- [Ashley] Hello everyone,
this is Ashley Kline
from PreventConnect and
I am happy to welcome you
to our web conference today
on Equity, Trauma, Sexual and
Domestic Violence Prevention.
PreventConnect is a national project of
the California Coalition
Against Sexual Assault
sponsored by US Center for
Disease Control and Prevention.
The views and information
provided in this web conference
do not necessarily
represent the official views
of the US Government, CDC, or Cal CASA.
So we know today as we talk
about sexual and domestic
violence that all
communities are impacted,
but we also know that the
rates that folks experience
sexual and domestic violence
vary by many different factors.
And so, systemic, and
equities, and multiple forms
of violence contribute
to high levels of trauma.
And so we're really hoping
to look at how we can
address these realities
in our prevention efforts.
And so you'll see the
objectives we have today.
Infusing equity and looking
at not just individual trauma,
but also community trauma, using an asset
or strength-based approach to prevention
with respect to community
culture, identity,
and other factors.
We really wanna explore the
importance of individual
and community agency
in our change efforts.
And then we'll be sharing
some tools and resources.
With that, I am going to turn
this over to our wonderful
host here at Prevention
Institute, Casey Castaldi.
Casey will introduce our other co-hosts,
but thank you so much, Casey.
How are you today?
- [Casey] I'm great.
Thanks, Ashley, thanks so
much for that run through
and the introduction.
My name is Casey, I'm a
program assistant here
at Prevention Institute
and I am joined today
by Alisha Somji who's
a program coordinator
who'll be helping sort of
facilitate this conversation.
And we will soon be
joined by Lisa Fujie Parks
who is a program manager here.
I also wanna just give a quick shout out
to our wonderful web tech
Ali who's here today.
Ali is helping us keep this show rolling
and I really appreciate all of her help
throughout this process.
Alright, so,
as Ashley said, we are
really happy to be here today
to have this conversation
about how to infuse themes
of equity and trauma into
our SDV prevention work.
And so we have really great guests today
who are gonna share with
us their work pretty soon.
But before they do, I just
wanna give you a sort of
a quick introduction to the material
in case you weren't familiar
or a quick refresher in case you are.
And so, when we're having
these conversations
about community trauma
I think it's important
that we start off with a
sort of common definition
of what community trauma is.
And so community trauma
is not just the aggregate
of individuals in a neighborhood
who have experienced
community trauma, whoever
experienced trauma
from exposures to violence.
There are manifestations or
symptoms of community trauma.
And so really community
trauma is the cumulative
and synergistic impact
of regular incidence
of interpersonal violence.
It's historical and
intergenerational violence.
And it's the continual exposure
to structural violence.
And so we, this definition was developed
as a part of our Adverse
Community Experiences
and Resilience framework that we published
earlier this year.
And this framework
really just takes a look
at community trauma and
the effects that it has
on the community level
determinants of health and safety.
And so, sort of in the context of today,
we really wanted to
look at what the effects
of community trauma and
inequity are on entire
communities and, more specifically,
how those inequities relate
to (digital interference)
of sexual and domestic violence.
And so what we know about
these connections is that
first, structural inequities from historic
and present day policies,
practices, and norms
have led to inequities in rates of SDV
that are exist by age, sex,
race, socio-economic status,
sexual orientation, gender
identity, and other factors.
And also that communities
that face higher rates of SDV
often also face inequities in other forms
of violence and trauma.
And lastly, that we know that
multiple forms of violence
and systemic inequities
contribute to higher levels
of community trauma.
So sort of with all that in mind,
what we're hoping to do today
is really discuss how it's,
it really important to
think about the impact
that community trauma has on
communities and populations
and the individuals that we work with
in sexual and domestic violence prevention
and how we can embed a
community trauma lens
into our work preventing SDV.
And so our guests today are gonna help us,
share what they've been
thinking about in their work
and hopefully share
their unique strategies
that will spark some great conversations
about how to do this, how
to infuse community trauma
and inequity lens into our work.
So with that, I wanna sort of get an idea
of where you all are at in our audience
in thinking about community trauma.
So we're gonna do a polling question.
So you should, in the bottom left corner,
you'll see four options and we wanna know
how has your organization started thinking
about community trauma
and equity in relation
to your SDV work?
And so A is I've never
heard of community trauma.
B is I've heard about it,
but haven't really started
thinking about addressing in the work.
C is we've already started
conversations about how
to address community trauma.
And D is I'm actively
addressing community trauma
in my work.
And so Alisha, what are you
seeing, and I think Ali can,
has shared that or will share it.
- [Alisha] Yeah, so we see
that a lot of you have started
thinking about community
trauma and specifically 42%
of you have maybe not, have
heard about community trauma,
but haven't thought about addressing it
in your specific work.
But we do see some of you
have started conversations.
We have 30% that have
already spoken about it
to their organizations
and a few of you have even
actively started
addressing it in your work.
- [Casey] That's great.
I'm glad that we have sort
of a wide range of answers.
So hopefully today will
be helpful for all of you.
And so now we're gonna just also do
a quick text chat question
for some more context
and we have sort of a few options.
We wanna know just what general
questions you might have
about community trauma and how
it relates to SDV prevention.
And then also, if you've already started,
which I think some of
you have from what I see,
what ways are you already
addressing community trauma
in your SDV prevention work?
And so we will come
back to these questions
throughout the web conference.
As we discuss, please feel
free to add any other questions
you might have and we'll
hopefully get back to them
with our guests and
throughout the web conference.
All right, so with that,
that quick introduction,
I wanna get started by
introducing our first
set of guests who are from Virginia.
And so before we get
started I wanna do a quick
sound check with Leslie
to see if you are able
to join the line.
Leslie, are you there?
And you might have to hit
start six to unmute your--
- [Leslie] Hi, Leslie's here.
(laughter)
- [Casey] Hey, Leslie--
- [Leslie] I love technology.
(laughter)
- [Casey] Glad you're able to join in.
Adriana and Katie, are you there?
- [Katie] Yes, this is Katie, I'm here.
- [Casey] Great, so,
and Adriana are you as well?
(speaking off microphone)
Sorry, Adriana are you on the line?
Just wanna make sure.
(speaking off microphone)
- [Katie] She's workin' on it.
- [Casey] Okay.
(laughter)
We'll get goin' and then
we'll come back to Adriana,
but just some quick introductions.
- [Adriana] Okay.
This is Adriana, sorry.
- [Casey] Oh great.
No, there's no worries,
I'm glad you're here.
- [Adriana] Thank you.
- [Casey] So we'll
start with Leslie Conway
who works at the Action Alliance.
She began work there in August of 2012
as their Prevention Community
of Practice Coordinator.
She travels across the
state to provide ongoing
technical assistance and
support to local SDVAs
on current prevention
trends and initiatives.
She also works with a team
of prevention professionals
to develop resources that build
on current prevention trends
and she's one of the
original creators of DO YOU
which is a campaign that
we'll talk about a lot more
later today, as well as
Ask, Listen, Respect,
which is initiative to
support parents and educators
who work with middle school youths
and have conversations about consent.
And Katie Moffitt is joining
us from The Laurel Center
where she is a Sexual Assault
Prevention Coordinator
which started in April of 2015.
She earned her Masters of Social Work
from Virginia Commonwealth
University in 2010.
And Katie has worked as a clinician
and adjunct professor for WVU
and in teen dating violence prevention.
She is passionate about
social justice, racial equity,
and violence prevention.
And lastly, we have Adriana
Myers who is also joining us
from The Laurel Center where
she started in May of 2015
as the Sexual Assault
Prevention Specialist.
She completed her Bachelor
of Science in Psychology
at Longwood University and
holds her Masters of Science
in Education from Shenandoah University.
