Stalking

Gerard Place, February 2, 2016

Standard

Presented “Beyond Leaving Dorian: A Discussion on Domestic Violence” to the women of Gerard Place, a transitional housing shelter for battered/recovering women and their children.

gp3

Domestic violence isn’t a feeling, it’s a fact; talking statistics and mortality rates from domesticabuseshelter dot org

gp1

Many women attended, though only a few agreed to be photographed. The stigma and shame attached to being a victim of DV is part of what keeps women from stepping forward and asking for help. I was happy to allow each woman her privacy, depending on her individual comfort level. Each and every woman in that room has my utmost respect and I was grateful to each for choosing to attend.

gp7

Plenty of good questions, some of which I’d never been asked before. These ladies came prepared!

gp9

The woman of Gerard Place are provided day care services so that they can attend presentations like mine as well as educational/employment/vocational training, life skills classes and counseling.

gpkaitlinprice

Kaitlin Price, Case Manager & Life Skills Coordinator, who put our afternoon together. Bright, organized and always ready with a smile, Kaitlin’s positive attitude is infectious.

gplogo

Gerard Place first opened its doors in 2000, the culmination of the work of 12 congregations of Women Religious in the Diocese of Buffalo who created and sponsored the agency on the grounds of the former St. Gerard Parish. Located in the heart of one of Buffalo’s poorest communities (the Bailey-Delevan neighborhood, where the unemployment rate is a staggering 55% among those aged 19-39 and 40% of children live below the poverty line) Gerard Place has assisted hundreds of families by giving them the tools that they need to help themselves and break the poverty cycle.

In 2009, the Junior League of Buffalo/Buffalo News Education Building was opened, providing GED and computer classes, job readiness training, like skills support and health and nutrition education to both families in residence at Gerard Place as well as the community at large.  In any given year, nearly 40 different collaborative partners utilize the facility and share their expertise with those in need. Four years later, in 2013, agency leadership announced a campaign to renovate the former St. Gerard Parish Hall building and turn it into a multi-purpose community center.  The result of this ambitious project will be a vocational training program (coordinated by partner Allied Health), a gymnasium, an expanded computer lab and day care center, an additional wing of classrooms and an industrial kitchen.

Residents are not given a “hand out,” they are earning a “hand up.”

Please visit   http://www.gerardplace.org   for information on the many fundraising opportunities that you can take part in to support Gerard Place.

**Information on Gerard Place was excerpted from their website.

 

 

 

Family & Children’s Services of Niagara, January 21, 2016

Standard

Presented “Beyond Leaving Dorian: A Discussion on Domestic Violence” to staff and advocates from Family & Children’s Services of Niagara, Legal Aid, Niagara County Sheriff Department, YWCA of Lockport, Dr. Dana Radatz from Niagara University and NU interns.

FACS5

Seeing the group from this perspective really doesn’t do them justice. They look incredibly average; they could be your next-door neighbor or your co-worker. And they have vague, vanilla sounding job titles like “Child Advocate” and “Coordinator”. What you can’t see are their capes; the “S” on their chests are invisible. These dedicated women and men are truly some of the super-heroes of our community.

FACSSTAFF3

Larissa, Advocacy Coordinator (in black) kept everything running smoothly.

FACSSTAFF4

Nellie (in teal) with the YWCA of Lockport.

FACS1

Talking about how quickly Leaving Dorian had to be taken from ebook to paperback – two months from the initial publication date!

Excerpted from the Family & Children’s Services website:

“2015 marked the 120th anniversary of Family & Children’s Service of Niagara. Founded in 1895, Family & Children’s Service of Niagara has met the ever-changing needs of our community for more than a century by providing the residents of the Niagara region with a wide range of community and social work services. Over the years our name has changed and our services have been modified to meet the needs of the community in the 21st century, but our work of helping people help themselves has remained. Thousands of children, adults and families have turned to the agency for compassionate, affordable and professional help to meet their needs. Family & Children’s Service is truly a family service agency providing a mosaic of inter-related services for the benefit of the entire family from infants to adults.”

These services include, but are not limited to:

  • Domestic Violence Services, including Passage House Emergency Shelter
  • Parent Empowerment Program
  • Healthy Families Program
  • Youth Services, including Casey House (runaway & homeless youth shelter) and The CRIB Maternity Group Home (for pregnant and parenting teens)
  • Mental Health Counseling for adults and children

24/7 DV Hotline: 716-299-0909      *****      24/7 Runaway Youth Hotline: 716-285-7125

 

Project Runway December, 2015

projectrunway

Staff of Project Runway (…a drug and alcohol-free pathway for young women) and related departments at Niagara Falls Memorial Hospital gathered to be a part of the seminar, “Beyond Leaving Dorian: A Discussion on Domestic Violence”. A big thank you to Sarah Obot, Community Outreach Coordinator with Project Runway for inviting me and for organizing this gathering of such intelligent, kind, highly motivated women!

 

Lack of Understanding Can Lead To Re-Victimization

Standard

20160126_113025~2This article originally appeared in the January 24, 2016 edition of The Niagara Gazette.

“You might think that because I’m a domestic violence advocate and an author on the subject that I’d be immune to any sort of emotional upset when confronted with insensitive, misinformed or rude questions and remarks regarding DV. But I’m not, because I’m also a survivor. While I always try to be patient and understanding, sometimes that is simply not enough. As I am on the heels of one particularly taxing interaction, I thought it might be helpful to offer a primer of sorts for anyone who may find themselves in the company of someone who has summoned the courage to confide that they are being battered or are the survivor of DV.

