A Woman's Place is Bucks County’s only domestic violence service and prevention organization.

Founded in 1976 by Founding Mothers Pat Garrett (Groff), Doris Payne-Camp, MJ Kirkpatrick, and Beverly Frantz, AWP began in Sellersville as a storefront, drop-in women’s domestic violence counseling and outreach center. AWP’s first shelter clients, a woman and her two children, arrived at the tiny, one-room apartment on Christmas Eve, 1976. The following year, AWP incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit community benefit organization. Over the next 49 years and counting, AWP has continued to expand services and programs, serving as a leading light in the movement and a beacon of hope and transformative change in our community.

As a community-based social change organization, AWP is committed to fostering societal change as a primary means of ending domestic violence, and providing trauma-informed, survivor-centered advocacy to anyone experiencing domestic violence. AWP provides a full range of advocacy and support services for victims of domestic violence, including:

An emergency safe house that houses survivors and their families, providing a safe and nurturing environment, food, clothing, and access to our other services. Housing instability is an extremely prevalent issue among domestic violence survivors, and our ability to offer immediate safe housing for families remains a vital resource for the community.
A 24-hour hotline and crisis intervention, which is free, private, and confidential. These calls are sometimes the first point of contact for someone involved in a domestic violence situation. This hotline quite literally saves lives.
Safety planning, rapid rehousing, relocation assistance, and transportation to help survivors create a new path forward, one free of violence.
Victim advocacy, court accompaniment, support through the criminal justice system, Protection from Abuse order assistance and civil legal representation to protect survivors from their abusers, while gaining independence.
Individual crisis counseling, trauma therapy, support groups and systems advocacy so survivors have the support they need to heal from previous trauma and navigate their road to a safer, self-sufficient life.
Comprehensive community-based prevention education programs and training, including curriculum around teen dating violence, because understanding abuse is the first step to ending abuse.

AWP’s work is nuanced, urgent, and constant, and our staff’s overarching goal each day is to be ready with the necessary resources, knowledge, and support for everyone who comes to us for help. To accomplish this goal, we rely on the support of our loyal donors—people who want to make an immediate and long-lasting impact in the lives of others.

A WOMAN'S PLACE

A Place for Anyone Surviving Domestic Violence