Marcella's Community Safehouse is a retention facility located in Statesboro. The organization is contracted with the state of Georgia and receives children from all 159 counties. The organization is currently looking to expand its capacity of housing young ladies ages 12-18.
The Start of Marcella's Community Safehouse
Marcella Jones, director of Marcella's Community Safehouse, has been the supervisor at the organization for 28 years. She has a Master's degree in psychology and strongly believes that her ministry is to serve young girls in this city.
Marcella and her husband, Bobby Jones, were foster parents for many years. While she was a stay-at-home mom, they cared for many kids under their roof until her own daughters became of age to go to school.
"I decided that I was tired of staying home," Jones said.
However, she wanted to continue to work with kids in the foster care system, so she pursued starting a group home.
More insight about Safehouse
Marcella's Community Safehouse provides education on life skills from certified life coaches, including Jones and a Human Services Professional (HSP). Beginning at age 14, these young ladies take an assessment to find out what they already know how to do. When the life coaches receive the results, they teach each girl individually on what they need to learn for success in daily living. Examples are knowing how to wash clothes, how to budget money, or how to shop for food.
"We also teach these girls how to make doctor's appointments, how to set up bank accounts, and different things like that. When they leave the foster care system and become adults, they'll know how to do those things on their own."
Marcella Jones
The girls in the home currently attend middle and high school. When necessary, they can also enroll girls in a G.E.D. program.
This safehouse director and staff are very flexible with behavioral management. They use the non-violent crisis intervention with re-directing method. These young ladies receive counseling and therapy sessions to help process what they're going through and to help them find more positive ways to handle their anger.
"I had someone to come out and build a theraupeutic walking trail to help foster more positive behavior, and we have punching bags set up. We have stuff like that, that we've come up with to try to teach them a better, positive way to let off that negative energy."
Marcella Jones
Jones enjoys being the director and working with her team. But she stressed the need for more group homes, especially for our African American children, due to the increase of that race in the foster care system.
"Group homes are very hard to open up, and there is definitely a need in all regions of Georgia [for] group homes for girls. I work with girls that often times face challenges to being placed in a foster home setting, and I provide RBWO (Room, Board, and Watchful Oversight) services to [being a] maximum watchful oversight (MWO) destination."
Marcella Jones
For next year, Marcella's Community Safehouse plans on having more community events, such as a movie night and laser tag night. For more information, please call 912-587-9560.
