Death by Powerpoint

Please wake me when it's over.

If you've had to attend more than one seminar, then you've probably experience something that I call Death by Powerpoint. The dark room with a speaker up front who is also in the dark. The slides are filled with tiny little words being read to you by the person in the dark, one by one by one. It's a certain cure for insomnia. Even though Powerpoint can be a great tool for presenters, it all too often becomes the death knoll of what could have been a great workshop.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Visual aids can be a great way to improve a presentation. If you don't have your own images to use, you can find great ones on the web. Seth Godin wrote a post on his blog about where to find great photos for free and how to get the most out of the website. http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/03/where-to-find-g.html

Have fun checking out these great photographs.

Remember, only you can stop Death by Powerpoint!

What's Up With That?

I have been doing research on domestic violence and children this past week on the internet. I came across a website that sparks interest in my psychologist brain. I'm not going to share the link here because it's not a website that I want to promote. It's pretty common when doing internet research to come across some strange sites. The homepage of this site was showing an altered version of the original power and control wheel that implicated the entire battered women's movement for ignoring women's violence and ignoring men as victims of domestic violence. The site had quite a few posts about this altered power and control wheel all but one giving a "thumbs up" for finding fault with the battered women's movement.

The thing that I find fascinating is that any time I have come across a site complaining about the battered women's movement, it usually is filled with vitriol directed towards the women and men who work in the movement. Further, the sites usually have some mention of how male victims are ignored and how "the system" is biased towards women. The sites never have photographs of injuries of men who have been battered. They never have testimonials of men who are battered. What they do have is what this site had. Lots of posts from people complaining about the evils of the "domestic violence industry". Lots of people saying "here, here" for saying that the battered women's movement is detrimental and harmful to men and tells lies about the degree of violence against women. If the site really is about helping men who are battered, then why do they spend so much time attacking the battered women's movement? Why don't they spend that web page space and time helping battered men know where to get help, know how to recognize abuse, know that they don't deserve abuse? Why don't these sites ever have information for gay men in battering relationships?

Could it be that they don't use the space that way because the point of the site is to attack the battered women's movement and not to offer help and support to men who are battered. That's the conclusion that I draw after looking at the site.

Some clarifications: Men who are victims of abuse can call domestic violence crisis lines for help. Anyone who is a victim of abuse or wants to help a loved one who is a victim of abuse can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Domestic violence crisis centers will help both women and men who are victims of abuse from an intimate partner. Even if their shelter will not accept men, they will offer crisis counseling, court advocacy, and assistance finding shelter in other locations. I worked for a crisis center for 9 years and in that 9 years, some men did call for assistance for domestic violence. None of them ever requested or needed shelter. That's true for most victims of abuse. Most victims who call a crisis center are not calling for shelter. They are calling for someone to listen and validate them.

If you are a victim of abuse and in need of help, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline or visit www.ndvh.org. If you are a teen who is being abused, you can visit www.loveisrespect.org or you can call the National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline at 1-866-331-9474(1-866-331-8453 TTY) or chat online from 4pm - 2am CST.

Good to Be Home

I just got back from Monroe, NC this evening. It's great to be back home in Durham, NC.

Sgt. John Guard and I conducted training on domestic violence for two days. The program was sponsored by Turning Point, Union County's domestic violence program. You can learn more about them at www.unioncountyturningpoint.org. The staff at Turning Point were wonderful hostesses to us. They put together the training manuals, handled all the registrations, took us to lunch each day, and made sure that we had everything we needed. It was a pleasure to meet all of their staff and spend time with their community.

Sgt. Guard and I both enjoy traveling all over North Carolina and meeting a variety of people. I love seeing the state of NC and I like the variety of people that live here. Getting directions is always a special treat in smaller towns like Monroe. We were told to look for the Tractor Store on 74East and that's how we would find our road to get to the training center. You just don't get directions like that in Raleigh or Charlotte. I wasn't sure what to expect since the training location was called the Agriculture Center. I had some pre-conceived notions of seeing tractors all around and maybe a cow or two. I was way off base - it was fabulous - ample room for all the participants, microphones, a large screen and a giant LCD projector. Everything was ideal.

