Safe Center LI marks a decade in service to survivors of domestic violence and child abuse

Ten years ago two Nassau nonprofits — one that served survivors of domestic violence while the other helped children who'd suffered abuse — decided they could better serve those populations by joining forces.

“We felt very strongly that we needed to create a location where all of the services were under one roof so that we were going to be better able to serve the family,” Cynthia Scott, who became executive director of the merged organization known as The Safe Center LI in 2014, said in an interview Friday. “These issues are not in isolation within families and so that's how The Safe Center came to be.”

“There was a lot of crossover,” said Scott, who had served as executive director of the Coalition Against Child Abuse and Neglect and who referred clients to the Nassau County Coalition Against Domestic Violence. “They had clients that were there for domestic violence services and we had those same clients working with the children who were victims of child sexual abuse.”

The Safe Center LI, which operates out of a former Grumman office in Bethpage, has grown from about 40 staffers to about 110 people now. The services and reach of the center have grown too. Scott retired from the organization in 2022.

Merged center's early client 

One of the early clients to walk through the center’s doors was Alicia Santandreu, 31, of Sea Cliff. She was 21 years old when she was hospitalized after an abusive boyfriend attacked her when she tried to end the relationship.

“He didn’t want me to leave, of course, and he tried to kill me,” Santandreu said. “I felt like I had no one to support me or no one who really understood what I was going through.”

Her therapist recommended The Safe Center.

“When I walked in, I was very nervous,” she said. “I had tears in my eyes.”

A little girl was playing in the waiting room, she recalled.

“She drew me a picture and she colored it in and that kind of just made me feel like a sign saying that you're OK,” she said. “If there's children here that feel safe, then I knew it was a safe space for me.”

Speaking to other women who survived abuse in group counseling sessions helped her heal and move on with her life.

“I felt like I had a community. I felt like I had support,” she said. “I felt like there were other women who were in different parts of the journey that I was on.” She also saw women who were flourishing after leaving their abuser.

A judge sentenced her ex-boyfriend to drug treatment and anger management classes, she said, and he later died of a drug overdose.

Today Santandreu is a mother and the owner of a Brazilian jiujitsu studio in Mineola.

Nassau DA works with center

Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly said in a statement Friday that her office works with The Safe Center every day of the week.

“They are on the front lines helping survivors access trauma-informed services like housing, legal assistance, group counseling and mental health referrals,” Donnelly said. “For the last decade The Safe Center has been one of our closest allies in the county, and we thank them for helping so many people heal in the aftermath of abuse.”

Over 10 years the organization's services have moved into more areas. In addition to offering counseling and legal services to child and adult victims of abuse, it operates a fully staffed — not volunteers — 24-hour crisis intervention hotline that handles about 6,000 calls annually and a 17-bed shelter. 

“We've expanded to be a direct service agency for all forms of interpersonal violence,” Bridget Mantello, The Safe Center's director of development, said Friday. The organization also offers services for victims of rape and sexual assault and human trafficking. The organization offers prevention training at schools and colleges and it has expanded housing and vocational training programs to help people build new lives. 

“Most of what happens here is hopeful, it's not tears all the time,” Mantello said. “There's certainly tragedy here and emotion and unpacking trauma that happens here. But day in and day out, what I see in this building is hope and that's how I stay positive because I've seen people's lives completely turn around.”

Correction: The name of Bridget Mantello, The Safe Center's director of development, was misspelled in an earlier version of this story.