And she provides parenting
classes and teen groups
in Warren County and Clark County,
as well as a psychoeducational
counseling crisis
intervention and hotline response.
So thank you all so much for joining us.
We're so glad to have
you all and to hear about
all of the great work
you're doing in Virginia.
So I think we're gonna.
- Thank you.
- [Casey] Yeah, great.
So since there are three
of you, we're gonna try
and split this up and
give you all some time
to talk about your work.
So we're gonna start with
Leslie and we're hoping
you can just give us a
little bit of insight
into the state level
work that you're doing
with Action Alliance.
And more specifically, what
trauma prevention and equity
framework or strategies
have you been using
to inform your work.
- [Leslie] Okay, yes, sure.
The Action Alliance, as folks may know,
is a member based agency
that's made up of local
sexual and domestic violence agencies
around the state of Virginia
that work with state
and federal partners, provide training,
technical assistance,
resource development,
policy advocacy for our members statewide.
We believe that our work
to respond to and prevent
sexual and domestic
violence work in tandem
with other movements, other
important anti-oppression work.
There's a interconnectedness
is how we view our work.
Understanding this, we
started to look at our work
through three connected lenses.
And the first being,
let's see if I can work
these slides correctly.
(laughter)
Our racial justice lens
as well as our trauma-informed lens,
and our asset-building.
Those are the three lenses
that we tend to do our work
through and when we put these lenses on,
we discovered that all
of our work got better.
Our prevention work was informed
by our racial justice work
and vice versa.
Our trauma-informed advocacy was informed
by our prevention work and vice versa.
And our racial justice work was informed
by our trauma-informed advocacy work.
And so on and so forth,
that's how we started to do,
to view the work that we were doing.
From our racial justice lens
included in our organizational
mission is a statement that
acknowledges that understanding
the great harm that racism
has created for individuals,
families, and our communities in Virginia,
as well as within the Action Alliance,
we commit to building
a anti-racist framework
from which to address sexual
and domestic violence.
In Virginia, African
American and black women
in particular are victims of
family and intimate partner
homicide at a rate almost
three times as high
than that for white women.
And so this is the result
of disparities in access
to community resources,
justice, and safety.
And all of these disparities in access
are a result of racism.
So for these reasons and
more we at the agency
believe that providing effective advocacy
and doin' work to end violence
also means investigating
these root causes.
In terms of our trauma lens,
we lookin' at our trauma approach through,
also through elements that we
consider to be asset-building
and in the next couple of slides,
I'm actually gonna move
ahead to that slide,
these are the elements
that we tend to do our work
in terms of having that
trauma-informed response.
That safety is one of those
things that we want to be able
to ensure, physical and emotional safety,
trustworthiness,
maximizing trustworthiness,
makin' tasks clear, maintaining
appropriate boundaries,
choice, prioritizing
consumer choice and control,
and then we have collaboration,
maximizing collaboration
and sharing a power with our consumers,
and empowerment which is
prioritizing consumer empowerment
and skill-building.
So all of these elements
are asset-building.
So a trauma-informed
approach is asset-building
and building skills that also empowerment,
and choice, and control,
all of those things
are also prevention.
Our connection between
trauma-informed advocacy
and our prevention work is very clear,
And in addition, so much
of the trauma that people
experience is historical trauma.
And that's the trauma that is cumulative
and across generations.
So our trauma-informed work is also linked
to our racial justice work.
That, again, is our
interconnectedness that we have
to consider the trauma of
racism and, or oppression,
and the context of someone
surviving sexual violence
and intimate partner
violence, and a meaning
associated with these experiences.
And when we look at our
asset-building lens,
just to kinda go back,
when we look at our asset-building lens,
we understand that building
assets that protect
those factors across our work is crucial
to ensuring resonance with our clients,
our community members, and
those that we work with.
So obviously in our
primary prevention work
our mission is to increase conditions
that will help all of us
thrive throughout our lifespan.
We want to build skills so
that we don't harm others.
We want to build families
that are nurturing and loving
and we want to build it with
communities where we feel safe
and we have access to
learning and recreation
and information.
All of those things that
will help us feel connected
to our community.
We just felt that this
work was so fundamental
that we wanted to look across our work
and try to incorporate
asset-building into other areas.
This is kind of how the
Action Alliance, the framework
that we do our work from,
how we got to this framework.
So yeah.
That's it.
(laughter)
- [Casey] Thank you so much for that.
It's great to see sort of
the progression of how,
how your work was informed, as
well as how well it's played
into sort of the theme
of the whole season,
which is connecting this
work that we're doing in SDV
prevention to other social
and racial justice movements
and other movements in general.
Thanks for that.
Moving forward a little bit.
I want to head back
quickly to the text chat
'cause I see that there's
been a lot of movement.
So I want to head over to our
team, here, in the PI office
to see what's coming up in the text chat.
And if we don't get to your question,
there will be ample time to move forward,
but lift 'em up.
- [Alisha] Yeah, so, this is Alisha,
and on the text chat we've
had a lot of discussion
about defining community trauma.
And so just to redefine it for you,
it's the cumulative and synergistic impact
of regular incidence of
interpersonal violence,
historical and intergenerational violence,
and a continual exposure
to sexual violence.
Dolores has actually shared
a good example with us
about the relationship
between black communities
and the police.
And we do have one question
that I thought I would pose
and that's about,
how do you address community
trauma when you don't identify
with that particular community,
which was asked by Stevie Kelly.
And Katie Paul actually asked
a very similar question,
as well, which is how do
you work with communities
that are different from the primary makeup
of the employees in your organization
and the resistance these
different communities
might have to working with you?
So basically, how can you
address community trauma
when you're maybe not from
that particular community
or people at the organization
you're working at
aren't part of that community?
- [Casey] Well, did you maybe wanna--
- [Leslie] Oh, sure.
- [Casey] Touch on that,
feel comfortable with that?
- [Leslie] Yes, yes.
And actually, you know, I think that's,
that question is a great
segway into what our folks
from The Laurel Center
are gonna be talking about
about how to build those
community relationships.
Because really it's all
about relationship building
and getting to know the community.
And that's just a part of just
in any form of relationship
how you build those relationships.
You try to find those commonalities
and start from there.
I know that, again, that Katie and Adriana
are gonna be speaking to
that piece, so if it's okay,
I wanna kinda digress
and wait until they have
that opportunity to address that.
- [Casey] Yeah, that sounds great.
I think you're right and
maybe we can just move forward
a little bit to our next
question for you, Leslie,
which is just about giving us
a little bit more information
about how
the curriculum was
developed and what equity
and trauma considerations
were made during that process.
So I know you have some, yeah, thank you.
- [Leslie] Yes, I'm there.
(laughter)
Yeah, so,
we frame most of our understanding
about what the research
says about assets and positive development
on the Search Institute's
developmental assets.
The best available research
is the information that was
devised from scientific
inquiry that exists
in determining whether or
not a prevention program,
practice, or policy is actually achieving
its intended outcomes.
Basically, it's saying did it
do what it was supposed to do?
So the more rigorous the
evaluation in its research design,
its implementation, and the
extent to which it has been
replicated in different settings
and different populations,
and the more compelling the
research evidence indicating
whether or not a program,
practice, or policy
is effectively preventing violence.
The best available research
that we had at the time
was the research from the Search Institute
and we looked at the development assets
when we were looking at
creating the DO YOU campaign.
And some of the assets
that, it was a group of,
an advisory committee, so
we had an advisory committee
with prevention experts,
prevention advocates
and in the state of Virginia,
but also a focus group working
with and talking to teens
that this particular
campaign was designed for.
So based on what we
learned from these groups,
it told us that their
experiences in the field,
we narrow it down to two
internal and two external
assets that we wanted to
build through our programming.