Special thanks to Krystin Jacobs and all of the staff at Turning Point for inviting Sgt. Guard and me to train in Union County. We had a great time!

Packing and Unpacking

Training in Union County
I'm on my way to Union County (North Carolina) today to conduct training with Sgt. John Guard (Pitt County Sheriff's Office Domestic Violence Unit). This training is sponsored by Turning Point of Union County. This is a wonderful agency providing services to victims and survivors of domestic violence. You can learn more about them at www.unioncountyturningpoint.org.

The training is titled, "Finding Solutions: Community Response to Victims, Children, and Perpetrators of Domestic Violence."

Packing
I'm leaving in a couple of hours and, of course, I haven't packed yet. Anyone who knows me knows that I wait until the last minute to pack.

Packing is so often what communities directly and indirectly encourage victims to do. We encourage victims to pack up and leave abusers. It's certainly an option and not necessarily a bad option in terms of individual choices. It is not a solution to domestic violence though. Leaving an abuser means there is an abuser out there who no longer has their partner either living with them or in a relationship with them. It's not the end of individual battering for the victims (I say victims because we need to remember how often children are part of this scenario) and it's not the end of domestic violence for communities.

Batterers frequently continue to harass and stalk their victims after they leave. They sometimes take the ultimate revenge and kill their partners and children for having the gall to leave them. Even when abusers don't stalk, harass, or murder their ex-partners and/or children, they are still abusers. They are most likely going to get into a new intimate relationship. They will still have the exact same behaviors and patterns - especially if they have never been held accountable for their abusive behavior.

Unpacking the Issue
Communities put immense time, energy, money, and resources into encouraging victims to leave abusers. We're long overdue to find new ways to put energy into holding abusers accountable and keeping them from continuing to batter new and past partners. That accountability has to come from beyond the criminal justice system. Abusers need to be taught new ways of being in intimate relationships, kept from abusing/harassing/stalking/murdering new and old partners, and held accountable for violent behavior that rises to the level of being criminal. This means faith communities, schools, employers, co-workers, friends, bar-mates, fraternities, sports teams and everybody breathing needs to take a part in ending domestic violence. Another shelter won't do it. Let's stop the problem at its source.

Taking a Walk in Someone's Shoes

Taking the Walk
I don't find it hard to listen to a battered woman tell her story and try to imagine her situation. I do find it hard to walk in the shoes of people who get angry and upset over public art displays depicting domestic violence. I've spent some time trying to understand this particular man's point of view and not just throw the baby out with the bathwater - to see if I can see where he's coming from and why a man who has never protested in his life decided that he had to work to get artwork depicted domestic violence taken out of a courthouse . It's too easy to just dismiss him out of hand and say he's an abuser. He says he was in court for divorce proceedings. And yes, some people do get divorced and domestic violence has nothing to do with it.

From Washington State
A newspaper article in The Olympian on March 18th, tells the story of a man who was offended by four framed collages about domestic violence. (the full story is here: http://www.theolympian.com/localnewsfeed/story/391891.html)

You may be asking why I am reading The Olympian when I live in Durham, NC. I am on a prevention listserv that sends information from all over the nation related to rape and domestic violence. It's supposed to be about prevention so that's another blog entry.

Discrimination? Favoritism?
This man felt like the artwork was discriminatory. The art came down from the walls. The Thurston County Superior Court Judge Chris Wickam was quoted as saying, "We try very hard not to present the appearance of favoring one side or the other."

That is such an interesting comment. It's one I have heard from court officials in North Carolina as well. I only hear statements like that in relation to domestic violence. I'm not really clear why showing the harm of domestic violence is showing favoritism to one side over another. It's showing that our culture thinks that the crime of domestic violence is harmful and wrong. Do we not want to appear as a culture that favors the side of non-violence over violence? I believe that's part of why it's against the law. We want to show that we favor non-violent intimate relatoinships.

