Domestic Violence Homicide

My sincerest sympathies are extended to the family of Cherquito McDonald and to her 3 surviving children. Her ex-boyfriend, Jonathan Dion Melvin, allegedly murdered her outside of her workplace yesterday in Hoke County (North Carolina). You can see the story here on WRAL: http://wral.com/news/local/story/2811833/

The ex-boyfriend, Jonathon Dion Melvin, is being held without bond. This media outlet, http://www.wral.com/, chose to interview the brother of Ms. McDonald and did not also interview an expert on domestic violence.

Here is the brother's quote in the article, "Even though they go through their problems, they always get back together," the victim's brother, Kendrick McDonald, said.

It is helpful when the media takes the time to also interview a domestic violence expert to put some perspective on domestic violence homicide. The brother is absolutely correct in his assessment of what is happening from his perspective.

A domestic violence expert can help:

• Define the problem: domestic violence is the problem (words that I could not find in this article)
• Point out how common it is for abusers to escalate their violence after a breakup (according to the article, she had broken up with her boyfriend). When victims of abuse are murdered, it is usually after leaving an abuser or in the process of ending the relationship.
• Point out the common patterns of abuse: stalking and harassment. Signs that we as a community cannot ignore.
• Point out how victims frequently return to abusers for many reasons, including fear, love, lack of resources, encouragement of family and friends to keep the relationship intact, to keep from being homeless, to have a 2 parent home for their children and many others. Never in 18 years of doing this work have I heard a woman say that she went back because she enjoyed the abuse, though. An erroneous belief about victims of abuse.
• Let news consumers know where they can go for help. There are domestic violence crisis centers that serve all 100 counties of NC and there are jails in all of our 100 counties for perpetrators of domestic violence. Domestic violence is a crime in all 100 counties of NC and every state in the US. If you are being abused and need help, you can call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) to find the crisis center that serves your area.

The Bucket

Think of a child's mind as a bucket. The parents can fill the bucket with whatever they choose. What goes into the bucket is shaping and forming this child for their adult relationships.

I believe that absolutely anyone can end up dating someone who might be an abuser. What a person does after they find out that their partner is an abuser is not always the same. Part of what a person does depends on what went into the "bucket" during their childhood.

What's in your bucket? If you are a parent, what are you putting in your child's bucket?

The Double Standard

At a conference that I attended last week, one of the presenters mentioned having prostituted while she was addicted to drugs. While talking about the presenter's keynote address with a colleague, he asked me what my thoughts are about prostitution. He shared that he thinks it is a victimless crime and that there is nothing wrong with it. If you believe there is nothing harmful or bad about prostitution, here are my questions:

1. Would you encourage your daughters to consider prostitution as a profession?
2. Would you hire a woman who put "prostitute" on her resume as her last job?
3. Would you allow your child to spend time at the home of another child whose mother was a prostitute?

Angela Shelton in Chapel Hill Tonight

Powerful Speaker
If you are in or near the Triangle area (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, NC), and you are free this evening at 5pm, I encourage you to go hear Angela Shelton speak at the UNC Chapel Hill School of Social Work at 5pm today. She will screen and discuss her film, "Searching for Angela Shelton." The event is at 325 Pittsboro St. in Chapel Hill. It's free and you can pre-register at http://www.nchealhtywoman.org/ or call 919-843-1759.

"Searching for Angela Shelton"
I heard Angela Shelton speak when she came to NC State in 2004. She is a woman who survived childhood sexual abuse at the hands of her father. She made a film based on her travels across the US talking to women who also have her name, Angela Shelton. 24 of 40 women she interviewed disclosed some form of interpersonal violence. She is a powerful speaker and the film is equally powerful. Learn more at www.angelashelton.com.

Her Message
After she showed her film and gave a short talk at NC State, she talked about releasing shame and anger about abuse. She had a padded chair up on stage with her and she took a baseball bat and demonstrated what she does to get her anger out. She began hitting the chair with the bat and screaming - I don't remember the content of what she screamed at this point. It's a rather raw experience to watch someone express their anger so bluntly and poignantly in front of a room of 200 or so people. After she finished she invited anyone in the audience that wanted to do this to come on up. One woman took her up on her offer and she too beat the chair with the bat.

On the Outside Looking In
This was an extremely emotional and uncomfortable experience for me. It was emotional first and foremost because I do not like to be around yelling and screaming of any sort - even if it's someone's catharsis. Further, it reminded me of a friend of mine who used to attend a support group for rape survivors. The group also encouraged people to hit a pillow with their fists or a bat to get their anger out. This is a commonly held belief that hitting something repeatedly will help you reduce your anger. I'm not sure what it actually does because research shows that putting yourself in an agitated state and raising adrenaline does not actually disperse anger. It creates a more agitated state that you now have to come down from. It may exhaust you and some relief from anger comes from the sheer exhaustion. Your thoughts on the matter are welcome here.

Learn More
To learn more about anger, I recommend the book, Anger Kills, 17 Strategies for Controlling the Hostility That Can Harm Your Health, by Redford Williams, MD, and Virginia Williams, PhD. This is a wonderful book about anger and it dispels the myth that agitating ourselves into a frenzy will release our anger.

My friend took her turn with the bat and pillow. She ended up damaging her hand. She had to go to the emergency room and she had to keep her hand in a brace for months. A year later she still had pain in her hand. The sad part was that she damaged her dominant hand and she is a painter and jewelry maker. She had a limited range of motion and it was painful for her to hold a brush or do tiny work with jewelry pieces.

Safety First
Any type of therapeutic intervention comes with risks because it's about diving into the depths of our pain and getting it out. We owe it to anyone that we work with to provide as much safety and care as possible when diving into the pain. And when it comes to any type of physical exertion to get to another level of pain and healing, we have to continue to provide a safe environment - emotionally and physically.