These are the two internal
assets that we wanted
to build off of.
Interpersonal competence,
that the young person
has empathy, sensitivity,
and friendship skills.
And then the positive,
personal, the personal power,
that a young person feels
that they have control
over the things that happen to them.
On the external, the factors
that exist around them,
we wanted to build on the
community values youth asset
where the young person
perceives that the adults
in the community value who they are
and what they have to say
and as well as positive peer influence,
that their friends also
modeled the behavior
that we were looking for or
that, responsible behavior.
Those are, that's how we
kind of got to develop,
those were the backup for how
we were developing DO YOU.
Again, DO YOU is that
strategy that we used
to get to these outcomes.
And DO YOU addresses youth
violence and dating violence
by confronting the root causes of,
by enhancing the protective factors,
building resilience to
promote positive development
and healthy relationships.
The target age for this campaign
is for 13 to 16 year olds.
Each session, and, each
session of DO YOU is open
with a bridging statement
that links 'em to the last
activity as an explorential
activity to engage their minds
and to prime them for
whatever work they're going
to be doing, and then they
have a creative activity
where they're actually
working in, it's a magazine,
they call it a zine,
and that's what you see
in this slide here is one of
the teens actually working
in their zine and that
helps them to engage
their right brain, make
connections, and explore further.
And then there's a sharing
and discussion piece
about the content and the
process of what they were doing.
When we designed DO YOU,
we specifically worked
with the African American
community because we wanted
this information to be relevant
for that community as well.
It's really no good in
having a particular strategy
if it's not going to work for
or follow our mission of
being something that impacts
the racial and gender
divides that sometimes
we face in our society.
That's what this,
that's what DO YOU is about.
- Well thank you--
- And again--
- [Casey] Appreciate that.
- [Leslie] Mm-hmm.
- [Casey] Sorry, go for
it, what were you saying?
- [Leslie] No, I just,
again, I don't wanna go into
what is gonna come with Katie and Adriana,
so I just wanted to give you
a little bit of background
of how we came about to design DO YOU.
- [Casey] Yeah, thank you so much,
and I know that Katie and
Adriana are gonna talk,
like you said, a little
bit more about that
and how DO YOU is playing
out on the ground.
And so, as you can see,
I wanna, before we go
to hand it over to Katie and Adriana,
I wanted to sort of pull up
the text chat and see what
the audience is thinking.
So as we talk about this
one particular program
and curriculum, I'm really
curious, in the audience,
how any of you have adapted
programs and curricula
to better address inequities
in community trauma.
So if y'all could head
over to the text chat
and let us know what you've
been, what you have done
or have heard of, we would love to know,
and while you all write
in we're gonna head over
to Katie and Adriana who will
tell us a little bit more
about their program.
And so I'll head to you first Adriana
and I'm hoping that you can give us,
tell us a little bit
more about the students
you've been working
with and the activities
that you've been doing with them.
And, Adriana, you might be on mute
'cause we can't hear you.
- [Adriana] Yeah, I think
I've figured it out.
Can you hear me okay?
- [Casey] Yeah, we can hear you perfectly.
- [Adriana] Great.
Well, thank you so much.
I just wanted to say a little bit about
what kind of communities
we're working with.
We're from The Laurel
Center and we're a dual
domestic violence and
sexual assault agency
in the northern tip of Virginia.
And Katie and I both work
in somewhat rural areas.
We make up our prevention
team at The Laurel Center
and we're RPE funded, just
to give you a little bit
of background.
We have a lot of prevention programs,
but we're focused today
on our, the DO YOU,
the work we've done with DO YOU so far.
And my work with DO YOU has primarily been
in Front Royal, Virginia.
And all the programs I have been running
have been at non-traditional,
non-residential
programs for youths who have either been
having issues with truancy
or behavioral problems.
And Katie's been working
in Frederick County
and Winchester City and has
been facilitating DO YOU
in residential settings and mentor groups
in conjunction with the NAACP.
So many of the teams that
she's been working with
are from high-risk
communities due to poverty,
history of abuse and neglect,
and racial inequities as well.
Front Royal, on the other
hand, is a new community
for us at The Laurel Center.
We just expanded there a couple years ago.
It's a very tight knit
and isolated community,
so it's been difficult to
establish programs there,
but I also know that
that is also a strength
for that community.
So that's just a little
background of where
we're coming from.
And as you can see,
hopefully, on this screen,
I've listed the 10 activities that we do
with the DO YOU program.
It has been really well received
in all of the areas that we work in.
And this is what we do in
the school based setting.
So during the duration of the 10 weeks,
the student create that
magazine, that zine,
that they end up keeping
at the end of the groups.
And since the program is
creative expression based,
they get to use all of those art supplies,
they have stickers which
they also really love,
and they're particularly surprised, I was,
at the participation
during the values auction.
During that activity, the
participants get at certain
amount of play money and
they're able to purchase
the values that they find
to be most important.
They have a list with some
values like feeling good
about themselves, having nice
clothes, there are good job
being pretty or handsome,
or avoiding abuse in a relationship.
And overwhelmingly the girls
that I worked with would bid
on having the freedom to
make their own choices.
So I thought that was really amazing.
- [Casey] Mm-hmm.
Great.
Well, thank you so much for that,
for that sort of background
of what that looks like.
I wanna quickly head
over to Ashley and Alisa,
and Alisha (chuckles) to
see what the text chat
has been seeing.
I see there's a lot of--
(laughter)
- [Ashley] Sure, yeah.
I can even see.
Thank you, this is Ashley.
I mean, there's some great
stuff coming up, here.
Things that I'm noticing, a
lot of folks seem to be working
with community partners
to kind of tailor things
that they're doing.
And placing them in the context,
and I think Emily said this,
of the social, historical
political, et cetera context
our lives take place in,
so definitely weaving that
through the efforts here.
And Rashima said that they've been using
the Search Institute's
40 Development Assets
through the United Way of Delaware.
And maybe we can get a
link to that in there.
But Alisha, what else are you seeing?
- [Alisha] Yeah, one of
the interesting things
that came up was about offering
options other than calling
the police for bystander
intervention training.
And I think really involving
the people who programs
are for in creation of the program,
whether its collaborating to
develop program strategies
with use advisors or
including conversations
in groups with people of the same gender.
- [Casey] Great, well, I
think that is a nice segway
into my next question
that I am going to pose
with Katie which is we talked earlier
just about relationship
building and I think that's
coming up a bit like Alisha said,
is just really involving
the community that you're
working with.
And so I'm wondering how
you integrate this approach
into working with individual
and unique communities
and with, in young people and how,
how you shape the work with
each individual community
you work with?
- [Katie] Hi, this is
Katie, can you hear me?
- [Casey] Yeah, we can hear you.
- [Katie] Okay, great.
I just wanna make sure.
- A little bit of static, but.
- [Katie] Oh, okay.
I will try, we've got a
storm maybe getting ready
to come through, so that might
be a part of it.
- Oh, okay.
- [Katie] And so for us
at The Laurel Center,
the most important part of the work we do
with individuals or communities
is to first find ways
to let them lead because
it's all fine and well
for us to walk in and
say we know what to do,
but that doesn't go a long
way when you're trying
to develop rapport.
DO YOU fits really well with this mindset.
It allows students to
freely express themselves
in a creative and safe space.
Students have reported far fewer triggers
while using DO YOU compared
to other cirricula reviews
and appear to be less
drained by the activities
proceeding the creation
of their zine page.
But really, DO YOU and
our approach in general
is to allow to individuals
and the communities
we're working with to lead
because they know best.
They know what they need.
(static buzzing)
- [Casey] That's great and
the static is coming in
pretty strongly.
Maybe if you all could share a phone?
Adriana--
- Yeah.
