On May 15th SafePlace and Travis County will celebrate the Grand Opening of PlanetSafe, a supervised visitation and safe exchange center.  PlanetSafe will provide safe visitation and exchange services for parents leaving abusive relationships.

Right now, there is no safe and affordable child visitation and exchange service in Central Texas, which presents a huge vulnerability for survivors of domestic violence. Imagine your ex-partner and the parent of your child is abusive.  Next, imagine that a court requires you to meet him or her to drop your kids off for weekend visitation. Currently, the only option in Travis County is a network of private contractors whose services are designed to ensure the safety of children, not the safety of parents. These contractors charge between $60-$140 per hour. This fee is split between both parents, with no regard to who is abusive in the relationship.

What many end up forced to do is forgo this expensive, supervised exchange and meet at a family member’s house or the closest fast-food restaurant. So many times, this has resulted in more threats, more verbal abuse, and more violence.

PlanetSafe is a two-year, collaborative project of Travis County and SafePlace.  It is funded through a Safe Havens grant from The Office on Violence Against Women. Services will be offered on a sliding-scale basis, starting at $5 for safe exchanges and $10 for supervised visitation. Both parents also have an opportunity to meet with a case manager to talk about needs, receive referrals to other SafePlace programs, or get help to change abusive behaviors.  Initially, families receiving this service will either be referred from SafePlace, or will have a court order. At a later date PlanetSafe will expand to accept referrals from other service provider and the community.

PlanetSafe is located across from the Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center at 1101 Nueces Street in Austin, and, starting in May, will be open Friday – Monday to allow for weekend visitations and exchanges.

Those interested in volunteering at PlanetSafe should attend a 2-hour volunteer open house, and sign up for 40-hour volunteer training occurring in July 2013.

SafePlace provides comprehensive services to people with disabilities who are trying to escape dangerous relationships and establish healthy lives. We’re very pleased to present this guest post by Renée Lopez, a member of our Disability Services Advisory Committee. For more information about specific SafePlace services and programs for people with disabilities, click here.

Aaaahhh the movies! I do so love movies. I especially love movies that features stories about people with disabilities. Over the years I’ve seen many movies with a range of portrayals, from “the angry cripple” to the “blessed cripple” (Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol), the “I feel-sorry-for-myself cripple” and well, you get the idea. But sex and the cripple…rarely.

(From here on I will not use the word "cripple." I hate it and it’s a most derogatory term. I will use "PAD" -- person with a disability.)

Recently, I watched a movie called The Sessions. It's a true story about a PAD with polio who has very little use of his body and needs to use the old “iron lung” to breathe. He is 38 years old and a virgin, and he decides he wants to lose his virginity. He finds and hires a sex surrogate and gets to experience sex -- but also more than that, human touch.

This movie brought to mind my own search for sexual intimacy. As a PAD, I can’t stress enough that I am a person first and then disabled. Unfortunately, in the 1960’s, this was not true. It was the other way around. It was drilled into my head that I would probably never have a boyfriend, much less get married -- and as for having children??? Forget it.

OK, I could see my lot in life. But every once in a while there would be a story -- like the one on 60 Minutes that featured a woman named Bonnie who was born without arms and had been married not once but twice and had two sons!!!  WOW. Stories like that were inspiring and offered hope to me -- but that hope would soon be dashed when someone would make a comment like “he only married her because he felt sorry for her” or “she only married him because she’s fat and no one else would want her.”  Well, there went my hope.

Around age 20-something, I thought it was time to lose my virginity. I was never going to get married, so what was there to wait for? The sex part was easy, but I was left still longing, longing for something I couldn’t define. It was the longing for intimacy, touch, the human touch. I realized I was all too human. Oh my God, what was I going to do with that?!!! The longing all too real.

The shape of your body makes no difference to your humanness. Intimacy is something we all desire, whether you’re a PAD or not. Many PADs are sexually abused or taken advantage of by predators who sense vulnerability and loneliness. I know, because I was one of them. It is my hope and personal effort to support and educate PADs on healthy sexuality and self- awareness. I am very pleased to be a part of SafePlace to do just that.

By Julia Spann
Executive Director, SafePlace

Remember the public awareness campaign “Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk”? It was extremely successful in delivering the message that friends have a responsibility to intervene when their buddies are about to drive drunk. 

I was thinking about that campaign in light of the verdict in Steubenville. In that case, the details leaked out over time, in posts on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. I was wondering to myself, how do we spread a similar message of collective responsibility for our friends? We clearly need to connect with all those who watched, aimed their cell phone cameras, and shared images of criminal acts, rather than trying to stop them.

How can we come up with a “Friends don’t let Friends Rape Girls” campaign? 

Or what about the “Don’t Mess with Texas” campaign? Texans, proud of living in a state where the rights of individuals live large, effectively signed on to a collective responsibility to care for our state.  What if all Texans were urged to protect each other?  What if the campaign was “All Texas Women Are My Sister”? 

Remember the campaign for women to protect themselves from strangers?  Pepper spray, key rings doubling as personal safety devices, classes for young women to travel in packs, instructions that if you are a girl and alone in a parking lot you should look under your car and in your back seat before getting in.  One recommendation from that campaign was for girls to always carry a whistle and blow it hard and loud if they were being assaulted.  It worked -- to the extent that whistle sales increased. 

What if we all carried a whistle and blew it, loud and hard, whenever someone threated to sexually exploit someone else?  When someone is telling a joke that makes fun of women, whistle once -- when someone is bragging about getting a girl to sleep with him against her will, whistle twice.

Without campaigns like these, how do we ever stop rape, sexual abuse and domestic violence? Since the 1970s, we have developed legal remedies, programs for perpetrators, services to help survivors recognize and avoid violence, and programs to help kids learn the warning signs of dangerous relationships. These are good – and: they are not enough. They don’t get through to the kids at that party in Steubenville, who joked about the rape in text messages and videos.

If we only focus on avoiding victimization, we will not end violence.  It is going to take those of us who are in safe and respectful relationships to have the courage to step up, and to teach our children to step up. 

Here is what we know: One out of four women will be a victim of sexual or domestic violence in her lifetime. Does that mean that one out of four men will abuse someone?  Perhaps, but let’s flip that statistic: Three out of four men will never hurt an intimate partner.  Safe, respectful people are the majority.  Let’s use our power and influence for good.  Let’s intervene.

The gang rape in Steubenville is an example of what happens when nobody intervenes. What if one person had intervened that night in Steubenville?  What if someone told the guys that it wasn’t cool, and to stop?  What if someone drove the young woman home?  What if someone called the police?  What if someone recognized that things were getting out of control and threw away all the alcohol?  What if the entire community of Steubenville decided that never again in their town would such an atrocity happen?

What we need is to begin to build a culture of intervention and courage. A culture that says it’s OK to stand up to the football team, in the middle of a party, to prevent a crime from occurring.

Could we build such a culture here in Austin?  Could we stand up to our athletes, our heroes, if we saw them hurting women? I’d like to believe that in Austin, with our legacy of tolerance and respect for others – not to mention our great creative minds – we could figure out the right words to say, the right message to send, that would prevent sexual assault from happening.

And let’s Keep Austin Weird – and Safe for Women.

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by Jenny Martin, Communications Coordinator


Our 2013 Valentine's Campaign. Share these messages of healthy love:

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by Jenny Martin, Communications Coordinator

Today marks the first day of Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Month (TDVAPM). This is a national effort to raise awareness about abuse in teen relationships. Emiliano, a man whose life looks remarkably different today than it did almost 20 years ago, wrote this article at age 18. He was in numerous unhealthy, abusive relationships (he was the abusive partner). He ended up getting help through an Expect Respect Men's Group and today calls himself a "father, husband, activist, ally, and men's non-violence educator." Follow him on twitter at @ChicanoDad.

When 1 in 3 U.S. teens are the victims of physical, emotional or verbal abuse from a boyfriend or girlfriend, and 81% of parents believe dating violence is NOT an issue for their teens we know there is work to do. 

SafePlace's Expect Respect Program engages youth, parents, schools and communities in building healthy teen relationships and preventing dating abuse.

Anyone with a teen in their life has an opportunity to help them recognize the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships - we just have to take the time. The SafePlace Expect Respect website offers tips for parents, resources for educators, ways for youth to get involved and so much more.

And don't miss the Changing Lives Youth Theatre Ensemble (a collaboration between Expect Respect and Creative Action) 2013 tour kick-off.  Changing Lives is performing Above the Noise, a show about media and pop culture's confusing messages and how to navigate them, stay true to one's self and make relationships work.  This show, written and performed by teens for teens, is at Travis High School from 6:30 - 7:30pm on Thursday, February 7th.

Leave a comment and let us know what you are doing for TDVAPM!

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by LIFT Alliance Board

Despite years of effort -- building bigger shelters, providing increased therapy and support, developing engaging community education projects and the myriad other ways Austin Children’s Shelter and SafePlace address child, sexual and domestic violence and abuse -- both agencies have been swimming against an ever-rising tide with ever-dwindling resources for the past several years.

As board members of these organizations, we have watched first-hand as battered women have continued to lose their children, teen moms in the foster care system have moved out and into abusive relationships, eventually losing custody of their children, and teen boys have ended up in the juvenile justice system because of violence toward their girlfriends – doing what they learned in their own homes. We haven’t been ending abuse; we have, all too often, only been pausing it for a brief time.

So last year when the leaders of these two agencies recommended that we develop an alliance that would allow us to offer new programs to clients, combine our voices to advocate for change, and share costs at the same time, we soon realized that it was our opportunity to do much more for survivors than we’d ever done before.

We could see the similarities in the work we did, providing shelter and support to victims of abusive homes. But as we listened to the front-line professionals in both organizations, we realized that there was more to the idea than that. The people we are serving at both ACS and SafePlace have too often been deeply damaged by the abuse they’ve suffered. Children have witnessed and experienced violence in their homes, learning those same abusive patterns of behavior all the while. The true “aha” moment came when we realized that 80 percent of the women in SafePlace’s supportive housing program – which helps women establish independent lives after an initial stay in emergency shelter – had a background in the foster care system.

It stands to reason that children who are traumatized by prolonged exposure to abuse would need support to learn healthier patterns of behavior. It also stands to reason that young adults who “age out” of foster care may not have the support network or resources to maintain independent lives in the face of poverty, unemployment, and unresolved post-traumatic stress.

We recognize that our work, our clients, and our issues are interconnected, and therefore, as of January 1, ACS and SafePlace have formed LIFT: An Alliance to End Abuse. The two organizations will maintain their names, facilities, and independent 501(c) 3 statuses; the Alliance will engage in long-term planning and service coordination between the two. Over time, we anticipate that the Alliance will offer the clients of both organizations more and better services, give us the opportunity to advocate for more responsive and intelligent systems that would help to stop the violence altogether, and use scarce resources more efficiently.

Our first project together is the UT George M. Kozmetsky Charter School, located on the SafePlace campus. Established as a K-8 school many years ago to serve the children who are at SafePlace with their mothers, the school offers a supportive atmosphere and a staff that receives ongoing training in helping kids in crisis. This year, the school added grades 9-12 and welcomed students from ACS, giving them a supportive, normalized school environment.

We are also now able to tailor services to each client much more effectively – as an example, a teen mother who arrived at SafePlace has been transferred to the Teen Parent Program at ACS, where she will receive more support and training to build a healthy life for herself and her child.

With the LIFT Alliance, we are determined to chart a new course on these issues, to recognize that child abuse and family violence aren’t really two separate problems, but part of a larger cycle of violence that is learned over time and repeated over generations. We can’t fix the bureaucratic tangles that can often endanger the lives of victims, or create new sources of funding that will stretch to fully meet the need in our community. But we can begin to develop systems and approaches that help to strengthen families, keep kids safe, and prevent problems before they occur.

In 2011, 102 women and 231 children were murdered in Texas by family members. Thousands of our Central Texas neighbors are trapped in abusive homes right now, traumatized and terrified of what will happen if they try to escape. Those murders, those injuries, that stress and fear and trauma – we refuse to accept that those are inevitable. We choose to serve on the boards of these organizations because we want to do everything we can to stop the violence and prevent it from recurring in future generations. With the LIFT Alliance, we believe we have a powerful new tool to accomplish those goals.