Headed to the Coast

I'm headed to New Bern, NC this morning for the NC Department of Correction Re-entry Conference. I'll be presenting a workshop entitled, Safety and Support for Communities. The audience is mostly people from community-based organizations who work with or house people re-entering society after incarceration. Many of the people leaving prison are either victims or perpetrators of domestic violence. My workshop will focus on how best to serve people who may still be in danger or who may still be creating danger in the lives of others. Especially since some abusers went to prison for crimes that had nothing to do with the violent crimes they committed so they are under the radar.

If you know me, you know I only just packed this morning and that I usually fill every moment up until leaving and today is no different - so, it's time to hit the road! I've got a shoebox full of my favorite CDs (it's true - I don't own an iPod!). Off to the coast!

Resources or Not

I recently skimmed through 2 books to gather information for a workshop. One book was about children and domestic violence. I was specifically looking for information about people who abuse their adult partners and their parenting. One chapter was about mothers and one chapter was about fathers. In the chapter about fathers, over half of it was devoted to describing father's rights groups. That seemed like a strange use of space for a chapter titled "Fatherhood and Domestic Violence: Exploring the Role of Men Who Batter in the Lives of Their Children."

The second book that I skimmed over was supposed to be about Subtance Abuse, Family Violence, and Child Maltreatment - according to the title at least. I could not find these words in the index: domestic violence, batterer, abuser, protective parent, non-offending parent, or victim. The words "family violence" were on one page.

Needless to say, I didn't use any materials from these 2 books for my presentations. I did use information from two excellent books that detail the impact of battering on children and those are Why Does He Do It? and The Battering as Parent, both by Lundy Bancroft. These two books include extensive information about abusers and their impact on their children - during and after the intimate relationship with an adult partner. I highly recommend both books if you are looking for accurate information about the impact witnessing battering has on a child.

What are we going to do about the starfish?

I'm back!
I said I would start blogging again after I came back from DC and now I am finally keeping that commitment. I went out of town last week to train in Alleghany County and this week I have been working on my presentations for the UNC Horizons Conference, Breaking the Bonds of Addiction and Trauma.

Starfish
Have you heard The Starfish Story by Loren Eisley? If not, I have provided the link and the story is below. I know alot of people who love this story and they love using it as a feel good story for people who either work or volunteer at agencies serving victims of sexual and domestic violence. The short version - a boy is throwing washed up starfish back into the ocean to save their lives. A man says it won't make a difference and the boy picks up a starfish and says, it does to this one.

But wait...
I get the feel good part. We absolutely have to work with individuals dealing with the math and aftermath of domestic and sexual violence. And, at the same time, we need to find out why all the starfish are washing up in the first place. If we get to the root of the problem, we don't have to throw all these starfish back into the ocean one by one. They never even wash up.

Here's the story:
The Starfish Story
adapted from The Star Thrower by Loren Eiseley1907 - 1977
Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up.As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean.He came closer still and called out "Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?"The young man paused, looked up, and replied "Throwing starfish into the ocean.""I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?" asked the somewhat startled wise man.To this, the young man replied, "The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them in, they'll die."Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, "But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can't possibly make a difference!"At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, "I made a difference to that one!"

Impact of Battering on Children

Training
I went to Alleghany County (North Carolina) earlier this week to co-present the workshop, "The Effects of Domestic Violence on Children." Both days the audience included people from law enforcement, abuser treatment, early childhood intervention, the school system, mental health, and crisis centers. I have to say that I prefer the title of the workshop to use the terms "impact of battering" or "child witnesses to battering" than to use the term "domestic violence."
That's a piece of wisdom I got from attending several workshops by author and trainer Lundy Bancroft.

Training Techniques
One of the techniques that I use in training is to periodically poll the audience on their opinions related to domestic violence. This audience was similar to others in terms of how they answered the opinion polls. Since the workshop focused on children, one of the poll statements was: I understand how an adult victim can stay with an abusive partner when she has children.

Participant Opinions
The audience was asked to respond using a Likert scale. The responses covered the entire scale with most people leaning towards saying they could understand why an adult victim would stay with an abuser when she also had children. I did the poll towards the end of the training. When I asked if the participants would have answered differently at the beginning of class, they said yes.

When an Adult Victim Leaves an Abuser
Most people believe that the lives of children improve and become violence-free when adult victims leave abusers. When a non-offending parent leaves an abusive partner, that does not suddenly make the abuser non-violent. Children continue to witness violence and are sometimes the victims of direct violence when their non-abusive parent leaves. What we have to keep in mind is how often abusers maintain contact with children through visitation, custody exchanges, and full or partial custody. These are all opportunities for an abuser to continue to abuse the children and the non-offending parent. As advocates and allies we have to continue to safety plan with adult and child survivors after they leave to help them stay safe and begin healing from the abuse.

Accountability for Abusers
We also have to continue to find ways to hold abusers accountable for their violence. Leaving an abuser is not accountability and does not necessarily stop the violence for the family. Most abusers are going to get involved in a new relationship and take the same behaviors and patterns with them to the new relationship - patterns of violence, abuse, entitlement, and possessiveness - just to name a very few. Keep in mind that this abuser may also get involved with a new partner who has children from a prior relationship or may start a new family.

Some Solutions
1. Consider domestic violence when making custody decisions, even if children were never direct victims of child abuse
2. Require abusers to attend abuser treatment and parenting classes
3. If visitation is warranted, only allow supervised visitation when domestic violence is substantiated
4. Only advance to un-supervised visitation when there is evidence of changed behavior

Cherry Blossoms

I am in Washington, DC all this week. I'll get back to posting this weekend.