Middle Way House, Inc.

For nearly fifty years, Middle Way House has been providing services to people in crisis. Today, Middle Way House provides empowering services such as emergency shelter; a 24-hour help and crisis line; on-scene advocacy; support services; and transitional and permanent housing solutions to support survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking. Middle Way House also touches the lives of community members through our outreach education and prevention programs. Middle Way House serves the following six counties throughout south-central Indiana: Monroe, Greene, Lawrence, Owen, Morgan, and Martin counties.

At Middle Way House, we believe that acts of domestic and sexual violence, and our society’s tolerance of them, are expressions of deeply rooted oppression in our culture. Consequently, Middle Way House cannot hope to end violence without doing the hard work of changing the culture, addressing gaps in legislation and enforcement pertinent to crimes of relationship and sexual violence, and demanding equity in our social and economic arrangements.

Therefore, Middle Way House will facilitate the participation of its staff members in community-based study and advocacy groups, commissions, councils, projects and activities designed to promote inclusion, equality, and a secure and peaceful community. In its internal operations, Middle Way House will strive to be a model of the transformation it envisions in the larger community.

Middle Way House believes that survivors are never to blame for the harm that is done to them.

Therefore, Middle Way House staff and volunteers are non-judgmental in their interactions with victims/survivors.

Middle Way House believes that appropriate services for victims/survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking can only be provided on a free and confidential basis.

Therefore, there will be no charge for services of any kind. Staff and volunteers will maintain information in the strictest confidence. Agreements between staff and clients to release information will be specific with regard to content, recipient, and duration as well as easily rescindable. Staff will strive to minimize requests for information that are intrusive and irrelevant to health and safety.

Middle Way House believes that the decision to seek help and the very fact of survival are indicators of courage and strength.

Therefore, staff and volunteers work from a strengths-based perspective, helping those who seek Middle Way House’s assistance to identify, believe in, and use their abilities to meet the needs they have identified. Middle Way House staff and volunteers will not assume they know what is best for the individuals they are serving; they will provide the best information and resources they have to support survivor’s efforts to make informed decisions. Staff members will act to support individuals only as their support is requested.

Middle Way House believes that acts of relationship and sexual violence are about perpetrators’ need for/belief in their right to power and control over others.

Therefore, Middle Way House staff will work to create and maintain environments free of violence-in any form. All rules and requirements governing the behavior of those who access Middle Way House services will be necessary to the maintenance of safe and sanitary conditions. Middle Way House staff and volunteers will be mindful of the need to be respectful and empowering in all communications with the people who seek our services as well as with each other. The power inherent in staff and volunteer positions will be acknowledged and appropriate boundaries maintained. So far as possible, decision-making will be by consensus and based on careful analysis of information provided by all those with a legitimate interest in the outcome of the decision-making process.