Learn more at: www.LIFTAlliance.org

Find LIFT on Facebook and twitter:

Leave a comment and let us know what you think!

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guest post by Nicole Louise Melleby, filmmaker: "Trigger Warning"

"Ask every woman in your life if she has been sexually assaulted. Ask her to tell you her story. This means your mother, your sister, your girlfriend, your grandma. Once you have heard all their stories go watch a movie with a rape scene in it, one you didn’t mind before, one you thought people were overly-offended by. Then tell me a joke." - Anonymous writer on a blog called Fugitivus

“A man walks into a bar...”

Every joke can be a setup for a rape joke. When rape victims turn on their TVs, they face a strong possibility of being confronted with reminders of one of the worst experiences of their lives. What's worse, these experiences are likely to be laughed at.

Rape jokes are abundant in a variety of media forms, and they don't exist in a vacuum. They are accepted as the norm within a rape culture, a society wherein male sexual aggression is encouraged and violence against women is supported. Trigger Warning aims to bring awareness of this issue and to encourage an ongoing conversation about the topic.

Only by opening up dialogues can we ever hope that people will come to recognize the issue and then be able to take an informed stance on it. Trigger Warning does exactly that. It is more than a film – it is a conversation that we hope to encourage others to have and we need your help to make this happen.

As of now, we have over 30 film festivals to submit Trigger Warning to and we anticipate adding more.  The festivals range anywhere from $20 to $100 in price and we greatly appreciate any amount you have to offer.

---

Nicole Louise Melleby is a filmmaker seeking to raise awareness of the consequences of rape jokes and their existence in popular media. Her film Trigger Warning was created for that purpose. To spread awareness of the issue, she and her filmmaking team hope to submit this documentary to a number of film festivals. However, they are in need of funds. To donate, you can go directly to www.triggerwarningfilm.com/donate.htm and contribute.

Leave a comment and let us know what you think!

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by Jenny Martin, Communications Coordinator

Each year, there are close to 1,000 individuals who take part in SafePlace's Holiday Program.  Most of those are families in our Sponsor a Family program, and about 115 of those are women, children and men living in the SafePlace shelter during the holidays who take part in our Shop for the Shelter program.

This year, we are happy to announce that all 250 families were sponsored, and every parent and child living in our shelter was able to shop for gifts for each other. The SafePlace Holiday Program is 100% sponsored by our community. Families, friends, organizations and businesses get together make the holidays a better time for domestic and sexual violence survivors.

The Texas State Senate has sponsored families at SafePlace for 8 years. Tracy Ortiz, the Sponsor a Family organizer at the Senate, says shopping for gifts is one of her favorite parts. After gifts are purchased, they are brought to the office for a "gift wrapping party." Christmas music plays, and staff come and go all day to wrap gifts. Then the gifts are placed under the Christmas tree at their holiday party so that everyone can see what their contributions helped accomplish.  This year, the Texas State Senate sponsored 3 SafePlace families.

The Austin Chapter of the Texas Society of Certified Public Accountants (TSCPA) started sponsoring SafePlace families about 3 years ago after several members visited SafePlace. Kaira Tanwar of TSCPA said this visit was emotionally moving for them, and they realized members from their own organization may have used SafePlace at one point in their lives, since domestic abuse isn’t focused on those less fortunate. They feel SafePlace makes a great impact on the community, and that's why they continue to be part of the Holiday Program.

We received loads of donations in response to these empty shelves, and we were ready for everyone in our shelter to come pick out gifts for their family members!

For BookPeople, sponsoring a family at SafePlace has become a holiday tradition.  Employees at BookPeople shop for gifts, and BookPeople purchases the remaining gifts on the family's wish list. Knowing that on Christmas morning the kids are really happy and that the mom is happy because the kids are happy is their favorite part of this experience. 

Thank you to all the individuals, groups and businesses that made this a much brighter holiday season for the families we serve at SafePlace!

Leave a comment and let us know what you think!

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by Jenny Martin, Communications Coordinator

Congress was scheduled to adjourn last Friday, but they are still in Washington and the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) has not been reauthorized. There has been little in the news about VAWA this week, with this exception: Democratic women of the Sentate signed a letter to the 25 Republican women in the U.S. House of Representatives "urging them to unite as women and press House GOP leaders to take up the Senate-passed VAWA bill before Congress gavels out for the year."  

Let's also urge these women to take action before the 112th Congress adjourns. You can use these sample tweets:

• @RepKayGranger @cathymcmorris: VAWA has caused 64% reduction in family violence in 18 yrs. Press House GOP leaders to #PassVAWA2012. 
• Tweet to @RepKayGranger @cathymcmorris & urge to #PassVAWA2012 because victims in her community & across the country depend on it!
• @JudyBiggert @RosLehtinen @JoAnnEmerson @RepShelley please stand up for women & children exposed to violence & #PassVAWA2012.
• @RepReneeEllmers @cathymcmorris @RepSandyAdams please stand up for women & children exposed to violence & #PassVAWA2012.

Or contact your local representative (in their Washington office) and remind them that you support the reauthorization of the Senate-passed VAWA bill.

These are the Republican women in the U.S. House of Representatives:

Read the Op-Ed about VAWA published in the Austin American-Statesman by SafePlace's Executive Director, Julia Spann.

 This SafePlace client's story illustrates why all victims need protection under VAWA.

Leave a comment and let us know what you think!

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by Jenny Martin, Communications Coordinator

Julia Spann, SafePlace Executive Director, wrote an Op-Ed for the Austin American-Statesman this week about how vital it is for survivors of domestic violence that the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) be reauthorized.

Please call your local representative today to urge them to support the full version of VAWA.

Spann: Legislation offers protection from abuse

Domestic violence claimed two more lives Dec. 1, as Austin native Kasandra Perkins was gunned down by her 3-month-old daughter’s father, Jovan Belcher, who then killed himself.

Kasandra’s murder made news because her boyfriend was a professional football player, but family violence hides in plain sight every day. Hundreds of Texas women and children are killed by family members each year, often after years of suffering emotional and physical abuse that leaves them broken and traumatized. The costs — in law enforcement, incarceration, hospitalizations and loss of productivity — run into billions of dollars each year.

Our nation responded in 1994 by passing the Violence Against Women Act. With that legislation, Congress created new federal stalking and firearms crimes, developed a process for legal relief for battered immigrants, established the National Domestic Violence Hotline, and authorized funds to support shelters and other services for survivors of abuse and sexual assault. It also began to develop a community response that involved law enforcement, prosecution, courts and victim services.

It was, for those of us on the front lines of this issue, a sea change, and it has allowed SafePlace to establish a number of innovative and successful programs to serve victims.

Thanks to money authorized by the act, SafePlace offers transitional housing to mothers and children. We have developed and implemented programs for people with disabilities, who often face additional challenges when trying to break away from abusive relationships. That funding helps us offer early childhood services and esteem-building activities for children who have been exposed to violence, either as victims or witnesses. The legislation also provides essential funding for a new SafePlace program, Planet Safe, which will provide a secure transfer and visitation spot for divorced families – a service that does not currently exist in Central Texas.

A report released last month by the Bureau of Justice Statistics revealed a stunning 64 percent drop in the overall rate of intimate partner violence since 1994. The evidence proves that the act is a resounding success.

This year’s appropriations could be the last, however, unless Congress moves very soon to reauthorize the act.

In the past 18 years, SafePlace has twice increased its capacity to provide safe haven to survivors. We now have 105 beds available for people who are escaping violent homes, and every night, each one of those beds is full, and there’s a waiting list in case space becomes available at the last minute. Every single night of every single year, our shelter cannot meet the needs of our own community.

Obviously, we can’t keep building bigger shelters. We’ve got to keep at the hard work of stopping the violence, and anti-violence legislation plays a large part in that.

The Senate passed the full reauthorization of the act in April, with bipartisan support. The act has the support of the National Sheriff’s Association, the National Association of Attorneys General, the National Fraternal Order of Police, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the American Bar Association, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and more than 300 other domestic violence, law enforcement, sexual assault, civil rights and religious organizations and associations.

The House passed a version in early May that is opposed by those same groups. The disagreement has to do with specific legal provisions for tribal populations and protection for the lesbian, gay and transgender community and undocumented immigrants. At SafePlace, we believe no one deserves to be a victim of domestic violence. The work we do every day centers on people who have been told repeatedly that they don’t deserve help and that no one cares about them. The power of the law is undercut by exceptions and exclusions. That’s why, along with our colleagues on the front lines in shelters and victim service agencies across the country, we oppose the House version of the anti-violence act.

Right now, the fate of the bill is unclear. Congress is scheduled to adjourn this week. If legislators leave town without taking action on the act, they will mothball a successful federal program.

Encourage House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, as well as your local representative, to reauthorize the full version of the act before they adjourn for the year.

And let’s keep reauthorizing this legislation — until no more babies are left behind to grow up without their mothers.

***published on 12/11/12***

Here are a few specific actions you can take today:

• Call House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, as well as your local representative, and urge them to reauthorize the full version of the act before they adjourn for the year this week. From your phone, go to http://m.house.gov/representatives/.
• Contact Speaker Boehner and Leader Cantor and tell them a final VAWA that does not protect Native American victims and does not hold perpetrators accountable is unacceptable.  Urge them to support the Issa compromise on Tribal provisions (H.R. 6625) and include that in VAWA so that VAWA can move forward to protect all victims.
• To amplify this message, follow SafePlace on twitter (@SafePlace_ATX) and retweet tweets like this one: “VAWA has caused 64% reduction in family violence in 18 yrs. Let @LamarSmithTX21 @johnboehner & @GOPLeader know you want to #PassVAWA2012.”

Sample language:

"Please support the full version of the Violence Against Women's Act before Congress adjourns this week. No one deserves to be a victim of domestic violence, and the full version of VAWA ensures that all victims have protection under the law.”


Leave a comment and let us know what you think!

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by Jenny Martin, Communications Coordinator

One client came to the U.S. from her home country on a fiancé visa. She met her fiancé online, and he came to her country and “wooed” her - taking her on trips, telling her about the family he wanted to have. He treated her with gentleness and kindness. When she came to the U.S. and they married everything changed. She knew little English and he never let her leave the house. She had a schedule of chores each day, from early in the morning until late at night, leaving little time to eat or sleep. She lost weight fast. She was not allowed to leave the house unless she was with him. Blinds were to remain shut at all times, and she was told never to answer the door. He beat and raped her regularly. He never applied for her permanent residency -- the U.S. citizen or permanent resident spouse in a marriage is the only person who can do this -- so once her fiancé visa expired, she was in the U.S. illegally, even though they were married.

Her husband told her if she disobeyed him he would kill her, and that no one would find out, or care, because she was not here legally. They then had a child together. Now, because the child was a U.S. citizen, her hopes of escaping to her home country faded – she knew she would never make it out of the country with her baby. She called the police once. When they arrived, they arrested her, because they relied on her husband for an explanation since they could not understand her broken English. 

Once she came to SafePlace she was able to get an immigration attorney and self-petition for legal permanent residency as a result of the immigration statutes included in the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). This process was long and difficult: She had to prove that her marriage was in good faith and she was a person of good moral character – not the kind of proof that is accepted by giving her word, but the kind in which everything she did from the day she met her husband was scrutinized. Her story turned out happily. She finally obtained permanent residency so she could work legally, go to school, learn English and eventually divorce and move on with her life in the U.S. Hers is just one of thousands of stories that show why it is so important that all victims are protected by VAWA.

The U.S. House of Representatives adjourns on December 14th. VAWA expired at the end of 2011, the Senate passed a version, but it has yet to be reauthorized by the U.S. House of Representatives. That means appropriations (money that keeps people, like the woman above, safe) could go away starting next year unless Congress acts soon.  Domestic violence agencies around the nation support the passage of an all-inclusive VAWA, and your representative needs to hear from you.  Contact your local representative and key leaders today and urge them to pass VAWA.