- [Casey] You weren't having.
- [Katie] Yeah, let's see if
Adriana's will work, sorry.
- [Casey] Okay.
No, that's great.
And thank you for thank you for.
- Let's find out.
- Thank you for.
- [Katie] Sorry, we're
tryin' to get hers back on
and then use just hers.
I apologize.
(laughter)
- [Casey] No, it's okay, thank you.
I think it'll be better long term,
make sure that we can hear you.
- [Katie] Okay.
I'm so sorry.
- [Casey] That's okay.
Okay.
That sounds better.
- Okay.
(laughter)
- [Casey] Okay, so thank
you so much for that.
I want to quickly, before I ask
you my next question, Katie,
head to the audience again
for another text chat question
since y'all have been
really helpful so far.
We really just wanna know
ways that you in the audience
have incorporated ways
to promote individual
and community agency in your
work in order to be responsive
to inequities and community trauma.
So I think that you touched on that
a little bit, Katie, already.
But yeah, we're also
curious, like you mentioned
the community knowing what's
best, but how does your work
really strive to increase
individual agency
and community agency?
And you might have to unmute yourself.
Katie, we're having a
little trouble hearing you.
You might have to--
- [Katie] Can you hear me now?
- [Casey] Yeah, we can, perfect.
- [Katie] Okay, I'm so sorry.
(laughter)
- [Casey] That's okay.
- [Katie] So--
- You sound a lot better.
- I'm sorry.
- [Casey] We're glad we can hear you.
- [Katie] Okay, great.
Would you mind posing the
question again, I apologize?
- [Casey] Yeah, of course.
We were just wanting to
elaborate a little bit more
on the work that you're doing to increase
individual agency and community agency.
So I knew you'd touch--
- Mm-hmm.
- [Casey] On that a little
bit, but I know you had
some sort of narrative example or.
- [Katie] Yeah, so one thing
we've done is, to fit the needs
of our community, we realized
that we really needed
to reach out in non-traditional
education settings
because we want to reach
as many people as possible,
especially those identified
as high-risk, at-risk,
or people that are part of marginalized
or under served groups.
That means we've had to make
adjustments with our partners.
We've partnered with local
agencies like the NAACP
and found some really,
really good partners there.
In doing this, we have had
to adapt, adjust a little,
the way that we do things
because we found that that old
adage of if I scratch my
back you'll scratch mine
doesn't really work if you have an agenda
because people can see through that.
(laughter)
So we really try to work with
people as best as possible
to meet their needs along the way.
I'm sorry, I'm trying to
figure out how to move along
my things, here.
So empowerment is really
important to us as well
and we've done that by
allowing groups to kind of lead
themselves and DO YOU allows
that space for students
to feel safe and creative.
An example of this is
I ran a mentoring group
along with the NAACP in town
and we used the universe
activity which was mentioned
in an earlier slide
and boys and girls kind of put themselves
into gender specific groups
on their own without any
of our direction.
And when this happened,
students started working
on their own and then
shouting from table to table
at each other.
And one boy even took it
upon himself and walked over
to the girls' group and
was saying things like
oh, you need to make sure
you put hot on your universe
and things like (chuckles) that.
The girls, understandably,
didn't enjoy this
and wanted the boys to know
that they didn't appreciate
this kind of attention.
So it actually organically
led to a discussion
about how do you let somebody
know you're interested
in a respectful way?
And then the students were able to really
take that discussion
and make it their own.
- [Casey] That's great.
Thank you for that example,
I think it was helpful.
And thank you for sharing
just all of the work
that you've been doing on the ground.
I think it's great to see,
sort of hear the roots
of a curriculum and then
see how it's playing out
in the field, which is really great.
We have a few minutes
and I wanna head back
to the text chat and
just see if there are any
recent responses to the
last question we asked
as well as any sort of outlying
questions we can answer
in the units we have with these folks.
- [Alisha] Yeah, so this is Alisha again.
We had an interesting
initiative shared by Jill.
She was talking about how set
up the volunteer task force
to help deliver primary
prevention in their community.
And so this was based
on a community summit
where there were people
from different systems
such as health care, law enforcement,
religious affiliations, social services,
so a wide range of people involved and how
through this volunteer task
force they actually had
a campaign called Mighty
Mentors which featured
male community individuals
that were mentors
for ending sexual and domestic violence.
And so I know this was posted
before we asked the questions
and I think it still relates
to having these mentors
featuring male leaders in the community
to help end sexual domestic violence
so I thought I'd share that.
Anything from you, Ashley?
- [Ashley] Yeah, I think Emily
brings up a great example
of being really intentional in how
the work is being reflected.
Emily says that in materials,
the language, photos,
and locations we solicit,
we try to reinforce
the message that we believe
everyone in the community
is part of the solution.
So really being intentional
in how you're displaying
the work that you're doing.
And then Alma talks about at the coalition
promoting leadership and
advancement within the organization
with assistance and guidance
from the Women of Color Network.
Think those are good examples.
- [Casey] Great, well thank
you for sharing those examples
with us and thank you so
much to all three of you,
Leslie, Katie, and Adriana
for sharing the work
that you're doing in Virginia
and how it's really starting
to take trauma and
equity into consideration
in a really real way.
With that I think we are
going to now head over
to our guests from
Delaware, Noel and Lauren.
We're so happy to have
them join us as well.
So Lauren is the Empowerment Evaluator
at the Delaware Coalition
Against Domestic Violence.
As the Empowerment Evaluator,
Lauren provides training,
technical assistance, and
coaching using empowerment
evaluation framework to
support evaluation activities
and build sustainable
evaluation infrastructure.
And so she supports statewide
and within local communities
in order to guide, improve,
and sustain intimate
partner violence, primary
prevention efforts
within Delaware and nationally.
And finally have Noel Duckworth who is
the Director of Training and Prevention
at the Delaware Coalition.
And in this capacity, Noel has oversight
for their DELTA program for
intimate partner violence
prevention, their RPE
program for sexual violence
prevention, and the Delaware
Coalition's Domestic Violence
Specialist Certification program,
as well as their training
and programs and offerings.
And she is born and raised in Delaware,
so we're happy to have you both with us.
- Thank you.
- Hi, thank you.
- [Casey] Great, so let's get
started by just really hearing
a little bit more about
the work that you're doing
in Delaware and more specifically
how are you approaching
community level trauma
and what does that mean
for the communities you work in?
So, Noel.
- [Noel] Of course, thanks.
Thank you.
We're, just to frame a
little bit, we're calling in
from our state's largest
city, which is beautiful
and vibrant Wilmington, Delaware.
However, Wilmington, as
we see on this slide,
has sadly been coined Murder Town USA
by some national media and
our city of about 70,000
had a 45% jump in shootings,
for example, from 2011 to 2013.
Recent years, the growth
in Delaware's homicide rate
has outpaced that of every other state.
To better track the
shootings and homicides
within the city, our local
newspaper built an app
to help map and organize all the incidents
going back to 2011.
How do I advance the slide,
why isn't it advancing?
(laughter)
There we go, all right.
Whenever new incidents occur,
they do update this feature.
And since we actually sent
these slides to Casey,
sadly, men, women, and
children have been shot
and the year date incidents
have increased to 96.
And the number of victims
have increased to 109.
So this time last year, we
had about a dozen less victims
and incidents, but three more homicides.
- [Casey] Wow.
- [Noel] Now, it needs
to be stated, I think,
that any crime rates should
be taken with a grain of salt
and this data really does
not fully represent our city.
In fact, in the People's
Report, it's gonna be listed
in the resource section of these slides,
it's a 2010 participatory
action resource study
into Wilmington's
neighborhoods that was led
by Dr. Yasser Payne at
the University of Delaware
and his research team
of community residents
who found that despite an
overwhelmingly presence
of physical violence and
diminished opportunities,
psychological and social
well being was thriving.
