1 Teleconference and Webcast September 9, 2008 CIL-NET Presents: Creative Strategies For Threading Violence Awareness Into the Four Core Services Tuesday, September 9, 2008, 3:00 p.m., Eastern Time, 2:00 p.m. Central Time >> TIM: Thank you, Rob. Stand by for program to begin, please. 2 >> TIM: Good afternoon. This is Tim Fuchs with the National Council on Independent Living. I apologize for the problem. We do need to restart so that everyone gets all the information. I want to welcome everyone to today's presentation: Creative strategies for threading violence awareness into the four core services. The program is brought so you by CIL-NET and its sister project for SILCs. The IL NET program is operated by ILRU at Memorial Hermann TIRR. And APRIL. Substantial support has been provided by the U.S. Department of Education under Grant Number H132B070002. No official endorsement of the Department of Ed should be inferred. Please be aware that we are recording today's call and it will be archived on ILRU's website. We have scheduled Q and A sessions three times today. For those participating by webcast, you can use the e-mail a question or e-mail me directly at tim@ncil.org. And I'll make sure that all questions are 3 relayed live on the call so much as time permits. The materials for today's call are located on NCIL's website: Http://ncil.org/training/violence awareness materials.html. And that is the same URL that was sent to your in the confirmation letters. Today's Power Point presentation will display automatically on your screen. For telecast participants, if you have not opened the Power Point presentation, you want to do that now. Please do take a moment after today's call to fill out the evaluation form on the materials page. It just takes a minute or two to complete and is very valuable to us. I'm honored to introduce your presenters today. Leslie Myers is program manager for DART response team, Independence First, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Roberta Sick is with Arkansas University Center on Disabilities. And Mary Oschwald is from the Regional Research Institute in Portland, Oregon. All these presenters have clearly established themselves as leaders in the IL community with extensive advocacy, research and 4 training to support people with disabilities who are survivors of crime and abuse to prevent it from happening to others. I want to thank them and recognize them for their hard work and leadership, and, of course, also thank them for being here today. With that, I'll turn it over to Mary Oschwald to begin today's presentation. Mary. >> MARY: Thank you. And this is Mary Oschwald. I just want to thank you for participating in today's conversation and in addition to thanking the three of us, I would just like to thank everybody who has helped us with the survey to get to the point where we are today. And we'll talk more about that survey later on and all the survivors who have come forth and shared share stories. Without them, we would not know of the severity and issue of crime against people with disabilities. I am on screen No. 3, important terms, and I'll quickly go through these. We often use them when we talk so we're on the same page. There are a few of them for today, most of which you will all know. 5 Independent living is IL. NCIL is National Council on Independent Living, the national umbrella. Association of Programs for Rural Independent Living is APRIL, both of whom helped us quite a bit with our survey. Centers for Independent Living, CILs. Another one is Independent Living Centers, ILC. State SILCs are SILCs, Statewide Independent Living Council. Second to the last is State Plan for Independent Living or SPIL. And finally, Personal Assistance Services called PAS. There's a variety of terms. A little bit about the history and how we got here today. Slide 4. The three of us knew each other through related efforts and decided to go to Washington, D.C., in 2004 to hold two focus groups at the NCIL national conference. From those groups, we asked SILCs and CILs what they were doing in their communities to address violence against people with disabilities. All types of violence perpetrated against men and women. They were very forthcoming about what they have done, what they would like to do but have a 6 difficult time doing, what they see other programs doing and would like to adopt themselves. From that we wrote a paper, voices across America, and we decided to do resolutions at a national level to recognize these issues. So both NCIL and APRIL did resolutions on violence and abuse on people with disabilities in 2006. So it moved fairly quickly after the two years in 2004 from the paper, which speaks to me that we all were seeing this and wanted to bring it to a national platform. Some of you who have participated know that NCIL has sponsored a task force on violence and abuse on people with disabilities. So that's in brief a little history. The next slide, No. 5, violence awareness survey, this survey in addition to those focus groups that people were participating in in D.C., we wanted to get a national look at this issue. It was sent out several ways: E-mail, telephone and both NCIL and APRIL at their conferences handed out the survey in person. We got a great return rate just over 41 percent, which is quite wonderful. And a few of the statistics that kind of stood out for us. 7 90 percent of you said that it was extremely for SILC to understand and respond to issues of violence. We think about violence as lots of different kinds. There's a myriad of ways to respond. Seven out of ten, about 70 percent say it was -- they were somewhat confident in recognizing signs of abuse, whereas 20 percent said they were extremely confidence. So you are aware of these issues and I think you see that happening and folks who come to services will be talking about this. And 91 percent, all of you most wanted to learn how SILCs can deal with violence and abuse, hence today's conversation which I know is one of many that are currently going on. Slide 6, a little bit of an introduction to the Rehab Act. And I won't read the definition out loud. It's there on the screen, but just to say that it -- SILCs do have a mandate to provide services and it is our belief that violence awareness and recognition of violence in the lives of people with disabilities is extremely important. I'm just going to flip the page. 8 Continuation of that slide for up to No. 7, so a center works with an individual to achieve their self-identifying goals and it's self-determined. And this goes nicely hand in hand with any domestic violence or sexual assault advocate. It's the survivor first and she or he knows their experience the best. They're the experts. So when we think about working with the partners in the community who work with trauma and violence, we already are very much in the same philosophy and the same starting point in many, many ways, which helps. Slide 8 brings us to the philosophy of how you promote independent living philosophy. My roots come from advocacy and it's important to incorporate this. Consumer control