Ten years ago two Nassau nonprofits — one that served survivors of domestic violence while the other helped children who’d suffered abuse — decided they could better serve those populations by joining forces.
“We felt very strongly that we needed to create a location where all of the services were under one roof so that we were going to be better able to serve the family,” Cynthia Scott, who became executive director of the merged organization known as The Safe Center LI in 2014, said in an interview Friday. “These issues are not in isolation within families and so that’s how the Safe Center came to be.”
“There was a lot of crossover,” said Scott, who had served as executive director of the Coalition Against Child Abuse and Neglect and who referred clients to the Nassau County Coalition Against Domestic Violence. “They had clients that were there for domestic violence services and we had those same clients working with the children who were victims of child sexual abuse.”
The Safe Center LI, which operates out of a former Grumman office in Bethpage, has grown from about 40 staffers to about 110 people now. The services and reach of the center has grown too. Scott retired from the organization in 2022.
One of the early clients to walk through the center’s doors was Alicia Santandreu, 31, of Sea Cliff. She was 21-years-old when she was hospitalized after an abusive boyfriend attacked her when she tried to end the relationship.
“He didn’t want me to leave, of course, and he tried to kill me,” Santandreu said. “I felt like I had no one to support me or no one who really understood what I was going through.”
Her therapist recommended The Safe Center.
“When I walked in I was very nervous,” she said. “I had tears in my eyes.”
A little girl was playing in the waiting room, she recalled.
“She drew me a picture and she colored it in and that kind of just made me feel like a sign saying that you’re OK,” she said. “If there’s…
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