Would this man have a problem if the artwork displayed drug dealers selling drugs to children? Would he have a problem if the artwork showed a robber breaking into a home, business, or bank? Would he have a problem if the artwork showed a CEO approving toxins being dumped in a river?

We don't want our courts to show favoritism while hearing evidence in each individual case. It's not that we want judges to feel neutral about crime. We want judges to be neutral as they hear all the evidence and then make a decision.

How We View the World
I think that part of the problem is that this man is seeing the art as depicting all men as batterers, when what it really is depicting is batterers who happen to be male. I haven't seen this art so I don't know if it was made by survivors or not. If it were made by survivors, then that was their experience and no argument of discrimination can change that. I wonder why the man's solution wasn't to have some artwork displayed that showed men playing a positive role in the lives of women and children. Instead, he insisted that the artwork come down. Once again, putting the face of domestic violence underground. I do get that he is probably seeing this artwork as influencing people in the court to see all men as abusers instead of seeing abusers as abusers. It is a sad reality that the bulk of people who commit acts of violence against their intimate partners are males. Many a person wants to argue differently, but I have never seen any hard evidence to the contrary in 18 years of doing this work.

Motivation
It's interesting that the man's motivation to protest the art came from Gordon Hinckley's book, "Standing for Something: Ten neglected virtues that will heal our hearts and homes." Hinckley was the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

The protester, is quoted as saying, "Basically it states that we need to stand up, and that you can't lay down and cry about the world if you're not willing to do something about it."

Now that's just fascinating. Someone who has never protested in his life is going to protest to have art showing the harm of domestic violence be removed from a courthouse.

The article continues: "I've got two boys," he said. "I didn't want them to think that just because they're boys they will grow up to be wife beaters or abusers." I think some dialog about the art could be helpful here. Why does he think that the boys will look at the artwork and immediately draw that conclusion? One of the pieces of art has this quote, "Children in violent homes are more likely to get involved in violent relationships." It didn't say all boys grow up to be wife beaters or abusers.

Standing for Something
Here is this man's quote again, "...we need to stand up, and that you can't lay down and cry about the world if you're not willing to do something about it." His choice to do something was to have the art taken down. This is the meat and potatoes of this issue for me. He is against bias in the courtroom? OK, great. Is he against domestic violence? Is he for raising two non-violent boys? Is he willing to do everything in his power to educate his boys about healthy relationships and how to share their lives with a significant other? These cries of "not fair" and "that's discrimination" ring so hollow for me. All that energy over taking artwork down by this man's very first protest. Perhaps he could spend his time protesting more action to prevent domestic violence homicides. In Washington State alone, 359 people were murdered in by domestic violence abusers from January, 1997 - June, 2006, according to the Washington State Coalition Agasinst Domestic Violence's Fatality Review Report from 2006. http://www.wscadv.org/projects/FR/index.htm#FR_Reports

Nonprofit Mania

Wow. I am preparing for a workshop that I will be presenting at the NC Department of Correction Conference on Offender Reentry in April, 2008. I have been compiling a list of resources and it has been quite the education. It would be interesting to find out how many nonprofit organizations exist in North Carolina alone. I have found a dizzying array of non-profit organizations. As an added bonus, it woudl be interesting to see how many nonprofits per capita exist. And finally, to see how many are doing work that is leading to social justice and social change, moreso than emptying the ocean with a teaspoon.

Soroptomist - Best for Women

I had the pleasure of being the keynote speaker at the Live Your Dreams Awards Ceremony and Celebration held by Soroptimist International of Raleigh, NC, on Wednesday, March 11, 2008.

At the ceremony, three women were honored in three different areas. The awards were as follows:

Making a Difference for Women Award that honors a woman whose professional work is focused on improving the lives of women. The award went to Dr. Lenora Ucko, executive director of StoriesWork.

