Providence House Associate Director Provides Compelling Testimony to Senate Committee of Higher Education

In December, Mary Pettrow, Associate Director of Providence House Domestic Violence Services, assisted Georgian Court University (GCU) by providing testimony to the Senate Committee of Higher Education regarding the new Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) Grant. During her part of the testimony, Pettrow discussed domestic violence through the lens of the power and control struggle and also explained how it can be a generationally-learned behavior. She also provided compelling stories of GCU students that Providence House had assisted while focusing on the grant and the ability to embed Providence House staff at the GCU campus.
After the hearing had concluded, Pettrow was approached by Alan Guenther, Office of the Secretary of Higher Education, who found her remarks compelling and thanked her for being the voice of survivors of trauma and violence. Since that day, Guenther has followed up indicating that he would like to feature a story about domestic violence in his blog (https://njsecretaryhighereducation.com) which is circulated to nearly 600,000 students, faculty, staff, administrators and lawmakers across the state.