Anti-Racism Training

Anti-Racism Training in Charlottesville – Today was an interesting day. This group is addressing institutional racism, the negative effect of indifference to social justice and the power of racial memory. Of course, all of us are present because we want to be and so they are (or are they) just preaching to the choir. And they are only promoting change for the perceived power-people. They are not addressing the powers in the minority groups that benefit from the current status of inequality and don’t want to lose their position. Both will have to want the change and it frequently feels like the power people in both groups don’t really want this change. The people who want the change are really the hapless people in the middle, who really have no power. How to express this to the group, without starting an issue, without the minority group feeling blame? It’s the dynamic that is now created. Some people always benefit from groups being oppressed, some of the oppressed actually. If their cause is gone, who would they serve? What would their role be? Do they really want to give up their role as cause fighters and be just like everyone else? Somehow I don’t think so. I think its equal pressure form the powers of both worlds to keep conflict and segregation going. We remain the in-betweens just talking to each other and g. And where do we take this?

Coercive Control

“Coercive Control” by Evan Stark
What do we experience as providers: compassion fatigue, secondary trauma, headaches, sleeplessness, agitation, nightmares, hopelessness, and anger? This affects our ability to connect with people, put up barriers to those we are trying to help.
Questions:
1. What happened to her/him?
2. What are the barriers to follow through with treatment?
The retreat was nice, although I remain separated from the group as usual. It was interesting to meet people who work in this field. My presentations were uninteresting I think. I did get food responses from the second one overall. But I remained tense about the whole thing overall even after a couple of days.

Annual Retreat for the VSDVAA

Teen Dating Violence Prevention – this is more about intervention, programs in school in school about what to do if…
Analysis of case of a girl going to a party. Prevention would really have been parents checking up on where the child is going. This would really have prevented the scene. Prevention needs to start with us, our generation as parents teaching children from the beginning with consistent messages between school and home. This is the gap, a decrease in parenting skills. This is what needs to be addressed.
1. Perceived threat – ongoing
2. Management of daily activities – interrupts problem solving and decision making.
3. Altered identity
4. Entrapment
5. Disempowerment

Program Management Training Notes

Program Management Training in Williamsburg – presentations only somewhat interesting. I think I am burned out on these types of presentations. It always seems like the same old stuff. And do people, the attendees really change their programs to incorporate the new stuff they learn or is it just attending for the sake of attending?
Adverse childhood experiences relate to higher levels of depression for women, increased correlation with smoking and lung cancer, teen pregnancies, higher rates of sexual partners and therefore higher likelihood of STD’s and HIV. 4 or more adverse experiences spike the correlation of all above.
A presenter described a sexual assault as having a bad day. Amazing. Can someone really think trauma from violence is really just a bad day? That people/victims just go and say: “Oh well, bad day.” It shocked everyone in the room who heard her say it. She minimizes the very trauma she is serving in her job. But perhaps this is not her issue, just happened to get a job monitoring grants to serve sexual assault victims. I came to this field in a round-about way myself. So who knows?