Do not ask:

  • Why didn’t you leave?
  • Why didn’t you call the police?
  • Were you ever hospitalized?
  • How could you put your kids through that?
  • What did you do to make him hurt you?
  • How could no one have known that you were being abused?
  • Why did you keep having children with him if he was abusing you?
  • Are you sure what happened was abuse?

Do ask:

  • Is there anything I can do to help?

Do not say:

  • I’d never let someone do that to me.
  • I’d never have thought that of him; he seems so nice.

Do say:

  • I believe you.
  • You don’t deserve to be treated like that.
  • It isn’t your fault and you’re not responsible for his behavior.
  • You’re not alone.
  • Here is the number for the local DV help agency.
  • Let’s put together a safety plan.
  • I’ll go with you to the police/court to offer support.
  • You are smart, strong and capable and you will get through this.

Not knowing how to handle a situation that we’ve never been exposed to before is completely understandable; many people might say that they’ve never been exposed to DV or known anyone who’s been affected by it, either. But if we consider the statistic from nadv.org that one in three women (and one in four men) will experience some form of physical violence by an intimate partner within their lifetime, the issue begins to seem less foreign. How many people does any one person meet over the course of a lifetime? Hundreds? Thousands? This statistic says that each and every one of us has known victims of DV and do know victims of DV. They’re our family members; our friends and our co-workers. Shame and fear often times keep them hidden, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t there.

It is our duty as members of the human family to exercise discretion and compassion and to at least attempt to understand when we are told that someone close to us is being battered. The reality is that a victim’s life may depend on it.”

“16 Days of Activism”

Standard

Zontians from the Niagara Falls, NY club gifted copies of Leaving Dorian to select help centers, schools and libraries in Niagara County as a part of Zonta’s 2015 Domestic Violence Initiative “Zonta Says NO! to Violence Against Women – 16 Days of Activism”.

Screenshot_2015-12-11-17-00-29

Zontian Angie Henderson delivers a copy of Leaving Dorian 

karriedonation

Chapter President Gretchen Leffler and member Dr. Lindsay Edwards presented multiple copies to member Karrie Gebhardt, Director of Passage House, an emergency shelter for battered women and their children sponsored by Child & Family Services of Niagara. The books will be used for staff development as well as for residents of the shelter to read.

 

 

 

CathyProjMagdalene

Cathy is a volunteer with The Magdalene Project, an outreach to women mired in sex trafficking in the City of Niagara Falls. Volunteers from The Project go out at a night a couple of times a month and give these women Ziploc bags full of personal care items like shampoo, toothpaste, etc. as well as information on how to escape the grip of prostitution. The Magdalene Project is located on Falls Street in Niagara Falls.

 

 

JPotterNFLibrary

Zontian Daisy Waters with Jennifer Potter, Acting Director of the Niagara Falls Public Library. Ms. Potter explained that the library has become a “safe space” of sorts; there have been times that women have stayed inside the building until the person they were afraid of had left the premises, and library staff has been asked on more than one occasion to call the police on behalf of a woman who felt threatened.

 

 

jsusanbencarolynshouse

J. Susan Ben, Director of Carolyn’s House (transitional housing for homeless women and their children) receives books from Zontian Maggie Pollock.

nfrepswithbooks

Andrea Fortin-Nossavage, Niagara Falls High School history teacher and Ebone Rose Bradberry, Coordinator of the Niagara Falls Community Schools Initiative Program, receive books for their staff and students.

nwhs

Dr. Kyle Patterson, Zonta Club of Niagara Falls VP; Lisa Lidamer, Niagara Wheatfield High School Guidance Counselor; Paul Gaigavich, NWHS Assistant Principal; Timothy Carter, NWHS Principal and Zonta Club President Gretchen Leffler.

 

 

lewport

Donation to Lew-Port High School! This wonderful, caring staff was full of great ideas on addressing DV and Teen Dating Violence with students and staff for the upcoming 2016-2017 school year! From left to right: Trina DiVincenzo, Guidance Counselor; Gretchen Leffler, President Zonta Club of Niagara Falls; Terri Faut, Librarian; Kelly Ulrich, Health Teacher; Andrew Auer, Principal.

govjoanneraymond

Signing a copy of Leaving Dorian for Zonta’s District 4 Governor Joanne Raymond. Joanne will be traveling to Nice, France, in July for Zonta International’s 63rd Convention and will be taking a copy of the Niagara Falls, NY 2015-16 Service and Advocacy Report with her. She told members at the May meeting that, “…no other club has done what you’re doing..”. I’m over the moon that Leaving Dorian was able to play such a large part in that advocacy effort.I’m tremendously excited that Joanne will be sharing her thoughts on Leaving Dorian with other Zonta members, Presidents and Governors from all over the world. I’m truly blessed to have so many amazing women supporting my work and advocacy efforts. God Bless the women of Zonta, here in the US and all over the world.

 

Screenshot_2015-11-30-14-47-32

I’m not sure how I thought I was going to feel when I finally saw this in writing, but what I do feel is humbled, honored, and a little bit relieved. I wrote Leaving Dorian because I wanted to make sure that my own awful experience wasn’t all for nothing. My hope was that someone, somewhere, might read it and think, “Oh, I’m not all alone? I’m not to blame for this awful thing that’s happening to me? Maybe I can get help, leave and start my life over again. Maybe there is hope, after all.”

My goal was one woman. Just one. I thought that if just one woman was to be able to see beyond the hell that she was living in – believe that she could save herself – well, then, I’d have achieved my goal.

 

Zonta Club of Niagara Falls, New York, October 14, 2015

zontaoct14

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and I was honored that the ladies of Zonta asked me to come and speak about writing Leaving Dorian as well as my own experience with domestic violence.