Among the 200, or excuse
me, 520 young black men
and women interviewed,
80% said they were happy
or very happy these days.
So it's important to look at multiple
sets of data, obviously.
That said, these increases
in crime did lead the city
with support of the
State Health Department
to invite the CDC to come study
Wilmington's gun violence.
And Councilwoman Hanifa Shabazz
who initiated the resolution
that lead to this study
said that the violence
felt like an illness and an
epidemic and called for the need
for healing.
The study examined, when the CDC came in,
Wilmington residents arrested
for violent gun crime
between 2009 and mid 2014
and looked for certain
risk factors in their lives
such as whether they had been
unemployed, received help
from assistance programs,
have been possible victims of child abuse,
or have been shot or stabbed.
The final report called for
the development of a risk
assessment tool and the
linking of data to create
a better understanding of
which individuals might need
early comprehensive help before becoming
a victim or perpetrator of violence.
It was also suggested that
integrating data systems
would be a component of
community wide efforts
to prevent multiple forms of violence
and help measure the impact of strategies
that address underlying risk factors.
So a few months after the, or
excuse me, before the final
CDC report was issued
our coalition hosted a
conference in the city
and invited Dr. Pinderhughes
as our keynote speaker,
who introduced many of our
partners to the community trauma
framework that we are talking about today.
But before I get to that, I
think it's imperative to note
that Delaware partners
have been actively engaged
in efforts to apply a trauma
informed lens to services,
organizations, and systems.
So for example, in 2004,
we started working with
Dr. Sandy Bloom who
developed the trauma informed
sanctuary model and that's
been adopted by several
of our domestic violence programs.
In 2009, our coalition had the opportunity
to become one of eight sites
working on trauma informed
advocacy and training in a project led by
the National Center on Domestic Violence
Trauma and Mental Health.
So we've had significant
leadership in our state
on this movement.
We're very fortunate.
We're founding members of
Trauma Matters Delaware,
a statewide steering committee
made up of an amazing
and truly dedicated group
of state and communities
agencies working to make
Delaware trauma informed
across systems and services.
And also, the Delaware Coalition
is funded by CDC's DELTA
and RPE programs for intimate
partner and sexual violence
primary prevention and our
efforts emphasize strategies
that address outer layer work.
So things to improve
environments and conditions
in which people live,
work, learn, and play.
So these conversations
around trauma, prevention,
equity, have really been
occurring simultaneously
and really align well with our coalition's
anti-oppression and
social justice philosophy
and framework.
So consequently, our understanding
of trauma has expanded
and we started to approach
it as both this individual
experience defined traditionally
as an emotionally painful
experience that overwhelms
an individual's ability
to cope, as well as its
more collective experience,
particularly for whole
communities like Wilmington,
who are enduring chronic
and pervasive adversity.
So if you've ever attended
a trauma training,
chances are the paradigm
shift has been framed
as the movement of service
and systems from asking
what's wrong wit you to
what's happened to you.
And with the community level
trauma and resilience framework
it stands that our understanding of trauma
as a collective also requires
a shift from what's wrong
with this community to what's
happened to this community,
including asking what
role our organizations
and systems have played in that.
So thinking about
Wilmington, community forms
have identified toxic
stress as a key driver.
People have point out that
Delaware is the first state
to ratify the US Constitution,
but we were also the last
of three states to
ratify the 13th Amendment
to abolish slavery.
And so more recently, there's two things
that typically come up in
our health or safety meetings
that are often viewed as
major drivers of disparities
in violence.
And one is in 1963, despite
protests and lawsuits
from residents, the
federal government seized
and demolished more than
350 homes, businesses,
and churches to make way for I-95.
The highway paved over
major streets and carved out
a new community called West Center City,
which is a present day hot spot for crime.
You can see here like before
when you looked across
your street there were
manicured lawns and neatly kept
streets, but when you turn
around from this picture
that I took and you look across the street
on this corner now,
you can understand why
people continue to describe
how the interstate carved
and hacked through,
that's the word people use,
hacked through the center
of our city's heart.
And then it made these
massive concrete bridges
as one's neighbor.
So before the highway was
built, the city was connected
by corridors, service by trolleys.
Then, just a few years after 95 was built,
riots sparked by the
assassination of Dr. King
broke out in Wilmington,
led to a citywide occupation
by the National Guard.
Our former Mayor Baker, who was
a social worker at the time,
called MLK's assassination as the straw
that broke the camel's back.
And 20 vacant buildings were destroyed,
but Wilmington's riots were pretty small
compared to other, fires and
fatalities in other cities
following Dr. King's assassination.
However, the Governor at the time deployed
the Delaware National Guard
and kept them in Wilmington
of nine months, the remainder of his term.
And after the violence
had subsided just by pleas
from the mayor to reconsider,
this became the longest
military occupation of an American city
since the Civil War.
I'm not a historian, but our
point here is that learning
and understanding what's
happened to a community
from the community's
perspective really helps
frame the work in our
understanding of what
manifestations of community trauma.
And these symptoms are socio-cultural,
physical, build environment, economics.
So again, for example, this
is one of the many memorials
for victims across our city
and just thinking about
the impact of the physical environment,
this is what you'd see when
you look across the street.
- [Casey] Thank you so
much for that sort of
insight into Wilmington.
I think some of those stats
were pretty overwhelming
and I know there was a
question from the audience
about whether or not
that data was, I think,
general, just crime stats,
or whether it was specific
to DV and SV, is that correct?
And my impression is that
those are general crime
statistic, correct?
- [Noel] Correct.
- [Casey] Yeah.
I think that this is great
and I think it really
ties back into sort of
what we were saying earlier
about the connections
between multiple forms
of violence and community
trauma and that, you know,
it increases risk of exposure
to violence in the future,
including sexual and domestic violence.
So thank you for giving
us that background.
I wanna ask you now like what,
so with all that, with
all the violence occurring
in your city, what has
changed about the way
that you've approached your work
and the strategies that you've used
due to the community
trauma that your community
was experiencing and is experiencing?
- [Noel] Of course.
And I'll try to make those
connections on why we don't
have sexual and domestic
violence data up there,
but how they still impact our strategies.
Can I advance?
- [Casey] Yeah, of course.
- [Noel] So one example's
with our CDC RPE funded
strategy to engage men in
sexual violence prevention.
So Delaware Men's Education
Network, Delaware Men,
and Alicia Drew is our staff
member, she's on the chat
function, she couldn't
join us in preparing
for this webinar, so
please weigh in Alicia.
I'm talking about her
work (chuckles) primarily
and it feels awkward.
But Delaware Men is a
statewide coalition building
strategy that mobilizes
communities and we have a diverse
network of MLU partners.
So we have an LGBTQ community center,
an HBCU, a faith based
neighborhood center,
a military base, the National
Guard who I just talked about,
a large state university,
and a college that caters
to non-traditional students,
and a community group
working with black and brown urban youths.
So partners work to implement
prevention strategies
and connect and go through
this journey together.
And the coalition's rule is
to try to create safe spaces
for dialogue, learning,
networking, and planning
guided by group, the group's core values,
consensus decision making, storytelling,
deep listening, and a real
clear commitment to each other.
So our network partners
work very hard to show up
and work each other's events.
They co-host and share resources.
They just spent the past year co-hosting
The Mask You Live In, film screenings.
So you know, students of the
historically black college
invited the Air Force
base and the Guard over
and they sent members and
all viewed it together
and had dialogue.
And then the other thing
that we emphasize is really
on contribution and value
over power or credentials.
So partners who have
less access or privilege
are supported and validated
in their expertise and wisdom
and are provided with
resources and opportunities
to lead to the best of our ability,
(chuckles) with the resources, of course.
