Safer Options for Battered Women

Human Options: Alternatives for Abused Women and Their Children was born in a church basement in 1981.

Founder Vivian Clecak and three others started with a hotline and opened an eight-bed shelter the next year. Nearly 40,000 clients later, the program operates a state-of-the-art emergency shelter and a transitional living center, and offers domestic violence education and prevention programs that start in kindergarten.

For her work, Clecak has received the Vision in Philanthropy Award sponsored by Freeman, Freeman & Smiley Foundation for Philanthropy, California Community Foundation, Jewish Community Foundation and Northern Trust Bank. Presented Nov. 4 in Santa Monica, the award recognizes the commitment of nonprofit agency founders.

Clecak, a licensed clinical social worker and a marriage, family and child counselor, decided to try to break the cycle of domestic violence when she worked for the county’s mental health department. She said she was shocked to discover that “women were most at risk for violence in the place they should be the safest.”

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To be considered for this column, please send information on the Orange County person being honored along with a photo to Lynn O’Dell, The Los Angeles Times, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626. (714) 283-5685.