Find Resources
Explore trusted crisis, therapy, victim-service, and community resources.
Start With a Conversation
We begin with a private conversation to learn where you are, what support you need, and whether the First Light program is the right fit.
Join the First Light Program
Participants attend twice monthly gatherings for six months. Each gathering combines practical education, guided reflection, useful tools, accountability, and connection with women who understand the rebuilding process.
Build What Comes Next
Through participation in the program, women may receive everyday essentials and toiletries, professional headshots, job search support, introductions to community partners, and connections to additional trusted resources. You do not have to rebuild alone.
Built Around Nervous System Science
Trauma lives in the body, and a body still bracing for danger can't take in anything new.
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Regulation
Calming the body to open the mind. Breathwork and somatic grounding open every session. The rest of the work only lands once the body is settled.
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Education
Understanding why patterns repeat. Trauma bonds, coping patterns, and how to set boundaries that hold. Plain language, no clinical vocabulary.
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Support
Reconnecting to herself. Equine therapy, yoga, headshots, career coaching. Reconnecting her to who she is outside of what happened to her.
Partner with First Light
In-Kind Experiences, Referral Partnerships, Professional Services, Space / Venue
Hosting, Corporate Support
Help a woman rebuild what survival disrupted.
First Light provides structured support after immediate danger has passed, helping women rebuild stability, work, routine and community.
Support First Light
Help make the next step possible.
Your gift helps women move from surviving to rebuilding with education, practical resources, accountability and community.
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Thanks to generous private donors who fund our operational expenses, 100% of your donation directly funds the resources we provide to women in need.
A message from our founder
I created First Light USA out of my own raw journey through trauma, survival, and the uncomfortable path back to myself. After years of hiding behind performative freedom and hollow coping mechanisms, I realized real healing requires more than just validating pain—it requires taking ownership of it. I built First Light to be the space I so desperately needed: an honest, safe sisterhood to help you face the truth, break toxic cycles, and step into genuine inner strength.
— Luise Borner, Founder
FAQs
Clear answers for participants, partners, and supporters.
No. First Light is not therapy or clinical treatment. Circles do not diagnose or treat mental health conditions, and they do not replace therapy, crisis intervention, victim services, or other professional care. They give women a practical place to learn, practice new skills, and carry them into everyday life.
Still have questions?
Reach out directly. We respond within one business day.
Across the United States
The need is everywhere.
Violence does not stop at a state line. Explore current CDC estimates for women across the country, then see why long-term support after immediate crisis matters.
Source: CDC, National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, 2023/2024 annualized estimates. State percentages are survey estimates, not counts of reported crimes. About NISVS data.
News & Events
See what’s happening at First Light
Event – Beyond Survival – October 6, 2026
Join First Light USA on October 6, 2026, at the Center for Health & Wellbeing in Winter Park for Beyond Survival, a community leadership breakfast focused on stronger pathways for women beyond crisis.
View Event
Insight – Terry Crews: Strength in Vulnerability
A First Light perspective on Terry Crews' public story, male survivorship, vulnerability, power, stigma, and the importance of safer cultures for disclosure and support.
Read Insight
Insight – Relationships After Sexual Assault
A practical First Light perspective on rebuilding trust, boundaries, intimacy, self-trust, and healthy connection after sexual assault.
Read Insight