Conact via twitter:
Key leaders in house:

• Eric Cantor: @GOPLeader | @EricCantor (Majority Leader)
• John Boehner: @johnboehner  (House Speaker)

Central Texas representatives:

• Mike McCaul: @McCaulPressShop - 10th District of Texas
• Lamar Smith: @LamarSmithTX21 - 21st District of Texas
• Lloyd Doggett: @RepLloydDoggett - 25th Congressional district of Texas
• John Carter: @RepJohnCarter - 31st District of Texas
• Bill Flores: @RepBillFlores - 17th District of Texas

Share this story on twitter using the hashtag #PassVAWA2012.  For the most current updates visit www.4vawa.org.

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by Julia Spann, SafePlace Executive Director

Anna* has never known anything but abuse. It began when she was still a little girl, and led her to a life of addiction and violent relationships with men.  But everything changed when she gave birth to her son Marco*.

Realizing she needed help to be a better mother to her son, Anna started attending Safe Parenting classes at SafePlace. Through the encouragement of the staff she met there, she eventually found the strength to leave her abusive boyfriend and make a new life for herself and Marco.

Anna arrived at the shelter bruised, scared -- and determined. Over the next few weeks, she received counseling and job coaching, and quickly found part-time work.  This fall, Anna moved out of the shelter and into her own apartment with Marco. She is drug-free, has a job, and recently enrolled in school. Despite all the obstacles she faced, Anna has successfully broken the cycle of abuse for her son.

You make these happy endings possible when you make a gift to SafePlace.

Last year, more than 800 people sought refuge in our shelter, and we provided face to face support for more than 5,000 women, children and men working to build safe lives. Our hotline received more than 15,000 calls. But as high as those numbers are – and they seem to get higher every year – we never come close to meeting the need.  Each year, SafePlace needs to raise $3 million from the community – people like you --  to keep our doors open for the thousands of women, men, and children trapped in violent homes in Central Texas.

Every day, your gift helps us provide safety, healing, and hope to people who need it desperately.

Please help us bring a bright holiday season to all our clients. Make a tax-deductible year-end gift today.

*All names have been changed

Leave a comment and let us know what you think!

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by Jen Smith, SafePlace Community Education Intern

I never would have thought that taking a bathroom break would turn out to be providential. I know what you are thinking, “Am I reading a post about being an active bystander that opens with a restroom scene? Seriously?” Yes, you are.

I had just finished my last scene in a Voices Against Violence Theatre for Dialogue Performance and made a beeline for the door.  After drinking sixteen ounces of berry vitamin water, I had to step out. I ran down three flights of stairs to find the restroom, then ran three flights back up, and I was relieved to find that the performance was still running without me when I returned. As not to disturb the captive audience, I sat down on a table in the hallway outside the performance and let my legs dangle as I waited for the right time to slip back in unnoticed.  Due to the sensitive nature of our performances (they’re about domestic violence and sexual assault) we encourage the audience to take care of themselves and step out if they need to. Of all the performances I’d done, this was the first time I personally needed to step out for a bathroom break.

A woman in the audience was doing the same, and as she opened the theatre doors I could see from her face something about the play was resonating in her. Concerned, I asked her how she was feeling. She replied, “you know you would think the second time around it would be easier to take everything in, but it’s not.” I nodded my head as she continued to tell me about how she saw the same performance a month earlier, and ever since she’d been mulling over seeing a counselor. I felt that being present and simply listening is what would be the most helpful. I thought it was very courageous of her, and a step towards healing, to be vulnerable with a stranger about needing counseling for sexual assault. Had I not guzzled down my beverage earlier I would have never taken a bathroom break and never met this woman.

I told her that I, too, had been to see a counselor, and I didn’t think it meant I was weak or incapable of handling things on my own. Seeing a counselor, admitting I needed a shoulder to lean on, seeking guidance and healing made me a stronger, more resilient woman. Fortunately, I was able to refer her to counseling services for survivors and allies of sexual assault and domestic violence through Voices Against Violence. Suddenly, my bathroom break seemed less of an inconvenience and more like providence for a woman in need.

Leave a comment and let us know what you think!

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posted by Jenny Martin, SafePlace Communications Coordinator

Anna Belle Burleson gave this speech at SafePlace's Celebration Luncheon in October. Her words affected so many in the room that day, and we want to share this with those who couldn't be there.

"I am going to tell you the story of a very lucky woman.

It was a beautiful spring afternoon in 1986.  I was scared; I was in danger; and I was lucky!  There was room in the battered women's shelter for my son and me.  I had finally come to the realization that, if I stayed with my violent husband, I would be killed.  My son would be left without his mother.  I knew I had to get myself and my son to a safe place – a place where I could talk to others about what was happening, a place where I could think,  a place where I could figure out what to do next, a place that would protect me.

I was lucky!  There was room for us at the shelter.  We would be safe!  And I would be able to sleep again.  I had the secret directions to the secret location of the secret shelter.  Back in those days – just 26 years ago – shelters were kept secret from the community as a means of keeping the residents safe.  So this shelter didn't have any fancy security measures but it DID have locked doors and it was tucked neatly behind a fire station.  And, best of all, my husband didn't know where it was!

Once I got to the shelter, I was lucky to become part of a community of women.  A community of women who supported and believed each other.  Women and their children who had suffered at the hands of a loved one.

That shelter had only 8 bedrooms.  Basically, two women with their children shared each room.  And no bed went empty for a night.  Sometimes women even slept overnight on the couch.  Just to be safe.  And there was always a waiting list for services.

I want to share a couple of my favorite memories from my shelter stay. The first happened the night I cooked dinner for everybody in the house.  I don't remember what I cooked but I DO remember that everyone enjoyed it!  They liked it!  No one cussed me out.  No one threw a plate across the room.  This was a whole new experience for me – being appreciated! There were a number of us in the shelter at that time who liked to bake.  The shelter manager recognized our culinary talents and she stocked up on baking supplies for us.  Then, late at night after the staff had gone home and the kids were in bed, we would bake and bond – working side-by-side in the kitchen.  We gathered around those brownies in the living room for our healing time.  As valuable as all the support groups and counseling sessions were to me, I found my greatest support and nurturing during those late night sessions with my sisters.  I was so lucky!

After three short weeks at the shelter, my protective order was in place, criminal charges had been filed and I had a new apartment.  I was lucky as my life fell into place, and my son and I moved to our new home.

Shelters were few and far between 26 years ago!  How lucky was I to be living in a community that had realized a dream – a dream to build a shelter to take in those living in violence and keep them safe?  

Today's shelter boasts 105 beds – a far cry from those 16 or so beds behind the firehouse.  And now we even have transitional housing – 46 apartments – to give families a real chance to get back on their feet . . . to live a violence-free life.  Let’s not forget the many other programs and services offered by SafePlace.  All is surrounded by state-of-the-art security systems and a strong community presence.

Many years ago, when I was new to this movement, the battered women’s movement, the movement to end domestic violence, Gloria Steinem talked about victims being pulled out of a river to safety but she said we needed to go to the head of the river and stop them from falling in.  More recently, she has modified her words, “We are still standing on the bank of the river, rescuing people who are drowning.  We have not gone to the head of the river to keep them from falling in.  This is our 21st century task.”

So many women, and men, have worked so hard to get to where we are today.  But domestic violence is still a dirty little secret in our society.  While nobody publicly supports it, few will publicly stand up against the violence.  Our movement and our work are too often overshadowed by other meaningful, but “cleaner” causes.  And all the while, women, children and men are falling into that river.  And we still can't save them all!

Please – Join me, join the movement, join SafePlace.  Let’s make sure that every woman who needs a little help can be a lucky woman!  Let's get to the head of that river and stop everyone from falling in!"

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by Jenny Martin, SafePlace Communications Coordinator

Kelly White, the CEO of Austin Children's Shelter (and co-CEO of the LIFT Alliance), wrote an OpEd for the Austin American-Statesman this week about the challenges we, as a community, and Texas' Child Protection Services system, face in protecting our most vulnerable: children. She does a wonderful job explaining the barriers we face and presents what the community needs to do better.

We Must Work Together to Maintain a System That Protects Children

"The headline on Saturday's Metro and State section read, “Family Services Chief Resigns.” Reading further we learn just a few of the lurid details associated with recent child abuse deaths in the State of Texas.  Texas children have died, and as a fervent frontier state, we will exact our revenge. Howard Baldwin, the man at the helm of the State agency charged with protecting children will be among those who fall.

I don’t know Howard Baldwin. I have heard good things. He is supposed to be smart, thoughtful and trying to do the right thing for children. While I don’t know Mr. Baldwin I do know something about the Texas system for Child Protection: I know that Mr. Baldwin had an “undoable” job.

It is easy to immediately point the finger at funding. There is no doubt that DFPS, the state agency charged with protecting children, is massively underfunded. Caseworkers have caseloads that are more than twice the recommended level and a new caseworker who survives past the six month mark is considered seasoned.

In 2010 there were more than 264,000 child abuse and neglect reports and more than 231,000 reports assigned for investigation. 65,948 Texas children were confirmed as abuse victims and 231 children died from abuse and neglect in 2011. As the CEO at the Austin Children’s Shelter, I know these statistics as more than just numbers. I know that no child EVER ends up at the Austin Children’s Shelter without having endured what to most of us is unimaginable pain and loss. And I see only a fraction of the “cases” that each child protective caseworker deals with on a daily basis. These investigators and caseworkers are dealing with life and death triage every single day. And I know that they care deeply about the lives of the children they are striving to help.

Unfortunately, I have also seen a rigid, punitive system that rarely allows for the best judgment of a caseworker regarding a child or family’s disposition. Caseworkers are forced to make families fit into narrow bureaucratic processes that are often not the best thing for families and children. The same day as I read about Commissioner Baldwin’s resignation I also talked with a prospective adoptive parent who told me of the abuse her future daughter endured after going into the foster care system. The young girl had been placed with an Aunt without there being any assessment or review. In fact, when a child is removed from their home caseworkers are instructed to always first try to place the child with a family member – a policy that entirely disregards everything we know about the cycle of violence in families.

What if we had more money to ensure that every child and family is fully assessed to ensure the absolute best placement? What if we had more money to provide for protective child care and parental coaching – a much less costly and more effective means of family intervention? What if we had more respite care for families in distress, domestic violence shelter beds for moms trying to protect their children, and affordable substance abuse and mental health services for adolescents? What if, instead of a punitive and retaliatory system, we provided opportunities, resources and options to help families be successful?

Texas ranks among the bottom in funding for child protective services, and more than 50 percent of its funding is passed through from the federal government. This reliance on federal funds means that the federal government has a significant say in how the state CPS budget is spent. Only 1 percent of the DFPS budget is spent on child abuse prevention and only 6 cents of every dollar is spent on keeping children safe at home. Even when removing children from their homes and putting them in alternative placements, caseworkers are given little discretion in determining what they perceive to be the best placement options.  It’s no wonder that retention of good employees within the CPS system is so low. These workers deal daily with life and death decisions, with too few resources and with almost no control over outcomes.

Yes – someone should pay for the deaths of these children. In fact, many “someones” should pay. I spent years angry with the DFPS bureaucracy because of their seeming unwillingness to put the needs of children first. Eventually I learned that their hands are tied by their funding and associated mandates. Then my anger was directed at the state legislature. How can they not prioritize the safety of abused children? I now realize that effective change will only happen if and when we all come together across public and private; local, state and federal; and thought leaders and grassroots activists to create a system that always puts the health and welfare of individual children first."


An OpEd as it appeared in the Austin American-Statesman Thursday, November 15, 2012

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Guest post by Ashley - survivor of domestic violence

My story is more than just about myself and how I survived the abuse in my former marriage, but it is also about the actions of my family, a very close friend and even my priest that definitely could all be described as a courageous bystander.

I was married in October 2004. I thought it would be the only chance for someone to love me, even though all the warning signs of abuse were there well before the wedding. His numerous "late nights at his brother’s," his increasing anger issues, having to know where I was every moment of the day, getting angry when I was on the phone and demanding to know who I was talking to (even when it was my Mom), driving by and constantly calling a friend’s house when I was there sewing with her. But growing up, I was always taught that there are certain things you just don’t talk about and that no matter what, you work through your marriage and stay together.

But as our first year came and went, things just got progressively worse until it all came to a head late January 2006. I had never seen anyone so angry before. He was like a completely different person when he beat me till I was unconscious. He shattered my cell phone so I couldn’t call 911, and he left me lying on the living room floor - but not before stepping on my chest on his way out. 

