about the work that we do,” Morrow said. “I had a lot of time to learn from her, which I truly appreciated, and I do know that gives me an advantage to be ahead.”
The organization’s services allowed Morrow to leave a life of domestic violence and explore new opportunities, she said.
“As a client, it gave me the opportunity to create a different life for myself after a life of violence,” she said. “I used their services and moved into their transitional housing program. I went back to school.”
Morrow started studying at Ivy Tech, and she later received a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Indiana State University, where she graduated magna cum laude.
Before working for Middle Way House, she had worked with incarcerated women at New Leaf-New Life, where she discovered how abuse the women had experienced influenced the circumstances leading to their incarceration.
She said she used what she had learned at Middle Way House to help them.
When she became the community service coordinator at Middle Way, it gave her the chance to come full circle and work with people who had helped her when she was a client.
“With somebody who comes from an abusive situation, they tend to not feel like they have a whole lot of value,” she said. “To then turn around and work alongside people you thought were absolutely wonderful was amazing. I really enjoyed that.”
Morrow said her goals for Middle Way House’s future include ensuring the stability of the services it provides and making sure it is providing exactly what its clients need.
This means listening to suggestions from clients.
Another goal of Morrow’s is to expand Middle Way House’s prevention program.
There would be nothing better than to have less domestic violence or preferably none at all, Morrow said.
To accomplish this, Morrow said the organization can make sure people are aware that prevention programming is available and possibly expand it to younger ages, like elementary school.
“That’s the only way we can truly change,” she said. “We can continue doing damage control work, but it is so vital to prevent the damage in the first place.”
Morrow said in the release her story is just one of many client success stories from Middle Way House.
“All over this community there are individuals who have overcome the devastation of domestic violence and who have successfully accomplished their goals with the help of Middle Way House,” Morrow said. “They all are the heroes, and I am honored to represent them in my job every day.”