Violet Richardson Award for a 14-17 year old young woman for volunteerism.

Womens Opportunity Award is for a woman who is the primary wage earner for her family. The award assists with education related expenses.

You can learn more about Soroptimist at www.soroptimist.org. According to the website,
"the name, Soroptimist, means "best for women," and that's what the organization strives to achieve. Soroptimists are women at their best, working to help other women to be their best."

My keynote was titled "Women Ending Violence." My speech honored three important women in my life who represent the soroptimst meaning. First, I honored my friend, Theresa. I met her while I was in graduate school at Kansas State University. Second, I honored my great Aunt Marie. I am named after her and she was the matriarch of my mother's family. Finally, I honored my friend Kate Brodie. She started a non-profit, Exhale, that assists battered women and focuses on public awareness.

The Language of Domestic Violence

We're so afraid to say it: domestic violence.

What is up with that?

The euphemisms for acts of violence by one person commited against their intimate partner go on and on.

A bad relationship
The person snapped
A mentally illness
A drug-induced stupor
An angry outburst
A crime of passion
Engaging in mutual combat
A dispute
A disagreement
An argument
A jealous rage
A jilted lover

It's exhausting to see this list. Today in the Raleigh, NC newspaper, the News and Observer, they published a follow up story on the murder of Ms. Eve Carson.
For the complete story ... http://www.newsobserver.com/2811/story/990483.html

In the story, they mention the murders of Ms. Jessica Faulkner and Ms. Christen Naujoks in 2004. Ms. Faulkner and Ms. Naujoks were UNC-Wilmington students - as were the two men who murdered them. According to previous articles published in the News and Observer, Ms. Naujoks had dated John Peck for 2 years and broke off the relationship. He stalked and harrassed her to the point that she decided to get a restraining order against him. In NC, it's called a domestic violence restraining order. She was in an intimate relationship and she ended it. He stalked and harassed her, and she got a restraining order. Afterwards he shot her 11 times at her apartment complex. In the story in today's News and Observer, the writers refer to John Peck as "a jilted boyfriend." That completely minimizes his violence and removes any understanding of his crime as a domestic violence homicide. He was an abuser, a batterer, a domestic violence perpetrator. Those are the terms that would more accurately describe him. He later committed suicide after murdering Ms. Naujoks. To call him a jilted lover almost puts more focus on Ms. Naujoks than him - somehow insinuating her jilting of him as the cause of her own murder.

We the people need to call domestic violence what it really is. Let's stop minimizing and building in excuses by using euphamisms and language that distracts from the real nature of the crime. Here are some alternatives to the above list:

Domestic violence
Dating violence
Teen Dating Violence
Intimate partner abuse
Crime of power and control
Interpersonal violence
Abuser
Abusive partner
Batterer
Violent partner
Spousal abuse

More About Silos

I've been thinking about the silo issue (siloing: separating different forms of violence and having agencies that only address one form) and it made me think about a form of violence that is not discussed very often and that is violence between siblings.

Violence between siblings is probably written off by many people as no big deal - just like wife beating was written off as no big deal for centuries. Some probably would still argue that it is still being written off as no big deal.

Violence between the siblings can happen regardless of whether or not there is a battering parent in the home. If you work with families, do you ask about violence between siblings? If you do ask, does your agency/organization/program have anything in place to address violence between siblings?

Just something I've been thinking about lately. I am one of ten children and there was quite a bit of violence between siblings when I was growing up. I believe it is not something to be written off as a rite of passage of growing up with siblings. It's one more element of personal violence that can make homes an unsafe environment.

Schools have been paying more and more attention to bullying behavior in the school setting, but sometimes the bully is also acting out in the home or is only acting out in the home against siblings. If you work with children or families, I encourage you to ask about sibling relationships.

Tribute to Eve Carson

Someone murdered Eve Carson, UNC-Chapel Hill student body president, on Thursday, March 6, 2008. Police are still investigating the homicide. Her murder has shaken the community. She was 2 months away from graduation and had plans to go to medical school.