I managed to repair my cell phone enough for it to work and called my friend to tell her what had happened. She told me to come over immediately, that she had a safe place for me, and she called the police for me. The next day, as I sat on her couch and talked to the police officer, a member of my (now) ex-husbands family, he laughed at me and told me that he had seen worse beatings and I wasn’t really injured and there was no reason for a report. My friend was appalled and "kindly" asked the officer to leave her house.  She gave me some information about a battered woman’s shelter in our city along with the hotline number, but I insisted that I had to get home because he would be angry if I didn’t clean the house. And I went home.

After all was straightened at the apartment I called my parents. I was scared to death to tell them what happened, but with my friends urging I did, and my Dad phoned my priest. My priest called and we talked for quite a while about what happened and what lead up to it. His last words to me were, "As your priest I should be counseling you through this, but I want you to come home. I don't want to come down there with your father and have to identify you in a morgue. Come home."

In less than 4 days, a dear friend of mine that lived in Louisiana and his best friend came and moved me out of the apartment until my dad and my uncle could come and get me. My dad and uncle drove, what is usually a 16 to 17 hour drive, in 14 hours to get me and move me back to Minnesota. Once I got back home, my priest put me in contact with a Women's Advocate Center in my county, and I began the process for a restraining order and a divorce.

Without my Courageous Bystanders at my side, I would have done what I was taught all my life, and stayed in that marriage. They showed me that I was loved and protected and that I deserved better. As part of my healing, in late 2006 I took up belly dancing and in 2011, I was proud to participate in "Shimmy Mob" for the first time. Shimmy Mob is a worldwide "flash mob" event that raises money for designated Women's and Children's shelters in the participating cities. I danced in this years’ Austin Shimmy Mob with 45 extremely talented and devoted women, and we raised $1,000 for SafePlace!

Throughout the months of September and October people sent in stories of times that they or someone else was a "Courageous Bystander," and we have featured them on the blog. We would still love for you to share your story with us!

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by Julia Spann, SafePlace Executive Director

Understanding the trauma of sexual assault and domestic violence, working to end it, and helping to lift up women, children  and men who have been abused is why SafePlace exists.   Many of the people who call us have one type of victimization – domestic violence only, or perhaps they have been raped by an acquaintance.  But often, people seeking our help have experienced multiple types of abuse.  Daily we meet women who come to us fleeing an abusive partner, soon we learn that one of her children has also been hurt.  And, as we get to know her, we find out that she was abused when she was a child, as was her brother, as was her mother. Her family genogram shows a disturbing pattern of violence that permeates generations.  It is clear to us that people need help with their whole life experience, not an incident.  

SafePlace believes that we must create programs and systems that change the patterns.  In the past we have done so brilliantly, as we have been innovative in responding to teen dating abuse or violence against people with disabilities.   But we have not done enough about child abuse.   This is important because we know that if a child is abused, they are more likely to grow up and be in an abusive relationship.  For those of us who have worked here for many years, we are beginning to see women come to our shelter who lived here when they were little – and we know that they have been victims of abuse as well as witnesses of the abuse in their families.  

We are committed to creating healthy futures for the families we serve.  We are proud to announce that we have joined with the Austin Children’s Shelter (ACS) in an alliance to address child abuse, domestic violence and sexual assault.  LIFT: An Alliance to End Abuse has been created to work together to eliminate child, sexual and domestic violence through the power of our combined voices and actions.

The LIFT Alliance is already being talked about as a model for addressing the interconnected issues of child, sexual and domestic violence. It is an elegant structure where both SafePlace and the Austin Children’s Shelter retain their unique corporate, programmatic and brand identities while also realizing the benefits of coordinated planning and advocacy. Efficiency is also being gained through combined back office functions, including Finance, IT, Human Resources, Information Systems and Administration. The LIFT Alliance is also being structured in such a way as to allow other victim/survivor oriented organizations to join.

An important question from our community supporters – “will my donation continue to support the work of SafePlace?” Yes, absolutely! This structure allows all member organizations to retain their identities and assets. All donor intent will continue to be honored and all SafePlace assets will be retained with SafePlace.  A question from our volunteers might be, “can I volunteer for the one issue I care most dramatically about?”  Yes, absolutely!  And, “will our name change?”  No, we will still be SafePlace.  Our clients will come to the SafePlace campus.  The SafePlace mission will not change.

LIFT: An Alliance to End Abuse will be fully implemented by January 1, 2013 but we haven’t been sitting still in the interim. Both ACS and SafePlace are already recognizing enormous benefits. Already we have:

• Added a charter middle and high school at the SafePlace campus making it possible for youth from both organizations to attend school K-12;

• Opened the ACS residential shelter and parenting coaching and support program for young moms to include young families from SafePlace that are deemed to be at high risk for abusing and losing their children;

• Created redundancy in several key positions and departments; and

• Generated immediate savings of over $100,000 for FY13.

Both ACS and SafePlace will continue to be governed by their respective Boards of Directors while a new Board and corporate entity has been established for the LIFT Alliance. The convening Board of LIFT is composed of individuals from both the ACS and SafePlace Boards, as well as the general community.

The LIFT Alliance is an exhilarating advance for our fields of work.  Together with our partner, we will coordinate powerful messages about safety and peace and we will double the number of us giving that same message.  I, for one, want to tell everybody that child abuse is bad, domestic violence is bad, sexual abuse is bad and we can do something about it!  Let’s work together to stop violence in our homes and in our community.

This is a wonderful opportunity to create yet another path to end abuse that shatters lives.  Thanks for supporting SafePlace in this important new endeavor!

Peace,

Julia Spann

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by Jenny Martin, Communications and Media Relations

We are so excited to announce that the this years' Celebration Luncheon raised more than $330,000! This is the most we've raised at a fundraiser to date, and it couldn't have come at a better time for SafePlace. We are so incredibly grateful to the Celebration Committee, our presenting sponsors - Patti O'Meara and James Armstrong, Hester Capital Management LLC, Luci Baines Johnson and Ian Turpin, Carl C. Anderson and Marie Jo Anderson Charitable Foundation, the many other sponsors and generous donors for raising this money!

The money raised through Celebration goes to programs and services at SafePlace for survivors of sexual and domestic violence. The Luncheon started off with a conversation about Dan Rather's 60 Minutes segment in 1981 that featured the building of the Center for Battered Women (now SafePlace) and how it gave domestic violence national attention like never before. More than 30 years later, the 500+ people who attended Celebration showed that they are still dedicated to ending sexual and domestic violence. Thank you so much for your support!
 

    

Thanks so much to photographer Laurie Fryar for these beautiful photos. Visit our Flickr page to see more!

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Guest post by Melanie

"I was in my mom's home sitting on the front porch with my laptop when I started to hear a lot of yelling. At first I thought it was just my neighbors and their kids yelling, but then I heard a car door open and slam, over and over again. I was scared and went inside for a moment to grab my cellphone. I went back outside and kept listening. It became obvious after another minute that it was a man and a woman inside a vehicle.  The woman was trying to escape and he was screaming obscene sexual demands at her.  I dialed 911 and as soon as someone was on the line I ran toward the car. The girl's window was down.  Her hair was wild and her face was swollen and covered in tears. I told her to please get out of the car and I would help her. The man said he was her boyfriend and to fuck off. I told him no boyfriend should ever speak to his girlfriend that way, and he needed to let her leave and the cops were on their way.  I opened her car door and carried her out. He sped away. She had been beaten and was hysterical. I held her and talked to her until the cops arrived.  I never knew who she was or if she ever pressed charges.  I've thought of her a lot lately. I was raped in April. SafePlace has helped me every step of the way."

Being a Courageous Bystander sometimes looks like this. Sometimes it's not safe to intervene. Read our previous post about what it means to be a Courageous Bystander.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month so we asked people to share stories about times they, or someone else, has been a Courageous Bystander, and we're sharing them on the blog. Thanks for sharing Melanie! If you'd like to share your story it's not too late! You can email it to the SafePlace Communications Department. Don't forget to take the pledge to be a Courageous Bystander!

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Guest post by Sarah W. - student at the University of Texas

"A couple of years ago I was going through a breakup with my abusive girlfriend. I had been trying to distance myself from her and had recently told her that I didn't want to see her anymore. She started following me on her moped as I walked to the UT campus, harassing me and yelling at me for trying to end the relationship. I was really scared and upset and was trying to get away, but she kept riding right up next to me as I walked and I had nowhere to go. I knew that attempting to call the police or run away at that moment would greatly escalate the situation (as it had in the past), and I honestly didn't know what to do. Thankfully, an older woman in her car drove up and asked if I was okay, and if I needed a ride. That scared my ex off and I was able to get to class quickly. Not only did the bystander help diffuse the situation, but she also made me see the situation from an outsider's eyes, and helped me realize that the way my ex was treating me wasn't okay. The woman's concern for my safety also validated my feelings of fear and frustration.  I think about that day often, and wish that I could thank her for stepping in; such a small gesture really meant a lot to me."

Last month, we asked people to send in their stories of times they, or someone else, had been a "Courageous Bystander." Thanks for sharing Sarah!

If you have a story you'd like to submit, send it to Communications@SafePlace.org!

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Guest post by Celeste Mendoza - survivor and SafePlace Board Member

As long as I can remember I have been a performer. If my parents were here they would tell you that even when I was three years old I would sing and dance around the house in front of anyone who would listen. I had different roles. One day, I was Scarlet O’Hara telling our family dog that tomorrow was another day. Another day, I would be Mae West telling a stray cat to “Come up and see me sometime,” and still other days I was, “the loving grandmother” who was an avid hugger. My mother says I would hug everyone, forcefully, even dramatically, and would tell people that I loved them and that they were all gifts from God, blessed. I loved to laugh, would do it often, and would tickle anyone around me if they didn’t laugh with me. I was, I suppose, what you would call an uber happy-go-lucky child.

I remember this child. I have pictures of her. But by the time I was six-years-old that child changed considerably. The summer after kindergarten, I was sexually molested by a counselor who worked at the day camp where my parents would leave me and my brother while they were at work. The counselor was eighteen.  Of course, at the time I didn’t have a word for what he did to me. In fact, I had no idea what had happened to me until I was twelve years old, six long years later. In fact, for many years I, and my parents, were in denial about what had happened. My memory of the occurrence was hazy, and even as I recount the details to you today I fear that I may have gotten it wrong, that perhaps it didn’t happen, that perhaps I made it up because how could that have happened to me, the happy-go-lucky kid. But it did happen. I know it happened because for years afterward I wouldn’t let anyone outside of my family hug me, actually I wouldn’t let them touch me. I stopped talking to men. Stopped smiling at them. And in fact, I can confess to you right now, I was afraid of them. Afraid that if they touched me I would get sick, want to throw up like I did when he sat me on his lap, one hand grazing my cheek, the other running up my leg from knee to thigh to upper thigh as he whispered how pretty I was until his hand was inside my shorts and…that’s where my memory stops.  

I do know however, that in the moment, I knew he was not supposed to be touching me. I didn’t know this because my parents had ever said for me not to sit on a stranger’s lap but because he was whispering, holding me too close, but mostly because I didn’t feel happy. I didn’t feel like hugging him or telling him he was a gift from God, that he was blessed. I felt ugly. I felt sick. I wanted him to stop. I wanted to go home right then and there.

Did it happen more than that one instance? I don’t know. Did he do this to the other 20 or so six- and seven-year-old girls and boys in my class, his class? I don’t know. I know that I stopped wanting to laugh all the time. I know that I stopped wanting to perform. I know one night I screamed while I was waking up from a dream. That I told my mother that he had touched me, that I felt bad, that I didn’t want to go back to day camp, why couldn’t I stay with grandma and grandpa. I panicked-this was my first of many anxiety attacks to come. I couldn’t breathe. My fear turned into an asthma attack. My mother was beside herself. Kept on saying to my father that he needed to go to the camp and talk to the director to tell her what had happened to me. But my father didn’t believe that it had happened. He thought I was just making it up, another dramatic performance, I was a good actor, or that my mother was over-reacting. No one would hurt his little girl—she was so nice and friendly. She was only six years old. Her teeth weren’t even all in yet.