The coalition provides training and TA
to help community partners
implement community
driven strategies and
work with which to address
the trauma that can
result from boys and mens
being expose to traditional masculinity,
as well as trauma that
men from marginalized
communities can experience
from chronic adversity.
We explore men's role in
redefining traditional manhood,
promoting healthy fluid masculinities.
And then at the same time
we're trying to connect
network partners across the
network and build safety
and connectedness as a protective factor.
We're also helping
individual partners do that
in their own communities.
So it's like with building
community within and across.
And many of the engaging men's strategies
that our partners in
the broader field uses
are related to bystander intervention,
but our partners from
different communities...
(static interference)
Identifying their norms and promoting safe
(static interference)
bystanding.
So for example, some members of...
(static interference)
Bystanders who intervened
and were later...
(static interference)
With their lives...
(static interference)
In an attempt to escalate.
- [Casey] Noel, you're
breaking up a little bit.
- [Noel] Let me try taking it off speaker.
- [Casey] Okay. (laughter)
- [Noel] Oh my, we're really having issues
with the phone today.
(laughter)
- [Casey] It always happens like that,
but if you could just repeat.
- [Noel] Yeah, so. So partners
shared about how, oh no.
(speaking off microphone)
Okay, I'm holdin' it.
For example, some of our
partners also are located
in Wilmington.
And not long after we
launched this initiative
an innocent bystander was
killed about one city block
from our office while
protecting a woman and a baby
from a man with a knife.
The community recognized
the bystander as a hero,
but the local paper also
quoted friends as saying
if he had just minded his own
business he'd still be here.
So despite the evidence and
effectiveness of bystander
strategies, this really
underscores for us the need
for a community trauma lens
as we take into account
conditions and structural inequalities
and environmental barriers
that leave really few options
for people to bystand without
putting their personal
safety at risk.
So from a statewide network standpoint,
we think it would be really
responsible for our coalition
to remove these kind of one
size fits all approaches
to all of our partners with
working with our partners
to better understand their
perceived and actual norms
and community relevant and
culturally specific strategies.
And so, for example, Project
Pin, Performing, Informing,
Norming is a project that
we have with ARTfusion Inc,
which is a local theater
group and it's developed
under our CDC DELTA funded
practice based evidence
strategy efforts and
essentially what we do
is work with communities
that are interested in having
us come in and set up some performances,
interactive skits, to gather
some community specific data
around, and we use this, these
clickers like you use in,
sometimes, in higher education you've seen
and it's like a live feed
system that allows actors
to improvise based on the
audience response and interaction.
And so they collect their
own, very own data during
the interactive skits and
then we've piloted this so far
in three communities,
in a university serving
non-traditional students to
over about 500 air men and women
at Dover Air Force Base, and
to an all boys middle school.
If you can kind of figure out
how to further mesh the word
entertainment with data
collection (chuckles)
that's kinda what it is,
like edu-data-tainment maybe?
I don't know. (laughter)
Then we host social norms
and messaging workshops
with the community leaders
to debrief their data
and talk more about how
we can, how they might
want to use their data to guide and inform
community relevant media
messaging campaigns
based on social norms
theory and best practice.
So the goal is to, you
know, meet communities
where they are, be strength
based by helping communities
focus on their desired
actual norms and correct
those misperceptions while
also helping partners
apply theory, use data
driven efforts to move behind
those one time awareness
events and really engage
in something more comprehensive
in a really easy way
and informative way.
The actual norms had desired
behaviors over perceived norms
with two of the sites, so
there's clear opportunities
to correct those misperceptions
and promote pro-social norms.
However, at the middle
school in Wilmington,
the data was much more ambiguous and
uncovered community level trauma.
As a result, we got some
funding from our state's
Division of Prevention
Behavioral Health Services
to do some more listening
sessions with men and boys
in Wilmington over the
summer and we're still
transcribing that data.
But we,
the boys shared a lot of
insight about barriers
to bystanding, things that they can do,
think need to be done
to help the situation,
and here's just some quotes.
Some of their barriers to,
extend from community trauma.
One group, the,
the majority of the boys
had expected to get shot
in their lifetime and
every single one of them
had seen someone shot.
And another interesting thing is that the,
the framing of a hero when
you're talking about bystanding
stood out, so thinking
like, you know, if I need
to be a hero, but if I
do I could get killed.
So it really made us think about
and it certainly wasn't
surprising given Wilmington's
rate of violence, but
it really made us think
about our role in not
further harming communities
or coming with them with a
see something, say something
kind of campaign that really
didn't take into account
the conditions in which
they already are living
and how hard it is just to survive.
Those are just some examples
of that work that's--
- Yeah, thank you.
- [Noel] Still kind of
underway, so. (chuckles)
- [Casey] Yeah, no, thank
you so much for sharing that
and I think sort of what
I was hearing a lot is,
in what you were saying,
was just really about,
like you mentioned being
(interference)
to the needs of your
community and where they're,
you know, meeting them where
they're at to a certain
extent, so it's, it's
interesting to see how that
sort of lens is playing out in the work.
I wanna ask, I'm gonna
head over to Lauren soon
to ask a little bit about how
this work has been playing out
sort of in the later evaluation stages.
But before we do, I wanna
head over to the text chat
and ask a question of the audience,
which is really just about how any of you
have incorporated an assets,
strengths based approach
to SDV prevention, so as
responsive to inequities
and community trauma.
And so I know we heard Noel
talk about really looking
at the assets in Wilmington
and how to incorporate
that into the work.
So we'd love to hear sort
of what you all are doing
and I think while you all write in,
we'll have sort of a larger chunk of time
to head back to some of the questions
that have been continually
coming up in the text chat.
And we'd love to hear
your answers to this.
And so while you write
in, we're gonna head over
to Lauren and I'm really
just curious about how
your approach has looked
in the implementation
and evaluation stages.
- [Lauren] Great, thanks.
I just wanna start by saying
that we're truly building
this plane while flying it, (chuckles)
but hopefully I can share
a brief illustration
of some ways in which we moved
from that more theoretical
space into application,
in particular with one
of our local prevention programs.
As part of our CDC funded
DELTA prevention work,
DCADV partners with one of
Delaware's with one of Delaware's
local DV agencies on
implementation and evaluation
of Safe and Respectful.
Safe and Respectful is a
primary prevention strategy
that is focused on strengthening
community connectedness
and improving the physical
and built environments
in neighborhoods in a
particular geographic area
in Northern Delaware.
To give you a quick overview
of Safe and Respectful,
really quick overview, (chuckles)
it's primarily centered
around implementation
of the evidence-based
youth empowerment solutions
for positive youth development,
or better known as Y.E.S.,
violence prevention model.
It's a curriculum based program developed
out of the Prevention Research Center
at the University of Michigan
and it consists of three core
components, a multi-session
curriculum on youth leadership
and empowerment,
intergenerational partnerships
with adult neighborhood
advocates, and planning
and execution of youth led
community change projects.
But Safe and Respectful has
embedded Y.E.S. into additional
wrap around programming that
also includes gender equity
content, educational leadership
building field trips,
building and strengthening
healthy peer relationships,
and coordination with the
agency's other community
based services.
There have been adaptations along the way
that are directly related
to the acknowledgement
of the historical and perpetual oppression
and community trauma
experienced by the neighborhood
where Safe and Respectful
is being implemented.
The local agency implementing the program
has had a long standing
presence within the community
providing various services for many years.
This deep understanding
of the decades of trauma,
isolation, disinvestment,
violence, substandard housing,
adversarial policing informed
early program planning
decisions for Safe and Respectful.
