For more than 26 years, Mable Dunbar has worked in Spokane supporting survivors of domestic violence while educating the community about trauma, healing, and accountability. Her work extends beyond emergency response and focuses on long-term restoration, helping individuals understand their value, confront shame, and break intergenerational cycles of abuse.
Dunbar believes communities must move beyond awareness toward re-education by learning how trauma affects the mind, body, and spirit and understanding how silence, stigma, and even religious misunderstanding can keep victims trapped. Mable C. Dunbar, Ph.D., is the Founder and President of the Women’s Healing and Empowerment Network (WHEN). She holds a Ph.D. in Family Mediation as well as a Master’s degree in Education and Counseling Psychology.
Dr. Dunbar is a Certified Cognitive Behavioral Therapist and a Clinically Certified Domestic Violence Counselor. Through programs that serve families, youth, and individuals seeking change, she continues to advocate for healing rooted in compassion and truth.
Q: How did you come to Spokane?
Dunbar: My husband and I were pastoring in Michigan, and a friend invited me to come here and talk about domestic violence issues because that was something they were involved with. After that, because the need was so great and there was a lot of response to the presentation, about a year later my husband got a call to pastor in Spokane, and I was asked to run a program similar to what I was doing in Michigan dealing with victims of abuse. This year makes 26 years.
Q: Why is this work so important to you?
Dunbar: Our first connection with domestic violence was one of our church members who came to our door one morning bleeding and crying because her husband had beaten her. I was not really exposed to that kind of physical abuse before, but it opened my eyes because she was a church member.
When I continued my education and became a counselor, the issue came back to me. During my master’s program, I did my internship at a domestic violence shelter, and that is where I came in contact with a lot of women who had been abused. I was shocked that many had a religious background, and they stayed because of religion.
Q: What do you want people to understand about religious abuse?
Dunbar: My passion has always been to let people understand the danger of religious abuse because that is something a lot of people do not want to touch. When you talk about religion, people think you are trying to get them to join your church.
The Bible has been used in many ways to keep individuals trapped in abusive relationships. For me, the worst form of abuse is religious abuse because it is bound up with a person’s life here and also their future. There are lots of women, and men too, who stay in abusive relationships because they do not want to be condemned by God or incur His wrath. They stay because it is bound up with their salvation.
That is a distortion, twisted scriptures. My goal is to untwist the scriptures.
Q: What programs do you operate to support the community?
Dunbar: We have a food pantry called Cleone’s Closet Food Pantry and Cleone’s Closet clothing bank, and everything we do is free. We operate Hope Center, where we collaborate with the police department and victim advocacy, and we have a warehouse where donations are stored and distributed to the community.
We also run Men of Compassion, which helps abusive men understand their role in ending domestic violence and helps them get healing because many of those men have been abused also.
We have YADA, Youth Against Dating and Domestic Abuse, where we collaborate with schools, assist students going into college with scholarships, and educate youth about preventing domestic violence in the community.
Q: How do we break the idea that abuse is “not our business”?
Dunbar: We have to continue community education and keep speaking out. This situation is intergenerational. If we do not do something, the impact continues from generation to generation. It affects the entire family.
It is important to let men know we hear them because men are victims too. This is not a male issue or a female issue. It is a sin issue. Until we stop blaming and shaming each other, we are not going to get anywhere.
Q: What does safety truly mean for a survivor?
Dunbar: Safety is when everyone recognizes they have a right to be here, a right to be themselves, who God created them to be. We have a right to think and to feel and to act. When we have the freedom to exercise those rights, that is safety.
Q: How are trauma and mental health connected to abuse?
Dunbar: Anyone who has been abused has dealt with trauma. Trauma affects us mentally, physically, and spiritually. Sometimes people have pain and do not know where it is coming from. There can be memory loss, disassociation, panic attacks, fibromyalgia, and many physical ailments because of trauma.
When people recognize trauma, they often isolate, and that is the worst thing to do. Abuse occurs in isolation. People learn to hide it, but it impacts their work and relationships.
Q: What role does shame play?
Dunbar: Shame gets at the core of our value and our worth. When people have been told many times that they are no good, they begin to believe they do not deserve anything better. Shame prevents people from recognizing their worth and pursuing something better.
Q: What message of hope would you share with someone experiencing abuse?
Dunbar: Hope looks like people understanding that they are valuable, that they are worthy, and that they do not deserve to be abused. There is help out there, and they need to reach out for help.
If we see something, we should say something. Not invasively, just ask, “Are you OK? Is there anything I can do?” We have to genuinely care, not only by words but also by deeds.
For Dr. Mable Dunbar, the work of ending domestic violence is ultimately about restoring dignity to those society often overlooks. She grounds her mission in Luke 4:18, reminding communities that the calling is “to heal the brokenhearted, to set at liberty those who are bruised.” In caring for the least of these, she believes communities do more than help survivors heal. They reflect the compassion and responsibility required to heal one another.