East Texas Crisis Center, Tyler TX

BE WARNED!
Survivors - Please look into other forms of safe havens for shelter! The staff does not care about you! They will pick and choose favorites. They will exit some families from shelter for the smallest reasons, but keeps others because they like them. The staff also talks very badly about clients in shelter behind their back. This staff only has 1 person with a bachelors degree in social work and nobody else has any education in trauma. They do not understand that victims have trauma responses to abuse they have faced. They will judge you and say you made everything up in or that you were probably homeless looking for shelter. This is what happens behind the scenes at ETCC.

Possible interns or employee - please make you absolutely have your heart set on working for victims of SA and DV. That is the only thing that will get you through working here. The staff is rude but tries to act nice to your face. If another staff member begins to make stuff up about you, they will always believe the favorites over you. They are also extremely rude to anyone under 30 who works there. When you intern as an undergrad you do no get any time to actually work with clients, it is just filing paperwork and answering phone or cleaning.

Worked with the East Texas Crisis Center (ETCC) when it was an outreach. Back then, ETCC functioned primarily through volunteers recruited from University of Texas at Tyler (UT/T). Remember Dawn Knowles-Franks, Johnnie Patrick, Carol Mantooth, and Bob Geffner (UT/T) as integral. Glad to see it continues to work with excellence through now executive director Lana Peacock. Very Good Work.