Peninsula resident receives statewide honors for work in violence prevention

North Olympic Peninsula domestic violence prevention advocate Diane Kelly has been presented with a lifetime-achievement award for her work with victims and perpetrators of domestic violence.

Northwest Association of Domestic Violence Treatment Professionals presented the award to Kelly for more than 30 years of work in the field during the organization’s annual meeting Oct. 19 in Burien.

“It’s an honor when all of your peers recognize your work,” Kelly said.

The award was a surprise for Kelly, 71, who got a late start as a mental health care professional.

She entered college at age 38 with six children and no idea what she wanted to do.

“I seemed destined to do this kind of work,” she said.

During her years in college, Kelly found herself attracted to women’s issues and worked at a battered women’s shelter.

With each step in her education, she narrowed her specialty from mental health care to specifically working in the field of domestic violence.

Kelly currently owns New Horizons Counseling, with offices in Port Hadlock and Poulsbo, and had a hand in setting up Trillium Treatment Center in Port Angeles.

She also has worked at Forks Community Hospital and Harrison Medical Center in Bremerton.

“The whole thing started with helping victims,” said Jay Mays, New Horizons office manager.

Around 1980, Kelly switched to treating perpetrators to prevent the need to treat victims in the future, Mays said.

Kelly was part of a state committee that wrote the state’s domestic abuse laws in 1994 and in forming the requirements for treatment.

“Back then, we called it ‘anger management’ issues,” she said.

Since then, the treatment system has branched into dealing with substance abuse, which, Kelly said, are both parts of the domestic abuse problem.

According to the state Department of Health:

■ Two women are killed every month in Washington state as a result of domestic violence.

■ One of every six adult women in Washington has been a victim of one or more forcible rapes during their lifetime.

■ One in five Washington women reports being injured by domestic violence sometime in her lifetime.

■ At least 30 percent of all female homicide victims in Washington are killed by a current or former intimate partner.

■ Between 1997 and 2001, more than half of the people murdered in domestic violence-related homicides were woman killed by their current or former husbands or boyfriends.

■ Of the nearly 500,000 men and women in state prisons for a violent crime in 1997, 15 percent were convicted of a violent crime against a family member.

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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.