Our Founder
Debbie Barentine
Founder & Executive Director
Graceful Confidence is a survivor-led, volunteer-run nonprofit — built and led by people who've lived and are surviving what our participants are living now.
Debbie Barentine founded Graceful Confidence from lived experience. After leaving an abusive marriage, she discovered that reaching safety was only the beginning. The years that followed involved rebuilding confidence, identity, relationships, boundaries, and a sense of what came next.
Graceful Confidence grew from a question shaped by that experience: what happens after survival? Survivor leadership remains central to how this organization is built and led.