There are many incredible people who are responsible for creating WINGS and Nancy Derdul ensuring its long time legacy. The first is WINGS? clinical founder, Nancy Biros Derdul. We?re delighted to tell you more about this incredible person and innovative leader.

Nancy Biros Derdul was born in Ohio and graduated from Notre Dame College in 1963 with a Bachelor of Arts degree majoring in Social Work. Nancy moved to Denver in 1974 and pursued training as a counselor at the University of Colorado Denver and a three-year intensive program at the Denver Counseling Center studying under Warren A. Baker, MD, psychiatrist, and Jules Roth, PhD. and Helen Roth, MSW. She accomplished this while she, herself, underwent therapy to heal from childhood sexual abuse, specifically incest. As she looked around, Nancy recognized that there were so few resources for other women like her, and she decided to create a support group especially for them.

She called the support group WINGS, an acronym for ?Women Incested Needing Group Support,? coining the verb ?incested?.

Nancy wrote the first WINGS handbook ? by hand ? in the middle of the night. She advertised the first WINGS support group on S. Pearl Street in Denver, going against the consensus at the time. Her colleagues did not think people would come ? but they did.

In fact, there was a high demand for WINGS? support groups and this made Nancy recognize the need to incorporate WINGS Foundation. She secured the help of WINGS? first Executive Director, Mary Shannon, to manage organizational operations.

Soon, it became clear that ?WINGS? was positioned to help, not only victims of incest, but all types of childhood sexual abuse. And it wasn?t just women who needed these services, but men, too. It?s now more well known that 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men have experienced childhood sexual abuse and could greatly benefit from services in adulthood.

So in 1993, to accommodate the broadening of its mission to include male survivors, WINGS dropped its acronym, but maintained its name and symbol of a bird in flight, a universal representation of transcendence.

In 2000, WINGS made the decision to have all WINGS groups be therapist-facilitated and survivor driven.

In 2009, WINGS began serving survivors in Spanish and also recognized the need to have a support group for the loved ones of survivors.

In 2012, WINGS recognized a need to make its services more inclusive, and created a group to specifically meet the needs of LGBTQ survivors.

In 2013, WINGS hosted our 1st conference focused on supporting adult survivors in partnership with The Kempe Center.

And in 2014, WINGS stood with The Kempe Center and with Denver Health, to host our 2nd annual conference ? where we honored Nancy Biros Derdul with the ?Nancy Biros Derdul Award for Vision, Innovation and Clinical Excellence.? Her daughter, Bethann Derdul Bell, accepted the award on her behalf. WINGS? mission is to break the cycle and heal the wounds of childhood sexual abuse by providing education, advocacy and support to adult survivors, loved ones, providers and communities.

Specifically, WINGS works to connect survivors, loved ones, providers and communities with the resources they need to speak about, heal from and thrive beyond CSA trauma, to live their fullest, healthiest lives.

We do this by offering referrals to qualified therapists, training and education, and therapist-facilitated support groups in a number of confidential locations to adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse and their loved ones.

Our program serves anyone who is 18 and older. Our ?Survivors? & Loved Ones? Guide to Healing? handbook is a comprehensive resource used in our support groups to facilitate group members? processes of learning and healing. The most powerful aspect of our program is the dialogue and exchange that occurs among and between group members in their weekly WINGS Support Group.

In addition to support groups, WINGS offers local and national referrals, workshops, speaking presentations and training to survivors, loved ones, service providers and the general community.

WINGS also offers this comprehensive website and an onsite resource lending library containing information on healing from childhood sexual abuse and trauma. We invite you to utilize these resources to become more informed and empowered in your own journey as a survivor, loved one, community ally or professional working with CSA trauma.

While WINGS is currently based in Denver, Colorado, and our support group services are primarily offered here, we are actively building organizational capacity to be able to offer our services nationwide. If you would like to learn more about being a WINGS partner, please contact our Executive Director at jenny.stith(at)wingsfound.org