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Founder and Agency Director of Tree House Haven, Ida Marie Petkus advocates for victims of domestic violence. “Everyone needs an advocate when they’re going through a difficult period,” says Ida.

Ida came to domestic violence advocacy through a circuitous route. A business major, she focused on communications and worked for a number of years in advertising and public relations. While a media spokesperson at New Jersey Network, she came across a documentary about domestic violence, which opened her eyes to the topic. “I took that information and mentally stored it away,” says Ida.

In 2003, after reading a newspaper account about Alla Barney, a fatal victim of domestic violence in Burlington County, Ida volunteered as a domestic violence advocate for the police department and then the court system. “I see advocacy as another form of communications,” she says.

Ida trained at the New Jersey Coalition for Battered Women and the Rutgers Domestic Violence Center.  She was hired at a domestic violence agency in Burlington County. After a number of years there, in May 2009 she started the nonprofit, Tree House Haven, with Patricia Corbett Seidman, a personal friend of Alla Barney, and Kathleen V. Hogan, Esq, an attorney advocate for victims of domestic violence.

Advocate” advocacy, a strong web presence, a Tree House Haven provides free and confidential advocacy, services, and support to victims of domestic violence and their families. Its signature services are “One24-hour resource and information line, and a recently opened Domestic Violence Advocacy Center in Mt Holly. Tree House Haven works with both women and men – indeed, men represent about 15% of victims. “It is about giving victims more alternatives, more choices, more resources,” Ida says.  For more information, see the organization’s web site at www.treehousehaven.org.
Ida recently finished a three-year term on the Environmental and Open Space Advisory Commission for Medford Township.

Tree House Haven is one of two domestic violence agencies invited to sign
the Domestic Violence Proclamation at McGuire Air Force Base on October. 6th.