In Friday's paper, The News and Observer showed a photograph of Eve's hand with a message written on it. It was part of an art project called "Why Do You Do What You Do?" Ms. Carson wrote, "I want any excuse to work with my classmates (and help them do what they want to do.... becasue that's what I wanted to do).

As a tribute to Eve Carson, I wrote my answer to "Why Do You Do What You Do?"

My deepest condolenses to her family, friends, and classmates.

Upstream and Silos

Is this a preliminary entry about Earth Day? Not quite. It's about lingo. Every field of expertise has lingo and domestic violence is no different. I just recently attended the American Psychological Association's Summit on Violence in Relationships and Abuse in Washington, DC, on February 28 and 29. I heard the terms "upstream" and "silos" repeatedly. Silo was the more interesting of the two since it also turned into a verb, "siloing."

What do the terms mean? Well, let's use them in a sentence.

Upstream:
To end interpersonal violence, our prevention efforts need to move further upstream.

It's great, isn't it? It sounds like you've said something so progressive and you haven't said much of anything. Prevention, by definition, means dealing with something before it starts. The key with violence is knowing what elements are contributing factors that can be dealt with before an act of violence occurs. Frequently people say that prevention means working with "at-risk" children. What makes them "at risk"? It's usually that they have witnessed violence or have been direct victims of abuse. That's hardly a preventative strategy.

Silo and/or Siloing:
In order to address the larger, root causes of violence, we need to stop siloiong the issue.

You've got to love seeing the word "siloing" written out. I was mentioning this lingo to my brother on the way home from the conference (so kind of him to pick me up from the light rail station). The more I said the word "siloing", the more ridiculous it sounded. (you're saying it two or three times fast right now, aren't you!?)

This word refers to how agencies mainly deal with only one form of violence. This is detrimental to the people we serve since they rarely are coming for help having experienced only one form of violence. Further, the "siloing" leads to agencies not working well with each other or dealing with the larger context of violence in communities.

What is the lingo that your particular agency and/or community uses? Does it lead to one more barrier for dialog between agencies and among the community you want to serve?

What Scares You?

I just got back from Baltimore, MD. I attended the American Psychological Association Conference in DC on Thursday and Friday of last week (more on that later) and then spent 2 days with my brother and his family. I used alot of public transportation over the last four days - which is awesome I must say! Especially coming from Durham, NC, where there is not much in the way of public transportation.

I was getting instructions from my family on how to take the light rail to the airport and they told me not to take a little shortcut path because one of their acquaintances was mugged a few weeks ago on the path after getting off the light rail. The person who was mugged was a male.

As I walked to the light rail, I was carrying 2 bags, a suitcase and a potted plant that my brother gave me. While I was walking I was thinking about the man who was mugged and wondering what I would do if I were mugged. Irealized at this point, that as a woman, my bigger concern was what I would do if a potential mugger attempted to rape me. Not being a man, I don't know if men think about these things - lots of research and talking to men indicates that most do not think about being raped as a potential threat they may have to face. As a woman, it is something that you definitely think about and consider when walking, driving, running, existing.

My first plan of action was to visualize that I am safe at all times and having a safe walk to the light rail. I don't believe that is a 100% protection against attack, but for me, I find it helpful. My second plan of action was to walk fast and with determination and with a look that says leave me alone and don't mess with me. My third plan of action was that if anyone approached with menace that the only thing I was going to hang on to was the potted plant and that it might be helpful as something to knock someone in the head and buy myself time to run to safety. You might be thinking this is an awful plan, but that's not the point. It's unfortunate that women have to consider what we would do if we were attacked and most of us don't even think about it in a very calculated way - it's just there. And it's there whether you've ever been attacked or not.

I made it safetly to the light rail and safely home with no attacks. In fact, I found the people I encountered to be friendly and helpful. I look forward to the day when it isn't second nature for women to wonder what we would need to do to protect ourselves.