First and foremost, Safe and
Respectful's main purpose
would be to create and
provide a safe space for youth
navigating community trauma,
and at times their own
individual traumas, on a regular basis.
Prioritizing that safe
space, though, means rigid
implementation schedules
go out the window.
Implementation is fluid
and flexible to respond
during each and every
session to what the kids
bring into the space that
day, whether it's a fight
at school, family stress,
or a drug raid on the street
right outside the youth center.
This also means authentically
honoring the proverbial
meet them where they are.
While we definitely take
a strength based approach,
we also acknowledge the
disempowerment and oppression
the youth in this neighborhood
have often experienced,
often by institutions or
programs meant to help them.
We know we need to
understand and unpack this
if the youth participating
in Safe and Respectful
are to feel truly supported
in their development
of their leadership and empowerment.
We have attempted to
account for this by adapting
the model to include many
opportunities for youth
to take a leadership
role in decision making
and planning before launching
into the large scale
community projects.
With all of this, the
bottom line adaptation
is that the community
and the community context
set the pace for implementation,
which admittedly,
isn't easy and can cause
a lot of tension for us
when it doesn't fit neatly
into rigid funding timelines
or due dates.
But in addition to some of
the structural adaptations
I just mentioned, we've also
deliberately incorporated
some specific trauma informed
content into implementation,
like workshops on self-care strategies,
as well as this community
wide event that was planned
in part by the youth.
This particular event shown
here featured a performing
and teaching artist who
was a storyteller, poet,
vocalist, and musician, and
who performed original works
as well as works from the
African and African American
folklore tradition with the
purpose of reinforcing values
and supporting community
members in thinking critically,
identifying safe and healthy
strategies of resistance,
and building resilience.
As the evaluator at the
coalition, I'd be remiss
if I didn't also talk about
how we've also been deliberate
in incorporating a
trauma informed framework
into our evaluation efforts.
Some quick examples of
ways we're trying to go
about doing this include expanding our use
of qualitative data collection methods
like interviews and focused conversations.
It's a lot more work on
the backend, but it allows
for a much deeper context
to be part of our data
and also allows for data
collection to be more intimate
and transparent and to
be a shared experience.
We also try to utilize
more participant involved
or participant driven data
collection using things
like storytelling or photovoice.
Another practice is to identify
as many already existing
opportunities for generating useful data
by capturing data as part of activities
rather than separate from.
We do this through
observational journaling
of session activities or community events,
documenting the outcomes that we see,
feel, or experience from the perspective
of the youth as well as program staff.
And just to give you a
very specific example
from early on in our planning
of how our acknowledgement
of community trauma influenced evaluation,
during the initial review
of the youth survey
that's provided with
the Y.E.S. curriculum,
we noticed the original survey
included several measures
that asked youth to indicate
how often they engaged in
specific risky behaviors
like alcohol, tobacco,
and drug use, as well as youth violence.
We made the decision to remove
those items from our survey
even though the original
developer of the model
considered these to be core
outcomes for the program
because we felt strongly
that asking these questions
violated the safe space
we wanted to establish
and that the items
reinforced the persistent
negative stereotypes of
that particular neighborhood
and were potentially triggering.
Not to mention they weren't
very strength based.
We don't necessarily agree that
these need to be considered
core outcomes of the program,
but we feel that we're able
to get a sense of that data
through qualitative methods
and inviting youth to
share that information
if they feel it is a
meaningful part of their story
in the program.
So just to close out,
I wanted to highlight
some actual data generated
by the youth of the program
using photovoice on the
current physical conditions
of their neighborhood to
document assets and liabilities.
Overall, the sorting of
the images was fairly
straight forward, but a debate broke out
around the playground.
Some youth coded the image as
an obvious community asset,
but some of the youth
quickly pointed out that
the playground should
be coded as a liability,
and you see for the responses there below,
for the reasons why.
Ultimately, they decided
that the playground was both,
but that they also came to the agreement
that this should really be
the focus of their community
change project because they
felt after that in depth
analysis that the playground
should be a community asset
and that they wanted to
work to make sure it is.
And that's all I have.
- [Casey] Yeah, thank you
so much, that's great.
It's really great to see
how this lens and this type
of thinking is being sort
of extended to every step
of the process and how
you can definitely hear
the community voice
throughout all of the work
that you're all doing.
We are sort of getting
close to the end and I,
before we do, I want to sort
of bring all of our guests
back for some final questions.
I know that we've posed a lot of questions
and that the text chat has been
active and there might be
some questions from earlier
where we didn't get a chance to.
So I'm gonna turn it
over to Ashley and Alisha
who can potentially pose
some questions to our guests
or just bring out any
sort of overarching themes
that have been coming up.
- [Alisha] Sure.
So I can start off with
sharing some of the themes
that have been coming up.
A little while ago we had
Emily James share about how
designing volunteer materials,
how they're focusing
on strength based through
intentional choices
that focuses on the diversity
and uses language, photos,
locations that reinforce
that the community should
be part of solutions.
We also had some comments
about helping individuals
and communities identify their
strengths so that discussions
recognized survival and
resilience isn't always about
the trauma and violence.
And I also wanted to uplift something
that was about organizational practices.
So Alma Mann had shared about
the women of color network,
how they've been working
together to promote
a leadership and advancement
within the organization.
And I think Ashley shared that before,
but I wanted to focus in on
how we can even think about
our organizational practices.
But I do have one question
that I'd like to pose
and this is something that
was raised quite early on
in the web conference.
And this question is, it says,
"I work with domestic violence offenders.
"How have other addressed
this while still with holding
"men accountable for their violence?"
So I guess how do you
balance accountability
and addressing trauma?
And I'm not sure if Noel and
Lauren, if you'd like to answer
this, if you'd like us to?
- [Lisa] And we also
recognize that this might be
beyond the boundaries of this discussion.
This is Lisa from Prevention. (laughter)
So feel free to comment
if you do have a comment,
but also feel free to pass
if it doesn't make sense.
- [Noel] Well, I think
that, one of the, our,
I'm gonna skip ahead to one
of my kind of reflections
on this work is that, you know,
as a domestic violence advocate,
I've always been trained on
victim centered advocacy.
So if a victim is calling
or contacting for services
and we're meeting the
victims where they are,
we're working on empowerment
advocacy and letting victims
guide their options and
choices and supporting them
and so one of the questions we always,
most advocates get trained
to ask is something like
what is your biggest fear or concern?
And what we've learned is
with an empowerment advocacy
model, when you ask a victim
what the, you know, that is,
you've gotta be prepared for that answer.
So if the answer is not, oh,
I'm worried about the violence
that's gonna happen in
my relationship tonight,
but I'm worried about
getting evicted from my home
because of X, Y, and Z and
where myself and my kids
are gonna live next week,
that's the biggest concern.
And as advocates, our
responsibility is to support
survivors and victims with those needs.
So that's why there's such a diversity
in the service provision at
domestic violence agencies.
And so I use that framework
to guide this community level
trauma framework around if
we're working in certain
communities and a community
says, and I say what's your
biggest concern or need,
even though I'm there
with a domestic violence
and sexual violence strategy
like some of the things
we've talked about today,
and the community says my
biggest need is that I'm worried
about my child getting, not living to 18
or I'm worried about police brutality,
or I'm worried about the
impact of structural violence
and racism, then our role in
working with that community
is to get behind those
issues and do that work.
And so I think we have to
show up and do that work,
we have to think about ways to be present
and get involved and not,
and work together.
It doesn't mean you put down
your domestic violence advocacy
hat or your accountability
hat with offenders,
but you've got to be
present in the community
in which offenders are
coming from and understand
those larger structural
things that are in place.
There's one school nearby
us that 51% of the children
have a relative who's incarcerated.
