Right now I’m seeing many posts about the effects of “shelter-in-place” orders throughout the United States on victims of domestic and sexual violence. This is incredibly encouraging, because this offers an excellent opportunity for both awareness and action! Though it may not seem like it, we can actually do a lot right now to prepare for when the shelter-in-place orders are removed, and while they’re still here for victims of domestic and sexual violence.
First and foremost, it’s important that we understand that regardless of a shelter-in-place order from the government, some victims of domestic and sexual violence are forced to stay home, or the abuser stays home. So, while these orders do increase the amount of people staying home, it may not directly impact those victims who’s lives have been entirely controlled in the same way before the orders took place.
This means, as a member of the community, we should be focused on what we can do about the violence both during and after shelter-in-place orders are lifted. You don’t need to be a community leader to lead a community. Whether you’re in a rotary club, women’s club, youth leadership program, sports program or just know leaders in the community, we all impact our community.
Let’s look at a few things we can do now to impact domestic and sexual violence in our community.
Are we aware of the programs in our community that provide safe services for victims of domestic and sexual violence?
How accessible are those services to the community?
What partnerships, if any, are in place with those programs or could be?
Let’s break down each question. It’s not odd to not be familiar with your local domestic and sexual violence program. Most people aren’t unless they have had to use the service themselves or recommend one. All this means is that both the agency and you as a community member need to do a little work on making sure the information is out there about the agency. Typically, local programs try to partner with other community service agencies, schools and businesses to build greater awareness. So, it’s possible someone in your business is aware of the agency, it just hasn’t been passed down.
You can easily locate your agencies by googling “domestic or sexual violence agency near me” and it should pop up with some options. You can also visit RAINN, the Rape and Incest National Network, type in your zip code and it will bring up a list of agencies within your area.
Accessibility is more than just being able to get to the program. Of course, that is an important piece of information. Transportation is one of the biggest barriers for victims when trying to access these types of services. Most domestic and sexual violence programs have partnerships with transportation services like public busses, taxi’s and even sometimes law enforcement, in order to provide safe transportation for the victim. It’s important this information be communicated to victims/survivors so they don’t have to worry about paying for transportation.
Right now, some ride share companies, such as Lift, are offering free transportation to shelters for victims of domestic violence. Since often times electronic devices are being monitored, having commercials or flyers posted around local businesses in the form of , “Did you know??” would be beneficial for victims. Not only this, it’s important to make sure your company has appropriate training on how to work with victims of domestic and sexual violence.
We also need to consider what types of programs are in your community? Do they provide all sorts of services or only limited? Are there any programs for specific ethnic identities? It’s important that we understand that domestic and sexual violence programs are not a one-size fits all. We must be mindful about the intersectionality of traumas. If someone has experienced racism on top of the abuse they experienced, they may not feel safe in a program run predominately by the race of the abuser.
Faith communities are often the first place victims/survivors talk about their experience of violence in the home. This offers a great opportunity for faith communities to partner with different service agencies in their community so that the victim/survivor can receive focused, expert support. It’s also important that faith communities not only partner with other faith-based services, but also non-faith based services or even different faith-based services. Having connections is the best way to assure someone can access the right service for themselves.
Age is a huge factor when it comes to accessiblity. As I wrote about in my last post, age is one of the biggest barriers for children and youth to access services. Not only because if they’re super young they can’t use the phone, or understand transportation, but even if they are able to use a phone they may be too young to access safe shelters are domestic violence shelters. This leaves many youth choosing between living on the streets, going to a youth shelter - where sadly there tends to be a lack of sexual violence and domestic violence training and protocols, or staying in the violent home. Are there youth shelters specifically for youth in your community? If not, could there be?
And lastly, are there any current partnerships with those agencies? Partnerships are amazing. Not only do they continue to bring about awareness of issues and services, but they also create a cohesive, trauma informed community. By having bars and restaurants trained in “Safe Bars”, bartenders and servers will be able to feel confident intervening when they observe potential violence, which will make more people want to be at that particular bar because they feel safe and cared for. If I know that no matter what store I go into to use a restroom I will see a number for a hotline, I know I have lots of options. Not only this, I know that people at the store will be safe to talk to if I am in immediate need for help.
Schools are in an excellent spot to partner with agencies. Having “Healthy” and “Unhealthy” relationship tip sheets posted around the school is a wonderful idea, on top of having hotline numbers in locker rooms and bathrooms. Even better is having advocates from agencies provide healthy relationship education to the students. Having an advocate in the school often builds report with students, making it more likely they will access services that they need. As hard as it is for parents, sometimes telling our parents the bad things that have happened to us is too difficult. Processing this information before telling parents is sometimes the only thing that promises your children will ever tell you.
Despite that fact that many places are shut down and some employees are working from home, we can still provide trainings and brainstorm how to make your business more trauma informed when you return to business as normal.
Hopefully though, for victims everywhere, we don’t just go back to “normal” and realize that “normal” wasn’t helping those who needed it most.
In truth,
Jess