The argument between them went on and on that night. Was my father going to stand up for his little girl or not? Should they call the police? A lawyer? Wouldn’t they charge money? Would I need therapy? No, there was no money for any of that. Besides, it can’t be true.  

The morning after this argument I was sure that my father would take me to my grandmother’s house, but he didn’t. We drove straight to the camp, and the next thing I knew we were in the camp director’s office, where the bad kids went to get paddled. My father stood behind me; the guy who molested me, Ruben, stood to my right, arm’s length away, my six-year-old arm’s length away. The director, a woman in her forties with big blonde hair and blue eyeshadow to match her blue eyes and pink lipstick, asked me between bites of a cinnamon roll and sips of her coffee what did I have to tell her, what happened, what did he do. I was silent. Watched her eat. Watched Ruben’s hands clasp and unclasp. Watched his shoes tap right then left. Watched the floor. The door opened and two other counselors appeared, asked what was going on and the director said that I was making up lies about Ruben. The counselors walked out. Some words were exchanged between my father and the director; I watched her finish the cinnamon roll in three big bites. Ruben walked out. The Director told my father that I was a liar. We left her office and I was hopeful that he’d drop me off at grandma’s because I was scared of Ruben. Would he hurt me again since I told on him?

The next thing I know my Dad is gone. I saw him leave through the automatic doors; they opened, then shut behind him. I was alone in the hallway. I wanted to die. I began to think I should run into traffic, jump into the deep end of the pool, or hit my head purposefully on the balance beam during gym—yes, I was bit dramatic for a six-year-old. But I was serious too.  
At that moment the other male counselor, one of the two who stepped in when we were meeting the director, asked me to go to the movie room with him. I didn’t struggle. I thought, this I what men do to little girls. This is why God put me here. To punish me. I deserve this. He turned on the light. Closed the door. I heard my campmates in the other adjoining room talking about the ashtrays and vases they were making in arts and craft, the accordion partition that separates the rooms was thin. I thought to scream but why bother—no one will believe me; no one will help me. I asked if he wanted me to sit in his lap. He shook his head. Told me to sit in the big fluffy chair that we only got to sit in when we were real good because we usually sat on the floor. I sat in the big fluffy chair, felt confused. He knelt at my side. Asked if I was okay and then said something I still remember, “I believe you. He shouldn’t be touching you and if he does that again, you come and get me. I will protect you.” I started to cry. He gave me a Kleenex and told me I could sit in the big fluffy chair as long as I wanted and that when I was ready I could come to the arts and craft room. I never forgot him. I still remember his face. Ironically, his name was also Ruben.

It wasn’t until six years later that I understood what happened to me. I was doing my Saturday chores, my parents were at Home Depot. I had HBO on and saw a TV special that talked about “good” and “bad” touches. I heard these kids on TV describing how I felt, the emotions but also the way they physically felt when anyone tried to touch them—the body freezing, the inability to catch a good breath, a feeling of dread taking over.  

As I watched this show, I realized that I bad been molested, that there was a word for it. It had a name, it existed, it had happened to me and other kids. I was not alone. I cried as I watched these other kids freeze up like I did when they were asked to tell what had happened or cry like I did or just ignore the question. I recognized that look, that silence. I lived it.  
I learned that some kids hurt themselves as a way of coping and I remembered that the following school year after that summer I was molested, how I scratched my face out of most of our family and all of my school photos—not wanting to see my own face.  I had been sexually molested. And according to the show I could get help. I could heal. I could write about it. I could tell others. And I saw parents crying and saying they did not know what to do. And I realized my parents didn’t know what to do. That them not doing anything didn’t mean that it was my fault, didn’t mean that they hated me, didn’t mean that I was going to hell.  

I also witnessed the silence. That silence that was killing our family, how it had affected these families. How talking about it with one another brought them together, not right away but eventually.

Later that night, I talked to my mom about the show. I told her that I knew what happened, and I was going to be okay and that I wasn’t angry. She cried and said that they didn’t know what to do. That we hardly had any money at that time and that they thought it would have cost too much to press charges because it would have been hard since Ruben, the one who did this to me, was actually the director’s son. So she would do anything in her power to protect her son and they didn’t know if we could win. They had more money, could afford a better lawyer. My mother also said that she and my father didn’t know who to talk to about it. Would people judge me? Would people think it was my fault, that I had asked for it? I was always hugging people. I was too affectionate. And I was a girl.

I reminded her that I was six-years-old when it happened. How could people think that, and she told me how when it happened to my grandmother everyone ostracized her, not the other way around.

We all suffered as a result of the molestation. The act itself was one layer of the violence and the other was the silence that followed in our home, the deadly silence during which we all felt alone, ashamed, worthless. I often wonder how my life would have been different if a place like SafePlace had been around when this happened to me. If my mother had heard about an organization that didn’t charge for its counseling services. If she or my father had been educated about sexual violence, and met other parents who were experiencing what they were. How would my life had been different? How would their lives have been different.  If we had known that we didn’t have to be silent—that we were not alone.  

Here in Austin we are blessed to have SafePlace. Not only does the organization offer services for an immediate crisis but programs for survivors that take us full-circle with our healing. We don’t have to be silent here. We should not be silent. We have the tools and the resources to break that silence. I challenge all of you to not let your family, friends, colleagues, or parishioners, suffer in silence. I also challenge you to not let a stranger suffer in silence. My life was saved because one person said, I believe you, and because I learned what had happened to me, I learned that I was not alone. Direct someone to our website, give them a brochure or our hotline number. Support our work by volunteering and contributing so others can benefit.

Please do not remain silent. Speak. Stand up. Be courageous.

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by Jenny Martin, SafePlace Communications and Media Relations

Anyone working at SafePlace, and probably any other domestic or sexual violence agency, has been asked questions similar to these at some point: "So, do you hate men now?" or "How can you be in a relationship after everything you've seen?" or "How do you do this every day?"

Melinda Cantu, Director of the SafePlace Family Shelter, has worked at SafePlace for 22 years. It seemed she would be a great person to go with these questions. This is what she says about how working at SafePlace has affected her personal relationships:

"Working in domestic violence and sexual assault has impacted me on so many levels with regard to my personal relationships.  Initially, as many people who come into this movement have discovered, I was worried about all relationships and concerned about how abuse of power would impact me.  So I decided not to be in a relationship.  I then realized that what was important was to communicate my desires about what I wanted in a relationship, what I expected in a relationship and what others should and can expect from me.  I learned to really listen to the people in my life, I learned that sometimes it is not what people say, but what they don’t say that is important.  I have learned that no one can actually read anyone else’s mind – so I learned not to expect others to read mine.
 
I know that I am much more thoughtful and caring with those in my life – I am also more thoughtful and caring with myself.  I know that had it not been for working in this field I would have never learned how important it is to know one’s own limits.  
 
I feel that had I not become involved in this movement my eyes would have been closed to so many things.  I would have had a hard time speaking up about violence when I saw it, in any form.  I think I have also learned that all of us have the capacity to be violent or not; and we need each other to hold ourselves accountable to honor and cherish our relationships with all of those around us.  
 
I continue to learn that there is no perfect island where peace and love exist and that it takes work - individually, collectively, and  globally in order to create the peace we so desire; and sometimes that comes one person at a time; starting with me."

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by Diane McDaniel Rhodes, former Chief Program Officer at SafePlace

Relationship violence affects our society, our town, our neighborhood and affects you. I encourage you to take a moment this week, perhaps with a cup of tea, and think about the ways relationship violence touches you.

•  1 in 4 women are abused in their lifetime. You or the women you love are afraid to be outside after dark.
• In the U.S., healthcare costs associated with domestic violence total $5.8 billion annually. When you pay high insurance premiums and co-pays you are paying in part for this care.
• Loss of job productivity due to domestic violence costs $727.8 million every year. When someone you work with calls in sick because of violence in their home, you have to do their work and don’t know why.

When I talk to a group of people about relationship violence I know there are more than just a few survivors listening in the audience. How could it be any other way? I also know when I’m in the grocery store, the library or the movies there are more than just a few survivors there shopping, reading or watching as well.

Comment and tell us how relationship violence affects you.

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Guest post by "BJ" - member of the Men's Support Group at SafePlace

When I attended the SafePlace Men’s Support Group it was the first time I had met other men who were victims of childhood sexual abuse and had gone through similar abuse that I went through. Going to SafePlace changed my life; meeting fellow survivors face-to-face and sharing the day to day challenges of being a survivor was very healing.  

Knowing that other men had been through similar experiences like I had been through, understanding I was not alone in the shame, guilt, rage and isolation I felt from the abuse gave me the strength to continue digging deeper into to my issues.   I learned more about myself than I have at any other time in my life.  I was able to trace back why I’ve had suicidal thoughts since I was 13 years old, and today, at 44, I can honestly say I am not having those thoughts anymore.  

I learned I am an alcoholic. My drinking was a way to cope with the pain from my childhood abuse.  I realized how I interacted with people and loved ones in my life was completely inappropriate; I would push them away, not letting them get close to me in fear that they would leave me if they knew what happened to me.  The shame from the abuse was so ingrained in my mind I did not know how I was acting was pushing people away. It was the only life I had ever known.  I could not believe anyone would want to help and support me.  I made many bad choices in pushing some good people away, and did many things I regret today.  Without the support of SafePlace and the men in the group I would not be where I am today.  

In today’s society, men are not supposed to be weak or talk about their vulnerabilities. For any male survivor of childhood sexual abuse, or anyone who has been sexually abused, coming to SafePlace, or finding a good therapist to work through the issues, will change your life.  

Today I continue to get great support from friends and family.  Today I am living honestly with myself and others. I understand the abuse is nothing to be ashamed about - all the negative feelings I have had towards myself because of the abuse were completely ridiculous.  I did not ask for those things to happen to me, it was not my fault and the abusers need to live with what they have done.  Each day life gets better.  I so appreciate all the people at SafePlace and the people who are supporting me today.

~

Please call our 24-hour Hotline at 512.267.7233 for the most up-to-date info about when the Men's Support Group meets.

1in6.org is another great resource for men sexually abused as boys.

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by Jenny Martin; Communications and Media Relations

Malisa DiGiacomo is the Research and Grants Coordinator at SafePlace. She's well known at SafePlace for her abounding engergy, brilliance and, don't forget, speed walking skills. We asked her a few questions:

 
How long have you been working at SafePlace?  November 2012 will mark my 12-year anniversary at SafePlace! I began in 2000 as the Development Associate, and then became the Research and Grants Coordinator in 2001.
 
What is the most gratifying and challenging part of your work?  It is awesome - and emotional - when people describe how they have worked to rebuild their lives, and what they are doing to end violence. I also love working with everyone at SafePlace, and all that I have learned (and continue to learn) from them and others. The sense of humor we have is also refreshing; I do try to reciprocate.
 
Challenging aspects of my work include confusing and convoluted grant instructions, and my unrealistic perfectionism and self-doubt. I am getting better with age (or maybe I just don't have the energy to worry about things as much. Maturity or fatigue? Whatever works). Multiple, time-consuming deadlines also aren't exactly fun, but I much prefer having more grant opportunities available than not.
 
First Job Ever:  One of my first jobs was working at a library. I love libraries, although it's shocking how I am not thrown out of them, given that I am as loud as a caffeinated auctioneer.
 
Where have you lived?
I've been fortunate to live in several states, including Connecticut, Florida, Illinois and California, plus a summer in Washington, DC. I love living in Austin - I've been here for about 14 years.   
 
What do you do for fun when you're not working? I love good books, movies, TV shows, music, karaoke, theatre, art museums, walks, writing limericks, making collages, traveling, and hanging out with friends, my boyfriend and our families. I also enjoy board games such as Boggle and Scrabble - I have a miniature Boggle game in my purse, in case I am trapped for hours at the DMV (or worse, the mall). Also, many thanks to Tori Ford for this photo of me.  She is talented!

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by Emily LeBlanc, SafePlace Counseling Services Manager

Every day I read the news and see a new story about rape. It’s everywhere. It seems to be the newest hot issue to write and talk about. Part of me is glad. Rape needs more attention. According to RAINN, every 2 minutes someone in the US is sexually assaulted. Every 2 minutes--let’s put that in perspective.