If you go into a school
and don't understand that,
that's really gonna change how you engage
and understand the trauma that
those kids have experienced.
So I don't think that specifically
answers your question,
but maybe in a (laughter) theoretical way.
- [Casey] Thank you for that.
Ashley, is there anything
else that's come up?
- [Ashley] You know, there was,
closer to the beginning in
response to the first question
that we posed about how, in
what ways are you addressing
community trauma in your prevention work,
Coy Adams had a statement that
you have to have a structural
intersectional framework.
And so really starting with that.
And I think Dolores,
maybe in response to what
Noel was just sharing, that
sometimes doing this work
we do have to recognize
that folks can be both
a perpetrator and
someone who has experienced
harm and that's the nature
of addressing structural violence.
- [Casey] Okay, great.
Thank you all for your
continual text chatting
and to our guests for your just..
(coughing)
to answer these questions. (chuckles)
So as we wrap up, we have
about 10 minutes left,
we wanted to just really get some,
some key sort of lessons or
recommendations from our guests
just about doing this work
and incorporating this lens.
And so we're gonna bring
back both of our guests,
but we're gonna start with Delaware.
Just Noel
(coughing)
and Lauren, just if you
wouldn't mind sharing
some of sort of you key
learnings and recommendations
with the audience today?
- [Lauren] Sure.
And I just want to start out
by saying that some of this
comes from, we ran through
out work very quickly
and we recognize that.
And some of this actually
comes from a forthcoming
case study that the CDC
is working on releasing
at some point as part of the DELTA work.
Hopefully that will give
more in depth context
to some of our key lessons here.
But as we do this work, we are constantly
really trying to be
aware of the key lessons
that we're learning along the way.
And as I said, we're building
this while we're flying it,
so we're learning each and every day.
But really, the key thing
that we've picked up
is this idea being aware of
the historical disinvestment
in communities that you're
working with or partnering with
and our potential roles in re-victimizing.
And we're always trying
to be very mindful of that
and aware of that,
especially as the coalition,
considering ourselves a pretty
mainstream organization.
Being willing to hold
ourselves and organizations
accountable, not, both
in the present moment,
but also historically
and really understanding
even as a movement, the
accountability that's necessary
and required.
- [Noel] If I could just add
that we have a Prevention
and Social Change Board
Committee that's really trying
to take a look at how to,
what tools they can use in
efforts to evaluate our work to,
with a social justice lens.
And so we're playing around
with some different tools
right now and using it against out work
to kinda critique and
constantly think about how
we use our resources, where
our strategic plan is going,
partnerships, how we're
prioritizing our work.
- [Lauren] Right.
And then recognizing and validating trauma
and prioritizing opportunities
for that healing,
resistance, and resilience
and really putting that
at the top of our focus and our priority,
even if that means that you're
slowing down the timeline
or it's modifying or changing your goals.
And then lastly, that
expanded focus that Noel
just touched on.
That idea of that we may be
going in there as an issues
based organization really
focused on our issue,
but that if we're truly being
guided by our understanding
of community trauma, that
we're going to really be there
in solidarity and partnership
to work with communities
on what they feel are
the most pressing issues
or the most pressing needs
and we're gonna be present
for that and stand for that
and really start to work
across and between issues.
- [Casey] Thank you so much for that.
And I would also love
to hear from our guests
from Virginia and what you
all would like to share
with the audience.
- [Leslie] Hi, yes, so this is Leslie.
Can you hear me?
- [Casey] Yes, we can hear you.
- [Leslie] Okay, great.
Much like Delaware, we,
we're looking at it from
the trauma informed lens
that we always assume
that trauma's in the room
and always acknowledging
what that might mean
for different communities that we work in.
But also, when we are,
when we're talkin' about the movement,
the movement itself has
kind of taken on this shift
where first,
when it first began, we
wanted to hear the experiences
of people who were, of
our survivors and people
who were actually in the
field and in the trenches,
and somewhere along the
line it kind of became more
professional, professionalized, I guess,
and I know that may not
be a word, (chuckles) but.
So we're trying to,
getting back to listening
to the voices of those who have lived
through these experiences,
who have been impacted
by these experiences
and really taking that
into account.
So that means spending more
time from the coalition
perspective, spending
more time in the field,
spending more time in
the local communities
to really get a sense, and
listening to our agencies
that are in these communities
and what's coming out of that.
Really being intentional about
listening to what comes out
out of those relationship.
Those are probably two
of the biggest lessons
that we've learned at the
coalition state level.
- [Casey] Great, thank you.
And Adriana and Katie,
I'm not sure if you have
anything to add?
If not, that's okay, too. (chuckles)
- [Adriana] Oh, yeah, this is Adriana.
I completely agree with what Leslie said
and some of the notes that I
I added to the slides here
and just being authentic,
showing up as who you are,
being aware of your, the
complex trauma that people
experience, and historical
trauma, and the systemic
oppression and all that and
stuff as you go into your work.
Checking your own privilege
and don't be self-serving
as Katie was discussing earlier.
Just showing up and doing
what you can do to help.
- [Casey] Great, thank you all so much
and I think that we might be
able to quickly go through
some tools and resources
and all of these will be
available on the Prevent Connect
website and I think a lot of them
have been shared all ready.
So I know that the folks
from Virginia have a few,
you have, you can just share
this for a few minutes,
a minute, about what these resources are
for folks in the audience.
- [Adriana] Yeah, hi,
this is Adriana again.
I just wanted to place our
website up on the page.
It's thelaurelcenter.org and
if you do have any questions
about how we're facilitating
the DO YOU program,
please feel free to call us
and ask to speak with Katie
or myself.
Our office number's there
on the, on the side.
It's the 667, or 540-667-6160.
Thank you so much.
- [Casey] Yeah, great.
And Noel and Lauren, I
know you had spoke earlier
about the report that
you're gonna share with us
on the next slide about
the People's Report,
but if you could just share
some resources with folks.
- [Noel] Yeah, the
People's Report was really
amazing effort underway and
I'd encourage you to visit
their website.
And because also it's
difficult to talk about
the violence and trauma in Wilmington
and I think this report that
comes from the community
and really underscores
how resilient residents,
especially Wilmington's
53% African America,
so black and brown communities
who have been marginalized
and dealt with this chronic
adversity really have a high
positive and optimistic view
point and people are just,
the research shows how
People's participants overall
were found to be, to have high levels
of psychological and social well being
and attitudes toward education
and so it's just a wonderful
reminder of the resiliency
of the human spirit
and helps us think more
about all this other data
that we get inundated with
in these national media.
- [Casey] Mm-hmm.
- [Noel] Idols. (chuckles)
and then the other report
is Healing the hurt:
Trauam-informed approached to
the health of boys and young
men of color by the Drexel
School of Public Health.
And then from the Bridge
Housing, which I think
the Prevention Institute
has done some work with them
before on these webinars
around trauma informed
community building.
- [Casey] Great, thank you so much.
And we have some resources,
too, but we'll make sure
to put them on the
Prevent Connect website.
And we just wanted to thank you all again.
Thank you to our guests
for being here today.
Thank you all in the audience for being on
this web conference, as well
as web conferences throughout
this season.
This is our last Prevent
Connect for the season,
but we are really thankful
for all of your participation
for the past nine months or
so and are looking forward
to what next season has to bring.
So thanks everyone. (chuckles)
- [Ashley] Yes, thank you
all and thank you, Casey.
Thank you, Lisa, thank you,
Alisha, thank you, Ali.
Thank you to all of our guests,
everyone in our audience.
Beyond Partnerships: Shared
Linkages for Prevention
was the name of this series
and if you missed any,
we encourage you to take a
look at the archived recording.
But this concludes our
web conference for today,
so thank you all.
We hope you have a wonderful
rest of your day and week.
Take care.