Changemakers Competition - The Coalition on Violence and Vulnerable Populations

The Coalition for Violence and Vulnerable Populations
by carolannolson March 28, 2007
Country: United States
Organization: Rappahannock Council Against Sexual Assault
Focus of activity: Community Involvement
Year the initiative began: 2006
Positioning in the Mosaic of solutions
Main barrier addressed: Insensitive & Unresponsive Systems
Main insight addressed: Create Paths to Prevention or Remediation
Description of Initiative: The Coalition is comprised of three main agencies: The Rappahannock Council Against Sexual Assault, The Rappahannock Council on Domestic Violence, and the Disability Resource Center along with other agencies and centers that serve individuals with disabilities. The main focus of the Coalition is to identify the specfic and specialized service needs of individuals with disabilities and/or barriers to services that have been victims of or are at risk of sexual assault and domestic violence. This Coalition seeks to do a comprehensive needs assessment of planning district 16, a service area that includes the City of Fredericksburg and the counties of Caroline, Stafford, Spotsylvania, and King George. This service area is a mix of small urban environment, suburban developments, and rural communities. A part of this needs assessment will include a gap analysis of services for individuals with disabilities. The goal of the Coalition is to forward prevention of intimate violence to a vulnerable population by increasing access of information and services to individuals with disabilities and their families. This program addresses both sexual violence and domestic violence against individuals with disabilities who are particularly vulnerable to such violence. The Coalition will conduct a needs assessment of the community and organizations that provide services to or could provide services to individuals with disabilities, develop and provide a training curriculum for service providers, provide upgrades to services and access for centers, and initiate an innovative program to provide personal service assistants for individuals with mobility, cognitive and expressive needs within shelters to help them better access services. The primary beneficiaries are individuals with disabilities such as mobility needs, hearing needs, cognitive or expressive needs, and language needs.
Innovation: Our approach is to develop a strong community coalition of agencies that serve the identified population of individuals with disabilities and barriers to services currently in place, fully cross-train staff to better serve the clients, and initiate a personal assistant program for victims needing personalized care either within domestic violence shelters or accessing out-patient community services. The personal assistant program is unique in offering one-on-one assistant services to individuals with disabilities who are staying in a shelter, so that they may remain in a safe environment and fully access all needed services. This approach facilitates people with disabilities having access to shelters, provides the shelter with staff trained specifically to the individualized needs of the client. Currently there are no such staff positions available at shelters or within the community that are free or cost effective for the consumers. Shelters themselves cannot afford to hire a staff person that is dedicated to only one person with extensive or multiple care-taking needs.
Delivery Model: This initiative will reach the community of allied professionals through a survey mechanism initially. Print, web advertising and community health fairs and outreach events will be utilized to reach the comunity to inform of the specialized services that are developed. Evaluations of the training of allied professionals and post-services evaluations of victim services will be given out to assess impact of the program.
Key Operational Partnerships: The Rappahannock Council Against Sexual Assault provides services to sexual assault victims and child abuse victims such as: advocacy, education, hotline and hospital accompaniment, training, counseling, and volunteer opportunites to the community and development, staff support and grant writing services to the coalition.
The Rappahannock Council on Domestic Violence provides advocacy, education, hotline, psychoeducational groups, volunteer opportunites, outreach and shelter serivces to victims of domestic violence and development and staff support to the Coalition.
The Disability Resource Center provides a variety of services to individuals with disabilities and staff support and development to the Coalition.
All of these partners are local non-profits that serve the community and are central to the development and leadership of this Coalition as they all provide key elements of specialized services in prevention and provision of aftercare services for intimate violence. Other partnerships are being sought and incorporated into the coalition.
Financial Model: All partners are funded through local, state, and federal funds to provide free services to their recipients.
What percentage, if any, of the total operating costs does earned income (from products, services, or other fees) represent? 0
How is the initiative financed? Is it financially self-sustainable or profitable? How much do beneficiaries contribute? Each of the partner agencies contribute both financially and with staff time. The Coalition is not financially self-sustainable at this time.
Effectiveness: Over 50 people who serve individuals with disabilities that experience sexual or domestic violence have benefited from the initial outreach and training provided by the coalition. Each of the agencies have begun implementing recommended changes such as purchasing and implementing TTY phones, rearranging office space to accommodate individuals with mobility needs, and seeking bi-lingual staff or translation services to address language barriers. The coalition is also improving communication between agencies that may provide different services to the same population.
How many people have benefited from your program over the last year? Which element of the program proved itself most effective? The coalition is in the process of tracking numbers of people served with improved services, numbers are not yet available. It appears that the most effective element has been the implementation of hotline translation services and TTY phones for callers with hearing and language barriers. RCDV in particular has increased it's services to the immigrant and hispanic population with the implementation of spanish language hotline availability.
Scaling up Strategy: First year: Implementation of comprehensive survey of area agencies in the planning district 16 that can or could potentially serve individuals with disabilities or otherwise identified as vulnerable populations (the immigrant and hispanic populations). A gap analysis of needs to be addressed in terms of services to consumers and training of staff and speciality staff positions.
Second year: Development of curriculum t cross-train staff to be more familiar with other agencies, how to better refer, how to better screen for unaddressed issues, how to more appropriately respond to victims of sexual and domestic violence. Deliver this training series around the catchment area. Develop informational brochures and web site to inform the public and potential consumers of improved serivces and access to services at participating agencies. Seek funding to hire speciality staff for personal care assistants for shelter participants who need intensive attention and care to remain in the safety of the shelter system.
Third year: Placement of personal care assistants in the shelters for individuals with mobility, cognitive, expressive, language, and technology needs. Continued training of professionals who work with individuals with disabilities who have or are at risk for sexual and domestic violence.
Stage of the Initiative: Start up
Origin of the Initiative: The directors of the three main partner agencies realized the gaps in the community and their own agencies to serve individuals with disabilities that have experienced or are at risk for intimate violence. This started with a woman with mobility and daily care needs who was being abused by her care taker. She was unable to stay in the shelter she tried to go to due to her extensive personal care needs that the shelter was unable to accommodate. She had to return home to a violent environment. Another gap was highlighted when a Spanish-only speaking woman from the immigrant community tried to access services following a sexual assault. Due to language barriers at the hotline, she was unable to receive immediate services. These particular issues and others have brought the specialized needs of individuals with barriers to the forefront of these organizations.
Contact Information:
Carol Ann Olson Executive DirectorRappahannock Council Against Sexual Assault (Non-profit )director@rcasa.orgPO Box 1276, Fredericksburg, VA 22402United StatesTel: 540-371-1666Fax: 540-371-9803Website: www.rcasa.org