LEWISTON – Paula Paladino never paid much attention to Maine’s license plates. That changed last month when she took over as the new executive director of the Abused Women’s Advocacy Project.

Now, every time Paladino sees one of the plates with “Vacationland” written across it, she thinks of the people who AWAP serves.

“For the hundreds of people who suffer from violence, Maine is no vactionland,” she said.

A 41-year-old Lewiston native, Paladino was hired last month to replace Chris Fenno, who headed AWAP for 12 years before deciding to move to the West Coast to be closer to her family.

Paladino wasn’t looking for a new job when she saw the help-wanted ad in the newspaper. But it caught her attention, and she decided it could be a perfect next step in her career.

“It was kind of spontaneous,” she said.

When she saw the ad, Paladino was running a transitional home in Leeds for children who had been taken into state custody and were waiting to be placed in more permanent situations.

Rumford Group Homes hired Paladino to open the home because she had years of experience and success starting similar homes as the director of residential programs for Sisters of Charity Health Systems.

She held that position for eight years. During that time, she opened three homes: one for adolescent boys with mental health problems, another for people with HIV and AIDS and a third for infants and young children with mental illnesses and other problems.

The infants and young children who live in the last home were all sent out of state at some point to receive services that Maine couldn’t provide, then returned because state officials believed it was important for them to be closer to their families.

During the course of her career, Paladino worked with many children who came from broken homes. Many had been affected by domestic violence.

She met young boys who watched their fathers be abusive, then became abusive themselves.

Paladino saw the job at AWAP as an opportunity to do something to break the cycle.

“It was a challenge I couldn’t turn down,” she said.

She knows that running the agency, which serves victims of domestic violence in Androscoggin, Oxford and Franklin counties, won’t be easy.

She’ll face budget constraints. Two of her first challenges will be deciding what to do in Livermore Falls, where AWAP is losing its donated office space, and to find ways to raise money to make up for the first weekend of the annual corn maze. The event is AWAP’s largest fund-raiser, and this past summer it rained during one of its two weekends.

Paladino also will face the growing problem of a lack of affordable housing.

She worries that some victims are staying with their abusive partners because they cannot get Section 8 vouchers but can’t afford to move without them.

Paladino plans to tackle those problems by continuing to build relationships with other agencies and businesses in the community.

“Domestic violence is not an AWAP issue. It’s a community issue,” she said.

Paladino believes it is important for everyone to realize that the question isn’t, “Why does a victim stay in a relationship?”

“The real question,” she said, “is, Why does a batterer abuse?'”

She understands that some victims have valid reasons, such as children and financial concerns, that prevent them from leaving.

“Every situation is different,” she said. “I believe the victim is the expert.”