In other news, there is an epidemic of West Nile Virus in Dallas right now. 66 people have died, half of those in Texas. That has led to a nation-wide effort, headlines on the news every night, and planes flying over dumping pesticide on the city in an effort to curb the spread of the disease. I applaud the effort. Mosquitos scare me--my sister and nieces live in Dallas, so the more prevention efforts there are to protect them, the happier I am.

But it also makes me wonder what would happen if someone were being infected with the virus every 2 minutes. What if we knew that 1 in 4 girls would be infected in college? I have 3 nieces and I’m expecting a daughter. That means statistically, I could count on 1 of the 4 not making it through college without being infected. What if we knew that 1 in 5 girls would be infected before she even left high school? What if there were 17.7 million women walking around the country right now dealing with the long-term effects of the disease every day?  What if we knew that those 17.7 million women were 3 times more likely to suffer from depression, 6 times more likely to suffer from PTSD, 13 times more likely to abuse alcohol, 26 times more likely to abuse drugs, and 4 times more likely to complete suicide? I’m wondering what kind of outrage we would see from our leaders and the media if West Nile virus were claiming those kinds of victims. I don’t think the response would be political. I don’t even think it would be debatable. I think the response would be humanitarian. It would likely be one of those issues that brings the country together, like so many other tragedies in our nation’s history.

The thing is, all of those statistics are true about rape. And yet somehow it has become acceptable for our leaders and the media to politicize the issue. Rather than outrage from the public and a coordinated response from our leaders, we see funding to rape crises centers being cut and the issue being debated by politicians as though it’s just another hot topic for the election.

I see the effects of rape every single day. I also see the effects of the media and candidates politicizing the issue every single day. I don’t care what your politics are. I need for you to know that when you use terms like “legitimate rape” or call rape a “method of conception” or compare the trauma of rape to “having a child out of wedlock,” you make it even more difficult for victims to find the courage to come forward. 97% of rapists will never spend a day in jail. 54% of rapes will never be reported.* And allowing the dialogue to continue as it has will only see those numbers go up.  There’s an old feminist tenet that the personal is political. In this case, what has become political is most definitely personal.

So I’d like to talk to the men of America. Think about the women in your life. Do you know 4 of them? Maybe you have a mom, a wife, a daughter, a boss, a co-worker, a niece. Look around and take note of the women in your life. Now consider that ¼ of them are likely a survivor of rape or attempted rape. Walk around your office or your political convention and count the number of women you see. Now consider that ¼ of those women are also survivors.

I am confident that you do not mean to make it more difficult for the women you care about to get help. I am confident that you do not intend for the language you use to make it more likely that they will be one of the thousands who chooses to end her life rather than let anyone know the hell she has experienced.  But the language you use is powerful. Women live in silence every day because of fear that they won’t be believed, that they will be blamed for what has happened, or that others will think their story isn’t “legitimate.”

You can help end this unfathomable pain. Stop making this about politics. Choose the words you say carefully. Use your power and spotlight to shed light on the problem and advocate for the resources we need to really help victims. Teach your sons to respect women. Teach your daughters that you will believe them, that they deserve to be treated with respect, that they are strong and resilient, and that it’s okay to ask for help. Be a role model for the men around you. Teach your colleagues that words matter.

Now I’d like to talk to the media. You can help, too. When you write stories about female soldiers being raped and abused by their superiors, stop calling it a “sex scandal.” Call it what it is. It’s rape.  When a popular football coach molests several little boys, that’s not a “sex scandal” either. Call it what it is. Don’t be scared of the words; be scared of the act and do something to stop it. Rape isn’t about sex. It’s about power and control and the worst violation of humanity that you can imagine. Give some attention to the people out there who are choosing to do and say the right things, rather than giving all of the air time to those who don’t deserve it. Shift the focus. Change the dialogue. Teach the world that words matter. At the very least, every time you do give attention to those who speak from ignorance or cover the story of another “scandal,” include a hotline number for survivors to call for help.  The National Sexual Assault Hotline can be reached at 1.800.656.HOPE. I look forward to seeing it as part of your next headline.

* Studies show that only 18% of rapes and sexual assaults are reported in Texas.

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by Jenny Martin, SafePlace Communications and Media Relations

We use lots of buzz words and catchy phrases around SafePlace, but I'm pretty sure if I asked one of my friends if they were a courageous bystander they'd be confused. If you identify with my friends...here are some examples of what it means to us to be a Courageous Bystander:

• When you see someone in need of help – you do something. You ask if they need help, call 9-1-1, talk to them, share a hotline number.

• If someone discloses abuse – you believe them.

• You don’t accept the “boys will be boys” mentality as the norm. You challenge it and challenge yourself.

• You volunteer your time, belongings or money to organizations that are dedicated to ending abuse. Doing what you can with what you have.

• You hold the person who is being abusive accountable.  And you offer them help too.

• You are respectful in your relationships.

So now that you know what we mean - we would love for you to SHARE STORIES of a time you or someone else was a courageous bystander. We're going to collect stories throughout the month of September then throughout the month of October, Domestic Violence Awareness Month, we will post them on the blog! Submit your stories to Communications@SafePlace.org!

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by Diane McDaniel Rhodes, former Chief Program Officer at SafePlace

Although I have worked with abuse survivors for the past nearly 30 years and supervised shelter and counseling and housing programs, I’ve learned most when people I love have been in abusive relationships. You’d guess staff at the local domestic violence and sexual assault programs would know how to react and how to help when a loved one is in the throes of a painful abusive relationship. You’d guess we are immune to this kind of pain ourselves. You’d guess wrong. Just like everyone, we struggle.

When my close friend was in an abusive relationship no matter what I said she was impressively able to gloss right over, or  laugh off, or not see what I saw at all. As her support circle shrank in reaction to the discomfort of her ugly family life, all I could do was hang in there, diffuse the scariness sometimes, take the kids, take them all when needed, tell him his control ended at my doorstep, keep talking about it as honestly and lovingly as I knew how, and… well, hang in there. What I wanted was for them to survive, all of them, and to still be there when the whole thing crumbled or blew. It was hard. It was harder still when things finally broke, and every phone call felt like a hotline call. The lines between working and life got really blurry. We all stayed safe. Everyone is whole and well.

Family violence has disrupted the lives of people I love a couple times since then and will again, I’m sure. Family violence doesn’t respect job titles. Until we find ways to end this kind of violence, we have to do everything we can to be part of the solution. We are all in this together.

Things to do when your friend or family member is in an abusive relationship:

• Pay attention – You are only seeing the tip of the iceberg in any relationship that isn’t your own. If you are uneasy or concerned someone is being mean, violent or threatening to someone you care about rest assured - worse things are happening in private.

• Be kind – Kindness diffuses tension and invites trust. Scolding and judging are gasoline on a violent relationship.

• Be there – You can only help if you are there. Ignoring can mistakenly be seen as approval.

• Be accepting – Accept people, even when you cannot accept their behavior. No one can hear help from someone who doesn’t accept them.

When a friend or family member is in an abusive relationship, talking with them about it is scary and difficult. What can you say?

• “I know this is hard and scary, but we can talk about anything.”

• “You are not by yourself with this. I will help and we can think about this together.”

• “You are not responsible for his behavior.”

• “No matter what you did, you do not deserve to be hurt.” 

Don’t hesitate to express your concern for her safety and the safety of her children.

• “I hated the way he talked to you. I'm worried about what might happen later.”

• “You don’t deserve to be treated that way.”

• “I’m worried about you. He’ll really hurt you.”

• “Call me if this gets so bad you have to leave. We’ll figure something out.”

• “This is awful. What can I do to help?”

Look into resources such as the SafePlace 24-hour Hotline 512.267.SAFE (7233)

• Visit our website and read about our safety programs for survivors and learn about abuse, safety plans, legal assistance, counseling, and emergency shelter.

If you need help talking to a friend or would like to know more about our programs for survivors of violence, please call the 24-hour Hotline, 512.267.7233.

*Photo thanks to razbarabanilo on Flickr.com

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by Danniel Zelaya, SafePlace Communications Department Intern

I recently graduated from the University of Texas and can say I’ve met hundreds of people along the way.  How could I not with the 50,000 student attendance and with me involved in several student organizations? Some, I was fortunate to get to know and add to my circle of friends. Of those, many who were in relationships were trusting of me and let me know what was going on between them and their partner. Not only did it make me happy to know that they trusted me with personal information, but it also made me glad to know my friends were in love and had, what I thought were, healthy relationships.

This wasn’t always the case though. Several of my friends in relationships weren’t happy because they weren’t being treated right. Not only was I astounded about the fact that they stuck around, but also at how everything seemed to be fine and dandy between the couple from the outside looking in. I would ask my female friends why they stuck around so long and they would answer, “I don’t know,” or “I think he’ll change,” and “it won’t happen again.”  These responses worried me, so I asked them if their partner had ever laid a hand on them.  They all told me no.  That may have been the truth or they may have been lying to protect themselves, their partners or their relationship. They told me that they would leave in an instant if he were to lay a hand on them.

With that being said, it had me think to myself, “Abuse doesn’t always mean it has to be physical or sexual.  If one in five women are sexually assaulted in college, I wonder how many women are abused non-physically?”  Many of my peers wouldn’t consider themselves being victims of abuse, when in reality they were. Abuse can be emotional, verbal, and psychological as well. I don’t think many of my college peers understand that. If their partner is insulting them, calling them names, and constantly putting them down, that is abuse. There was an instance where one friend’s partner would get mad at her for going out and would constantly accuse her of cheating when she was hanging out with girlfriends.  If your partner is telling you when or where you can go out to socialize and is being controlling, that is a form of abuse. I personally think accusing your partner of cheating for going out with friends is an unacceptable behavior.  We as humans are social creatures and are not meant to be isolated. On top of that, we're in college, of course parties are going to be attended and new friends are going to be made!  Without trust, there is no relationship. There should be no reason for putting the other down. If both partners aren’t happy, there shouldn’t be a relationship, in my opinion.

As with all forms of abuse, the aftermath of non-physical abuse can be devastating.  As a result of the emotional abuse, some of my friends felt like they weren’t worthy of anything and now have low self-esteem. This easily distracted them from their studies because they were so worried about what was going on in their relationship. Students are attending colleges to get an education, so I think students should educate themselves and others of the fact that a hand doesn’t have to be raised in order for it to be considered an abusive relationship.

~ Danniel was an intern in the SafePlace Communications Department for the Summer 2012 semester. He is a student at the University of Texas in the College of Advertising and Public Relations. ~

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by Diane McDaniel Rhodes, former Chief Program Officer

People ask about emergency shelter all the time. Either the idea of fleeing, or the idea of communal living strikes a chord of curiosity with most. The Kelly White Family Shelter was designed to offer survivors a place to begin to feel secure and hopeful for their future.  Community and support can be found in the shelter basics:

A typical day in our shelter may look something like this:

Shelter living can be hard. 

Although it is hard, shelter can be sanctuary, albeit very temporary, and can also serve as a necessary step to a life free of violence.

To access shelter call our 24-hour Hotline: 512.267.SAFE (7233), our Hotline advocates are trained to assess the level of danger for everyone who calls for shelter and to find safe solutions.  For those not ready for the step of seeking shelter, advocates can help build a safety plan and give advice and information about all SafePlace programs.

See some more picutres of our Family Shelter.

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by Susan Dunning, Major Gifts Officer

Sarah Biedenharn was a good friend to SafePlace.  This plaque commemorates her gift of $1million to create the Sally Biedenharn Endowment to honor her daughter and for the benefit of SafePlace’s building fund.  Mrs. Biedenharn created the endowment in 2009 with an initial gift of $500,000.  The remainder of the endowment was bequeathed to SafePlace at her death.

If you are in the midst of making or updating your financial or estate plans, please consider a planned gift to SafePlace.  Some things to consider:

• Through discussion with SafePlace, you may determine an ongoing need of  the organization that you’d like to fund through a designated endowment
• Or you may wish to donate to the SafePlace Endowment so the interest from your gift will continue to provide funding where the need is greatest
• You may have someone you would like to honor with an outright gift or a bequest

Often planned gifts can be designed to provide benefit to your heirs as well as to SafePlace.   Many of our SafeKeepers (those who have made provisions for SafePlace in their estate plans) are not wealthy.  Many find that a bequest makes it possible to give a gift much larger than they would be able to during their lifetime.  

