When Women Lead: The Unstoppable Force Behind House and Heal
Hope is showing up, again and again, especially when the road is long.
In January, anti-trafficking advocates and community partners gathered to recognize the work done by Shelia Simpkins, Director of Residential Services at Thistle Farms, as she received the Hope Hero Award for Human Trafficking Awareness Month.
So, this Women’s History Month, we wanted to reflect on that day and celebrate the extraordinary work Shelia has done as a leader and as an advocate for not only the Thistle Farms community, but in bringing safety and hope to women all across Nashville and the United States.
Unstoppable
Shelia oversees the heart of what Thistle Farms does so well: The Residential Program. Bringing her education, compassion, and lived experience to work with her every day – work that she herself describes not as work, but as coming home – she has stewarded the ongoing evolution of the Residential Program.
Magdalene, the name of the program when Founder Becca Stevens opened the first house in 1997, was initially safe place to lay your head, women holding one another accountable and reaching back to help others, and partnering with community services to provide therapy and healthcare. Over the years and under Shelia’s leadership, the Residential Program has grown to include a 30-day crisis stabilization Safe House, a formal Street Outreach program, record expungement clinics, the Thistle on the Inside program for currently incarcerated women, a robust psychoeducational class program, and so much more.
Director of the Metro Office of Family Safety, Diane Lance, described Shelia with one word that sums up so much of how she approaches life: Unstoppable.
“Unstoppable people like Sheila are fascinating because they are driven by something deeper, stronger, and more altruistic than most of the world. They live and work in their mission - in the change they are determined to see in the world,” said Lance. “For Sheila, there is no such thing as failure. If you are a survivor, you will never fail Shelia. And as anyone who has ever struggled in life knows – people who are patient and keep holding that door open for you are really hard to find.”
One thing to understand about this day is that the location itself held more meaning than meets the eye. The Metro Office of Family Safety is in a building adjacent to the Metro Nashville Police Department’s main headquarters on Murfreesboro Road, between downtown and the I-40/24/440 interchange. And Murfreesboro Road has a long history of being known as a major track – that is, an area for prostitution activities – going back decades.
The symbolism was poetic and real. As Katrina Robertson, Director of National Sales and 2008 Graduate who attended that day put it, “As I rode up Murfreesboro Road that day - I realized you don't have women walking the streets like they used to anymore. Before, you would not have been able to make it up Murfreesboro Road without seeing women hanging out, walking up and down the street. And Sheila has been a part - a big, big part - in getting that street cleaned up by actually, physically going back to the areas that we used to frequent.”
When lived-experience informs approach, magic can happen. It doesn’t always take root on the first try, though. It takes works and the unstoppable dedication that Shelia brings to all she does for hope to bloom.
“She's done that - and still does it - by going out to the street and planting seeds. She's done it more than any of us, anybody else who's come through. I would say she's the person who has worked the hardest to clean up that street,” said Robertson. “I know how she's risked her life many times to try to help women. Whether she did it consciously or not, it's like she realized the need to go back to clean up that area where she experienced a lot of pain. Just the work that she's done to bring in more women from those streets...she's a big reason why that street is a street and not a track.”
Words Matter
When Shelia took to the podium the afternoon of the award ceremony, her words held an appeal for understanding – not of her, but of every other woman who’s experienced exploitation, and who seeks to not be defined by their past.
"I'm a survivor. And that word matters – but I'm a survivor who doesn't like to be called a survivor. I like to be called a thriver. I was surviving on the streets, and I did not get to this side just to survive. That truth doesn't define me, but it does inform me. It shapes how I listen, grounds how I lead, and reminds me every day that healing is possible.”
It’s an understanding that taking lived experiences and giving back to those who haven’t made the journey yet themselves can be heavy, but it can also be full of possibility.
“I didn't come to this work because I had all the answers. I came because I believed, and I still believe, that people are not defined by the worst thing that happened to them. We are so much more than our story,” said Sheila. “I stayed because I witness strength that redefined my understanding of hope on a daily basis. Hope for me is not wishful thinking. It's not optimism without evidence. Hope is showing up, again and again, especially when the road is long. Hope is choosing to believe someone before the world is ready to believe them. Hope is creating spaces where healing is possible, even when it is messy, slow, and nonlinear.”
The Power of Community
As Director of Residential Services, Shelia understands the power of choice and the ability to make decisions for one’s self as being something that many people take for granted, but survivors know to be precious. Each woman who enters the Residential Program for two years does so, learning to live after what’s often been years of trauma and adversity. That doesn’t always make for a smooth path at first.
“She understands that you cannot force someone else’s path forward, and that healing happens when a person is ready – and that ready can happen many times along the way,” Lance said. “So, Shelia shows up for everyone she serves with the rare optimism and encouragement of a first try.”
The Thistle Farms Residential Program adopted the Choice Model so that each woman has the agency to decide her own individual recovery plan to ensure her healing journey will work for her goals in life. But, just like we have since the beginning, Thistle Farms can’t be everything to everyone. We rely on community partners to provide the specialized support and services needed to meet each woman’s individual recovery plan needs.
“I want to be clear, this award does not belong to me alone. It belongs to the survivors who trusted us with their stories, to the women who choose healing – sometimes one painful step at a time – to the staff who showed up with both compassion and accountability, and to partners like the Family Safety Center and Ancora, the Sexual Assault Center, the Next Door, and all of the different resources that are in the community who understand that safety and healing must be coordinated, not siloed.”
When asked about Shelia’s impact as a leader at Thistle Farms, Katrina smiled. “She went and took all the things that contributed to her pain when she was on the street and turned them into positives. She invested in her own self and into this community with her strengths, and has given it to the all the women who have come behind her in the program.”
For Shelia, the return on that investment made in herself and into the women she helps to welcome into the Residential Program can’t be measured in the milestones or numbers. “It's the quiet moments. It's that first night someone steps into housing and gets to sleep safely. It's the first paycheck that a woman earned honestly. It's the moment someone realizes that their life could be more than just surviving,” she said. “That is hope, and that is why we do this work.”
