Georgetown Family Justice Center’s new director excited to help victims of domestic violence

Vicki Bourus retired last June, but her work isn’t done.

She just took over as the executive director at the Family Justice Center in Georgetown.

Prior to this position, Bourus was the executive director at the S.C. Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault. She was there for 12 years.

“That particular job was one that kind of removed me from direct contact with a lot of the victims,” she said.

The coalition was the voice for the 23 advocacy programs in the state. Bourus worked to support those programs with training efforts as well as working with state legislators to improve laws on domestic abuse.

When she retired, she joined the board at the Georgetown Family Justice Center as an adviser without any plans to go back to work. That changed when interim director Joan Meacham stepped down to return to her full time career as a Realtor.

“It really is wonderful to be back at the community level,” she said. “I’m hoping my experience and understanding of the issues will help the program grow.”

Bourus said she’ll be working two to three days a week and plans to continue enjoying retirement.

The center in Georgetown opened its doors at 1530 Highmarket St. in January 2011, and Bourus said it’s different from many advocate agencies, using a model followed by only one other center in the state.

“It’s a very new, kind of cutting edge, national model,” Bourus said. “I think the very first FJC opened about 10 years ago.”

The idea behind the center in Georgetown is to house every agency that a victim of domestic abuse would need in one place.

“There are lots of things needed by a woman seeking help or trying to be safe in a situation like that,” Bourus said. “With the traditional shelter model, they get wonderful services … but they’re stretched from one place to another. The idea is to collocate all of those services.”

She said this way the victim meets with all the necessary agencies, often at the same time and in the same place. As such, each agency from law enforcement to the Department of Social Services, is privy to the whole story.

“It’s very victim oriented,” she said. “That way the solicitor or law enforcement officer who goes to prosecute the case has all the information he can possibly get to make sure the outcome of that trial benefits the woman. The judge has all the information, and the only way for us to do that is for us to all be talking to each other.”

Bourus said there are less than 100 domestic violence centers in the country that operate like the center in Georgetown. The model was one reason she was ready to jump back into the work force.

“It’s so effective,” she said. “I thought I could, and hopefully can, continue to help them build this program and truly address domestic violence in this state.”

She said police across the state respond to an average of 35,000 domestic abuse cases annually.

“That number stays and what that tells us is there’s still more to do,” Bourus said. “South Carolina ranks seventh in the nation for the number of women killed by men and we have been in the Top 10 ever since they started keeping the statistic.”

She hopes to help the center develop stable sources of funding while strengthening the ties to the community.

When she’s not working for the center, Bourus plans to spend more time with her husband, the four children they share and their four grandchildren. She also hopes to tackle a reading list of books that have stacked up on her nightstand over the years.