Roberta L. Hacker has been an activist and leader addressing the issues of violence against women for nearly 40 years. Since 1988, she has been the Executive Director of Women In Transition. Before Women In Transition, Ms. Hacker served as Executive Director of Voyage House, Philadelphia’s premier agency serving runaway and homeless youth, from 1974 to 1985. Following that, she served as Interim Director of Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth (PCCY), where she worked in the areas of child welfare, juvenile justice, child health and public education. Ms.Hacker began her advocacy career in 1967 as a Community Liaison for Horizon House, where she worked with deinstitionalized psychiatric patients to help them adjust to independent community living.

Through her work with domestic violence and child abuse, Ms. Hacker identified a strong linkage between the two and utilized an incredible amount of her own time in the mid 1990s to establish and coordinate a local work-group on domestic violence. Her leadership led to Philadelphia’s first city-wide meeting between domestic violence advocates and children’s advocates on the linkages of domestic violence and child abuse – a meeting which included key members of law enforcement, domestic violence agencies, Philadelphia’s Department of Human Services (DHS) / Children Youth Agency, the elder abuse and health care arenas, the District Attorney’s office, educators, and concerned citizens.

In 2002, Ms. Hacker sought and received funding for Philadelphia’s first Domestic Violence Summit (held in July, 2003) which brought together personnel from various agencies to work together to ensure that battered women and their children receive optimum services from multiple systems (the police, district attorney’s office, sheriff, health department, DHS, shelter system, and DV/MH/SA non-profits).

Ms. Hacker also initiated the creation of the Philadelphia Domestic Violence Hotline Collaboration, leading the county’s four domestic violence programs (WIT, Women Against Abuse, Lutheran Settlement House’s Bilingual Domestic Violence Project, and Congreso de Latinos Unidos Latina Domestic Violence Program) in providing 24-hour bi-lingual hotline.