Please contact Susan Dunning - 512.356.1569, if you would like to learn more.

by Jenny Martin, Communications and Media Relations

"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me."

I doubt many people will argue that they are unaffected by the media. So when articles like the one below are written, its purpose is not to nag and nitpick; it’s to let people know, media included, that the words they choose to use when talking about rape, sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse do matter. Since the goal is to end all this violence, we know that SafePlace cannot operate alone. We cannot always be the experts – we have to educate others to be experts in their own lives. For instance, when I need advice I turn to the people closest to me. How those trusted people react affects what I decide to do next. The same is true for survivors. 

Stop calling it a sex scandal

Dear media: Learn the difference between abuse and sex -- otherwise, you're sensationalizing violence and rape

By Mary Elizabeth Williams

Let me fix this for you, headline writers. When you’re dealing with a story that involves rape or harassment or abuse or molestation or child porn or anything that falls under the rubric of criminal behavior, you should call those things rape and harassment and abuse and molestation and child pornography. You know what you shouldn’t call them? Sexy sexy sex scandals, that’s what.

For example, when you’re covering a story involving charges of “rape, aggravated sexual contact and multiple counts of aggravated sexual assault” at the Lackland Air Force Base, you might want to reconsider framing it, as the Washington Post does, as a “widening sex scandal,” or as the Boston Herald calls it, a “growing sex scandal,” or even, as the Christian Science Monitor says, a garden-variety “sex scandal.” If you happen to say, as the AP does, that the “Air Force says 31 victims so far in sex scandal,” or as already credibility-strained CNN declares, that there are now “31 victims identified in widening Air Force sex scandal,” please note that word “victims” there. It’s the important one.

Similarly, if you’re ABC and you want to talk about priests who’ve abused children, don’t couch it as a “guide to Catholic sex scandals.” If you’re the L.A. Times or the Hollywood Reporter, don’t say that Jerry Sandusky made for a “Penn State sex scandal.” If you’re the Village Voice, don’t say that  the molestation that allegedly went on for years at a New York private school is a “Horace Mann Sex Scandal.” Just don’t.

**Article from Salon.com**

Hosted community events are vital to SafePlace and the services/programs we provide in order to fulfill our mission to end sexual and domestic violence through safety, healing, prevention and social change.  We hope you'll join us for these fun-filled events coming up!

July 14th

Austin Donation Yoga is hosting a public, hour long yoga class beginning at 1 pm, accessible to all levels. Donation gets you in, with 100% of the proceeds coming to SafePlace!

July 18th

The team at Maximum FX Salon and Spa is happy to announce their Community Day on July 18th, 2012 benefitting SafePlace!  They will be donating up to 20% of all sales at BOTH South Congress and Circle C Ranch salons.

You can help by scheduling an appointment for Hair or Spa services, or by purchasing any retail products.  Call 512.472.3331 or visit their website to book an appointment - and make sure its for July 18th!

July 19th

Get some delicious pizza for dinner on July 19th at Double Dave's Pizzaworks Southpark Meadows location and mention SafePlace!  A percentage of the sales between 5pm and 8pm will be donated to SafePlace's Children's Services Program.  Just remember to mention SafePlace when ordering!

Host your own community event to benefit SafePlace!

by Coni Huntsman Stogner, Director of Transitional Services

In the 15 years I’ve worked at SafePlace, I’ve often been asked how I can work here, and “Isn’t it depressing to hear about abuse all the time?”  The interesting thing is that SafePlace is far from depressing.  The families that come here are all looking to make their lives better and what could be more inspirational?   In some cases, the women (and men) who seek us out have experienced abuse and poverty their whole lives.  It is easy to think that if abuse is all someone knows and has lived, what in the world would make them think things could be different?  But the amazing part is they do.  Each survivor that walks through our door is taking a huge leap of faith that life can be different, better, and free of violence.

Aside from “inspirational”, another word that describes working at SafePlace more accurately than depressing is “real”.  The truth of the matter is that sexual and domestic violence happen in our community and around the world every day.  When you walk into a bank, school or grocery story, chances are pretty good you come into contact with families that are experiencing abuse.  For most people, most places, it’s kept quiet.  People don’t talk about it.  The majority of the time people don’t even talk about it with their closest friends or relatives.  There is a false sense that if no one talks about it, then it’s not happening.  I feel lucky, and OK call me dorky, also honored, to work at a place where people trust us with the stories of their lives.   The only depressing part is that abuse victims often don’t feel safe telling that same story to the people who are closest to them in their everyday lives for fear that they might be judged, criticized or not believed.  Here at SafePlace, where it is talked about openly and honestly, it’s refreshing because it is real.  There is no mask.  No need to pretend that everything is fine.

Lastly, the piece that makes working here far from depressing is the children.  For every woman who is finding the courage to make really hard changes in her own life, there are often children who are learning a crucial life lesson from her actions – that violence is not OK.  Over the years I’ve tried to tell to my three young children what I do at SafePlace, and at times it’s been challenging to determine the right amount of information to give them.  Recently I overheard my oldest son, who is 8, trying to explain to his friend what I do for a living.  Although I know I’ve never used these words, here is what he gleaned.  He said, “My mom works for a place that tries to help families be more in love.”  Nothing depressing about that.

Learn more about SafePlace Transitional Services: Supportive Housing | Case Management | Life Skills

Guest post by Candace, survivor and former SafePlace client

My story, like that of any survivor, is hard to share. Should I risk possible embarrassment and judgement from admitting I was in an abusive relationship? Or will it help drive me further into recovery by sharing my voice? During my time at SafePlace, one of the most common concerns I heard from fellow survivors was they had lost their voice. This is absolutely how I felt during my worst times and occasionally still feel when life gets stressful. Though I have moved forward gracefully and happily into a new, powerful life, the doubt lingers sometimes. Am I good enough? Am I choosing the right path? What will people think about it? Today, I am here to brush those worries aside, be brave, and tell my story. I talk about my past partly to release the secrets I’ve held onto for so long and partly to let others know they are not alone. The road to recovery might be winding, but I can still be a whole person even with a broken past.

I was with an abusive partner for about two years. I already had pretty low self-esteem when I met him, but he helped make it so much worse. He treated me like something less than human. He considered himself virtuous and me as a servant, sent to take care of him. I didn’t feel good about myself, so I tried to fix him instead.

I lived my life in fear around him. Fear that I would make the wrong decision, say the wrong thing—anything to tip off his anger. Our physical fights mix together in a blur now, but the fear is something I will never forget. It’s so easy to watch violence on TV and yell to the victim, “run away!” In real life, panic creates paralysis over the body. Each time he put his hands on me, I knew it was already too late. Of course, I still tried to escape, but I had to wait until he finally let me go.

Though my injuries were never life-threatening, I felt like I died a little each time we fought, especially the last time. On that dark day, I knew my life was over. I saw a bright light, and then my soul leapt out of my body and ran through an open door into the sunlight. I knew if I could just catch up, maybe I could survive. I felt such remorse for letting myself get into this situation until something clicked—he was the problem. In the end, I had to make the decision to let him go, permanently.

After my escape, it took several years before I decided to really deal with my abuse. Three years after the last incident, my abuser tried to re-enter my life. I felt myself crumbling away and forgetting how to stand up to him, like I’d done in my head. I knew I couldn’t face this on my own, so I turned to SafePlace. I am so glad to have found an organization focused solely on helping people like me. It was such a revelation to know I wasn’t alone and that complex emotions were common. SafePlace provided me with room to experience my feelings and realize my own power. It was a tough journey, but eventually I saw things change—in my mind and my life. Today, I know that even if doubt sneaks in sporadically, I am still a confident and complete person with a healthy future ahead.

------

Candace has been so kind to share even more of her story with us in hopes to let others know they are not alone. Thank you for your openness Candace!

Guest post by Pat McGann - Director of Strategy & Planning at Men Can Stop Rape

Have you ever seen one of those model ships built from toothpicks? Looking at it, you’re amazed that hundreds of thousands of little pieces of wood have been joined together to create this magnificent object.

The Healthy Masculinity Action Project (HMAP) is like one of those ships. It’s going to take a lot of organizations joining together to create it. That’s why SafePlace is a HMAP Ally and why all the HMAP Allies are so important.
                                

What Role Do the HMAP Allies Play?
HMAP is building a new generation of male leaders who will model non-violent, emotionally healthy masculinity and serve as positive change makers in society – helping to take their communities from awareness to action.

The HMAP organizing partners – Men Can Stop Rape, National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, Men Stopping Violence, Coach for America, Women of Color Network, and A CALL TO MEN – regularly share information about healthy masculinity and HMAP with their national networks. HMAP Allies do the same.

Check Out the HMAP Allies!
From counselors to fraternities to prevention educators, the HMAP Allies are extending the reach of HMAP. The number of allies is growing every week.

Start talking about healthy masculinity. Ultimately, it will take everyone for HMAP to be a success.

The Healthy Masculinity Summit will kick off HMAP this October. Watch for more information in upcoming weeks.

by Diane McDaniel Rhodes, Chief Program Officer

New romance can be weird and awkward under the best of circumstances. It’s normal to have questions about what your new love interest is thinking, feeling, doing, meaning, etc. Behaviors that are signs of potential danger in a relationship can be hard to see.

Try:

• Being friends first – even if you are really attracted to someone
• Staying true to your usual behavior – keep doing things you love to do with the people you love
• Checking in with friends and family about the new relationship – they can see things you can’t
• Appreciating your new love just exactly the way they are right now
• Clarifying. Everything.

Relationship bad behaviors that might seem funny or romantic but are really trouble - the person you are in a relationship with:

• never has a good thing to say about their ex
• frequently talks trash about other people
• wants something about your relationship to be a secret
• won’t introduce you to friends and family
• party vs. dates – only wants to meet-up and party with you, but never wants to do anything outside of partying
• enjoys scaring you
• talks about how someone (maybe you) isn’t good enough. Belittling someone might seem like teasing, but is really trouble.
• is disrespectful to family members
• tells you how to dress, what to eat or where to go
• is jealous or resentful when you spend time with others
• hurts you and laughs
• uses physical force to get their way or makes you do something you don’t want to do
• shows up uninvited or unexpectedly
• follows you around or always seems to be watching you
• frequently accuses you of unfaithfulness, or constantly worries you are with someone else
• blames you for things they do
• makes your friends uncomfortable

 Obsession and fear are only romantic in fiction, never in life.

Photo source unknown.

by Jenny Martin, Communications and Media Relations

The month of May was packed full with groups coming out to do volunteer service projects around SafePlace! We love having these groups out - it's a lot of fun and the groups help us keep our campus looking pretty!

It was Senior Service Week at Westlake High School and these students were BUSY landscaping/mulching different areas around our campus, potting plants, laying down crushed granite at Supportive Housing, washing 6 vans, washing windows at the Resource Center, washing the front windows of the Child Development Center and washing the front windows of the Shelter.	The Notre Dame Club of Austin came out again this year and gave the classrooms in our Child Development Center a much needed facelift!	During Convio Cares Week this group of volunteers painted the gate and railing at our Supportive Housing Complex in the hot, Texas sun.	Thanks to this wonderful group of volunteers from Intel the activity rooms in our shelter are still looking great from a fresh coat of paint!

If you are now completely inspired to come get your hands dirty with a group of co-workers or friends visit our Group Volunteering page! If you need more inspiration get some ideas from our Flickr page!

Other things groups can do:

www.SafePlace.org/SPAN  |  www.SafePlace.org/Host

by Annette Saenz, Community Education Senior Training Specialist

Usually when I leave work, I try to make a conscious decision to “unplug” from my work duties. However, when doing work like this it’s not always possible. Unfortunately, domestic and sexual violence surrounds us everywhere. If anybody asks me that typical question, “So what do you do?” I tend to talk for hours about the topic. I actually love that about my job since I love to educate.

