Isaiah 117 House sets leadership for Rockingham County’s location

HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) – A new nonprofit in Rockingham County is raising awareness about its mission to help reduce the trauma of children before they enter the foster care system.

House of Isaiah 117 It has locations throughout the United States and provides temporary shelter after children are removed from their homes by Social Services and while they await placement.

Jenny Butcher, location leader for the future Rockingham County location, said the homes provide a clean, safe space for children to stay, but also ease the workload of both caregivers and caseworkers. He added that the home helps ease the transition for foster families.

“Eventually, we will have a house, a home for them to go to. We have caregivers who come and love these children. Then, instead of the caseworker picking lice out of a child’s hair, doing paperwork, and making phone calls to see if they’ll take this child, they can go to their own little space where they can still make eye contact and still talk. To see this kid but to make those tough phone calls,” Butcher said.

Butcher grew up in foster care both in the Rockingham County area and beyond. That’s part of what led her to work at the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, where she specifically handles protective cases.

Now in her new role at the Isaiah 117 House, Butcher said she looks forward to providing comfort to children facing emotions and situations like her.

“I will be standing in front of these children who come into this system, who are terrified, afraid, ashamed of the abuse they have suffered,” Butcher said. “I can tell them. ‘I know how you feel. I was there’. I haven’t forgotten that day. It was 15 years ago, the day I was evicted from the country, and I remember it to the letter ‘T’.”

Butcher said that the Isaiah 117 House is currently in the ‘awareness raising’ phase and that he is still looking for land to build a house on. You can learn more about Isaiah 117 by clicking. Here.

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