Women’s Center High Desert

I moved here to Ridgecrest four years ago. I had been a counselor for many years so I called this company to seek employment. They asked me if I would be willing to attend classes and become a volunteer. I was thrilled. I had friends from my home town, in the Kern River Valley, that were affiliated with this organization. One was an employee. The other friend worked for the county and she had been volunteering for High Desert Women’s Center for many years.
I did miss a few classes, but these ladies were more than willing to provide make ups for me, perhaps because I was respectful and courteous about it.
The program does last for a couple of months, and these women go ‘all out’ to give the best education that they could. We attended mock trials, played games. I won one game. It had 8 pictures and it listed their crimes. You had to match the crime to the faces. LOL. We had the opportunity to participate in many fundraisers and events in our little community. The ladies took us on field trips to the hospital, police station and sheriff station, as well as the courthouse. We had speakers from the courts and the law enforcement agencies, and from Fleet and Family Services. A local Therapist came in and educated us about the different types of people we’d come across and ‘how to gain empathy for them’.
I was very interested to discover the diversity of these valient group of volunteers.
The shelter is lovely and a wonderful place to be in transition.
Having a history, myself, of being a domestic Violence victim in the 90s, I found this place and these women a miracle in action. In the 90s, the courts and law enforcement were not interested in helping victims. This shelter has a close relationship with Law Enforcement and has educated them, as well. Many Law Enforcement officers in this community now volunteer their time, as well. There is even one law enforcement officer that became one because of this organization. That I find wonderful because in the 90s, Law Enforcement was not kind to victims.
I have read the review from Sarah. I cannot agree. If I did, I would be lying.
On a scale of 1 – 10, I rate this company 10!

I tried to volunteer at this shelter when I first moved here. After having worked for a non-​profit that dealt with victims of domestic violence in a very big city, I thought this would be a good way to put my skill set to work in my new community. Unfortunately, the program to volunteer is incredibly long and I had to miss several classes due to work travel, which made it so I could not volunteer. It’s not the length of the volunteer program that bothered me though, it was the fact that I would go there twice a week for 2 – 3 hours and most of the time, they would have nothing to teach us. The staff would just tell stories and waste our time. I found the staff to be incredibly unprofessional and the other reviewer here confirmed the type of behavior that I feared was going on just by my little interaction with this place. Although I have never worked here nor have I ever stayed in this facility so I cannot personally vouch for the behavior inside, my experience turned me off so much that I do not every want to volunteer there and will not be donating to them, which are two things that I was hoping to do. All that said, it is the only facility in Ridgecrest of this type and I cannot vouch for the treatment of victims but only the very unprofessional manner of the staff in the volunteer program. There was nothing outwardly personal or mean that I experienced, just sheer unprofesssional behavior and a very disorganized volunteer program.