Anyways one day after work I had the TV on in the background, playing solitaire and incessantly monitoring Facebook. YEAH! Someone just updated their status! I think to myself, “Oh look it’s a new update from an old friend from high school,” and “Oooh she has a review of the new movie Black Swan.” Apparently she thought it was really good. So like a good Facebook addict I comment on her status update. Something to the tune of “thanks for the review, now I know I want to go see it.” I return to my other addiction, solitaire, not thinking anything more about the status update until… she replies to my comment.

I usually love when I say something so profound that someone actually wants to address me. However this time was quite different. She said, “Annette, the movie was awesome. It was a total brain rape.” I reread the comment over and over again while simultaneously picking up my jaw, and then I just sat there staring. Now I know this woman. She is college educated with a heart of gold and still her comment stared me down like it just punched me, spit in my face and then eyed me up and down.

At times like this, the voices start in my head. Luckily it was the voice of Karen Wilson. I heard Karen particularly loud saying, “WALK THE TALK! If not now, WHEN?” Crap!?! Now what do I do? One of my (s)heros is yelling in my head, but my father’s voice is also in there saying, “Don’t ruffle feathers, sometimes it’s better to shut up in order to keep the peace.” Well you know what Dad? I’m smart! I can walk the talk without ruffling feathers harshly.

My response to her was something like, “I really appreciate your review of the movie, but as an advocate and rape survivor I think it might not be the best way to describe a movie. I know you and know you did not mean to offend.” A few minutes later I refreshed the page so I could no longer see the update and comments. As I’m thinking I may have completely messed up a teachable moment, I see I have a new private message from her. She begins by apologizing profusely for her obviously inept comment. She also let me know that she did, in fact, delete the whole thing since she was so embarrassed. I wrote her letting her know that it was ok to make mistakes - learning from them is what’s important. She agreed. I also let her know she could, instead of continuing to apologize to me, pass the word along that sometimes the words you do or don’t use can affect others. The sweet woman thanked me and said she would absolutely pass the lesson along.

Yeah! Success! I really do feel this impacted her greatly. I also do think she passed the lesson along, but this is not always the case.

Walking the talk may be a life changing experience for someone or it may simply be a seed you plant in their mind, but one thing is for sure - it makes you proud of yourself regardless of the outcome.

Annette Saenz is a Senior Training Specialist in SafePlace’s Community Education Department. Annette provides education to the Austin community about how to recognize, report, respond to and prevent sexual and domestic violence. She specializes in training with health care professionals, in workplaces, colleges, child care centers and the  LGBTQ communities.

by Veronica Hernandez, Human Resources Assistant

How long have you been working at SafePlace?

I started in 2000 – it makes it easy to remember how long I’ve been here!

What have you discovered about working at SafePlace in the past 10 years?

The recognition of SafePlace in our community and nation-wide makes me realize that our efforts are making our world a better place. What more could I ask for?

What’s the most gratifying part of your work?

There are so many things! I love seeing teens open up and share stories about themselves. For someone who may never have taken that risk, it’s a huge step, and then bigger changes come soon after. I love seeing teens become advocates and leaders in SafePlace issues. They have the most creative ideas, and hearing them speak to their peers or to adults is SO inspiring and exciting - way more than I could ever be! I love my co-workers. They are so passionate, kind, and dedicated that it keeps me motivated every day.

First Job Ever:

I worked as a type of office aide in a program very similar to the City of Austin Summer Youth Employment.

What do you do for fun when you’re not working?

I’m a foodie, so I love anything to do with food – cooking, trying new restaurants and cuisines, growing my own vegetables in my backyard, and reading food blogs. I also like to travel, read, scrapbook, play soccer, and hug on my dog, Chi.
 

Agnes Aoki is a Counseling Manager in the SafePlace Expect Respect Department. She supervises Expect Respect Counselors who facilitate groups in the middle and high schools in the Austin area, and has her own caseload of clients that she meets with individually. Agnes also assists with the implementation of a project in which The Center for Disease Control is currently evaluating the Expect Respect support groups as a way to prevent domestic, dating, and sexual violence. The Expect Respect Program engages young people and adults in building safe and healthy relationships.

By Julia Spann, Executive Director

Civility is treating others well, and being treated well by others. That’s it. Civil behavior should be the rule, rather than the exception.

Family violence is an extreme form of incivility.  Of course we cannot go into homes and give five point lessons on civil behavior and eradicate abuse.  We have to find a new way.  I propose we adopt a different model of civic responsibility, one that embraces you and me, all of us, responsible for public behavior and family behavior.

Incivility is the lack of respect.  It’s a continuum of behaviors, with crudeness and rudeness on one end and abuse and violence at the other end.  Incivility, at its core, is hedonistic, selfish, and concerned first and foremost with self.  The same goes for people who are abusive. Family violence is about one person’s need to get and maintain “power over” another.  An abusive person does this with threats, intimidation, control, manipulation, and violence.  Violence is simply a tactic.

The number one risk factor for being a victim of family violence is being a woman. Otherwise, it is equal opportunity, anybody can be abused.  Men are abused, and children are also at extreme risk, but make no mistake, this is primarily a women’s issue.

One in four women are victims of intimate violence in their lifetime.  When you next go to the grocery store or as you sit in church, count them off….one, two, three, abused….one, two, three, abused.

So what can we do?  I believe that even among those of us who are very civil, and would never be abusive toward someone in our family; those same good folk turn our backs on instances of family violence around us.  We turn our backs not because we are bad people, but because we are taught family things are private and it is not our place to comment or to interfere.  Doing something feels uncivil and is really uncomfortable. WE even have a name for it to remind us it is bad: interfering.

I challenge you.  When you see a child getting slapped in the grocery store: that’s your call.  When your nephew repeatedly ridicules and puts his wife down at the family table: that’s your call.  Yelling and banging in the next hotel room? That’s your civic and civil duty.

It feels uncivil to interfere in private matters.  But, I think it is uncivil to allow an imaginary concept of privacy to hide real hurt.  Our civil duty is to the people who are being hurt, and to the village: it’s our call.   It is critically important that the manner in which we engage be respectful, helpful, and kind.  In fact, you can never, never go wrong being kind!

If you see a child slapped in a grocery store, say “You seem really upset, can I help you so you don’t hurt your child?”  You’ve put them on notice that what they are doing isn’t ok, but you are also being kind.  How about at that dinner table if you pulled your nephew aside to say “Brad, take it down a notch, it isn’t okay to talk to Lisa that way!”  This is most effective coming from men – man to man. 

Civility grows when we accept our shared responsibility for one another, even in private relationships.  Imagine the difference when we respectfully break the silence and secrecy that cocoons abuse.

Abuse’s greatest ally is privacy.  Victims are threatened not to “tell”.   A battered woman is threatened with “I’ll lose my job” or “then I’ll tell everybody what a horrible wife and mother you are” or “I will come back and kill you.”  Of course, a victim doesn’t tell, it is just too dangerous.  The result is that the secrets and the abuse will live on.  Our inaction is complicity.

I remember an abused woman telling me she saw a doctor for years.  She didn’t have knife wounds or choke marks, but she was always sick from the stress and she routinely had bruises.  The doctor never asked about her safety.  Finally, she said to him “I’ve been coming to you for years and my husband has been abusing me all along.  You never asked if I was safe.”  His response: “You never told me.”  I ask you, who is responsible – the victim or the helper?  We’ve already established the danger she faces.

Years ago the location of SafePlace was secret.  Then, we went public.  It’s been fabulous.  It says to victims, “you do not have to be ashamed to come here.”  It says to abusers “no more secrets”.  It says to the community, “safety is not solely the victim’s responsibility.” 

Let’s go further.  SafePlace cannot be alone in keeping victims safe.  It is ALL OF OUR RESPONSIBILITY.  You and me.  THIS is civility.

Civility is honorable and courageous.  Imagine we become a community that does not allow incivility even in our most private institution…the family.  That is very brave.  By modeling a form of civility that includes family, and influencing others to do the same, just imagine the number of people we could keep safe.  Can we reduce the one in four?  I believe so. 

by Suzanne MacGillivray, Accounts Payable/Accounts Receivable Coordinator

Every week day, I process payments for assistance to our clients.  Often they’re not very large amounts, but one day several months ago, I received a check request for $7.  Just $7.  Something about that small amount was more affecting than any other I’d ever processed.  I knew in theory that our clients leave everything behind often, in order to get themselves and their children to safety.  But the fact that a client didn’t have even $7, an amount many of us could easily spend on a fancy coffee, made me realize this truth not just in my head but in my gut as well.  Every donation matters, no matter how small.  If you can give $7, it will help someone.  If you can give us $50 or $100 or more, that’s great and you can help multiple people or one person with a more costly need.  But if all you can give is $7 and you think, “Oh, this is such a small amount it won’t make any difference; they won’t even care,” please know that your $5 or $7 is very needed and we really do appreciate you.

- Suzanne

To make a gift to SafePlace donate today!

by Jenny Martin, Communications and Media Relations

Julia Spann, Executive Director at SafePlace, recently wrote a letter to the editor in response to the "Don't pick at crime victims' fund" editorial in the April 17th edition of the Austin American-Statesman. Here's what she wrote:

"This editorial recommends that money from the Compensation to Victims of Crime Fund not be used by social service agencies to help victims but rather go directly to victims. I recommend an approach that includes both options. Victims of violent crime do need cash assistance to pay for expenses related to crimes committed against them. These funds should also provide for therapeutic services at victim services agencies that would not be available to many victims otherwise. Victim service agencies provide services with greater expertise and at a lower cost than private practitioners. The cost of private counseling in Austin averages $115 per hour; at SafePlace we provide it free to victims of sexual and domestic violence, and it costs the fund less than $50 per hour. Simply put, using some of the fund to allow agencies to help victims is a great deal."

Some background info: Crime Victims' Compensation is money specifically allotted for victims of violent crimes. Individuals can apply for financial assistance to help them offset expenses that result from being a victim of crime. Victims of sexual and domestic violence most often use cash assistance to pay medical bills, counseling and other mental health services, and relocation expenses. In order to be eligible, a victim must have a police report or a protective order. The money for the fund comes directly from fines and fees convicted offenders pay to the court. Victim services agencies can apply for money from the fund once the fund's primary goal of paying individual victims' expenses has been fulfilled. SafePlace receives money from the fund to help pay for our counseling services and hospital advocacy programs offered free of charge to anyone in need.

Supplemental articles:

Don't pick at crime victims' fund - Austin American-Statesman
Help agencies help - Austin American-Statesman letter to the editor
Crime Victim Services Bracing for Big Cuts - The Texas Tribune

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by Jenny Martin, Communications and Media Relations

Doing something kind for someone almost always lifts your spirit and can give you a renewed perspective on life.

If you’re still looking for a Mother’s Day gift, here are some ideas:

One thing we value so much at SafePlace is the community support we receive from businesses - large and small.  Thank you!

See what other businesses are doing to support us:

www.SafePlace.org/Calendar
www.SafePlace.org/Host

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by Diane McDaniel Rhodes, Chief Program Officer

Welcome to the blog. We’re delighted to be expanding our online presence. This is your connection to the SafePlace community. It’s also the new home of updates about programs and services, up-coming events, how-to’s and links to items we’re interested in and thinking about. Like the agency, our blog will have many voices. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.

Everything about sexual and domestic violence is difficult. Except maybe being part of the solution. What you do matters. Honor and care for your family. Speak up and help when you are concerned for someone else's safety. Tell people you expect them to be nonviolent in all their relationships. Tell people you care about their safety.

News:

"The Child Development Center took their first field trip in vehicles to Green Gate Farms.  (We had previously walked to the library- but that is as far as we had been!) We had amazing parent involvement, and we had a wonderful morning. Teachers surveyed the students about what they would like to plant, and Stacy and I went back and bought some plants for our garden, and the children planted an assortment of vegetables in our garden at the CDC."

     – Pam Rutledge, Director of the Child Development Center

"In the midst of providing support groups and presentations to youth leaders, Austin Independent School District staff, parents and community members, Expect Respect is additionally conducting a large scale evaluation with the Center for Disease Control, and starting up the Changing Lives Youth Theater Ensemble tour. It’s an amazing team."

     – Barri Rosenbluth, Director of Expect Respect

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