is also survivor control. Self-help and self-advocacy, I would add self-determined and self-aware. My experience is what I know and I work from what I know as do advocates and you find the bridge. Models is another IL philosophical foundation upon which practice is built. And equal access, whether the services to program 9 activities, to personnel to information and resources in the community. And that's it for me. Roberta, you want to talk about the four core services, slide 9. >> ROBERTA: Yes, slide No. 9 and I'm going to be addressing the four core services. I think the important thing to note is what Mary said about what we work from what we know. Independent living centers across the county are familiar with the four core services: Advocate, peer support, independent living skill development, and information and referral. One of the things we talk about is the relationship of trauma to violence and how it affects the way those core services may be delivered and also the way that people who are in Centers for Independent Living may deliver services when they have had their own trauma history. So when you look at the four core services, there may be a few things we need to think about. In terms of advocacy, while Centers for Independent Living have done an excellent job with advocacy, it's time to advocate on behalf of all domestic violence victims and file complaints when they're concerned about their safety. It's 10 very difficult to advocate for a global picture of making services accessible when your safety is in jeopardy. So that's not the best time to be filing discrimination kinds of things. So that would mean we need to work ahead of time to ensure that those programs do have access and that the programs that the independent living center also have information about sexual assault and domestic violence. In relationship to peer support, if we don't ask, they're not going to tell. So we have to create a safe place to disclose. As Mary said, we work from what we know. In the survey that we sent out, while nine of the ten Centers for Independent Living felt that was important for IL centers to understand and respond to issues of violence, in that same survey 58 percent say they're only somewhat comfortable in addressing these issues. So that's part of goal of this conversation call and some of the others that we might do in the future. Independent living skill development, safety planning is extremely important and that can be included in existing curriculums. The information and referral core service, 11 having those links available to domestic violence and sexual assault. In our Power Point slide No. 10 it goes into some of the other services that might be offered by independent living centers such as assistant in finding accessible housing. I encourage all of you in your centers now to make a list of the specific services that your program provides, the ones that your center does well, and start as we begin talking later about how to weave this, think about how you can weave information about violence and abuse into those services that you are providing. Going on to slide 11, some of the other services that some independent living centers might provide are personal assistant, including attendant care. There may be need surveys and questions about those. Training in community activities or how to access public transportation. Going to slide 12, some centers have services to promote self-esteem and empowerment. Different types of preventive services, disability awareness in local communities. Each center for independent living, while they have the four core services goes about implementing that mission in different ways, so 12 really large centers such as independence first who probably provides all of the services listed are vastly different than some of the ones in rural areas functioning on more shoestring budgets and are not able maybe to address things as comprehensively as some of the larger centers. Going on to side No. 13, violence and abuse affects the way that services are delivered. Trauma affects people's lives, so it's hard to advocate sometimes when you're experiencing that trauma or when your self-esteem has been shattered at the hands of an abuser. So violence takes a toll on the mind, body and soul of individuals. Going on to slide 14, individuals are oftentimes kept isolated by their abusers. That is one of the hallmark signs of abuse. So we encourage people who work in Centers for Independent Living notice when people are not as talkative as they were before. Maybe they used to trust the individuals at the center and something is different. It could be that the abuser is adjusting the individual's medications or doing other things that might impact the way that they function in the community. Many agencies that serve victims of violence 13 and abuse have some access issues in trying to serve people with disabilities. It's difficult to reach out to the programs and educate yourself about what they do so that you can provide a valuable role and valuable bridge in the issues of violence and abuse. The combined barriers of Independent Living Centers not being versed in domestic issues coupled with domestic violence in assault centers makes it really difficult for a person who's experiencing violence or experiencing abuse to address these issues. The Rehabilitation Act really encourages services to be provided to individuals with a variety of disabilities. It also recognizes folks who are unserved and underserved. That's also a movement occurring within the violence against women's movement. We also acknowledge that violence against men occurs, especially in the independent living moves, we need to be sensitive to that. The Rehab Act increases the individual ice capacity to immediate the needs of individuals with disabilities. We work from what we know and part of efforts from the three of us and people across the county are trying to do is to make this 14 more a priority for centers or independent living so they can function from a voice of knowledge and to assist in making things better for victims of sexual assault and violence. Slide 16, these are disability issues and need to be addressed in every aspect of our program and service delivery. It also needs to fit into the long-term goals of our state plans for independent living. Violence and abuse does happen. We know that it happens. We've silenced it for too long and it's imperative that we address this on a larger scale. I think we're to the question and answer piece. >> TIM: All right, Lisa, would you see if we have any questions from our audience. >> OPERATOR: If there are questions at this time, please press 01 on your telephone key pad. Again, if you have questions, press 01 on the key paid. There appear to be no questions at this time, sir. >> TIM: All right. I don't have any questions from our webcast participants. We will have two more Q and A sessions, but we're well ahead of schedule, so if you have questions, 15 please don't forget them and you'll have another chance to ask them. With that and hearing no questions, let's go ahead, Leslie. >> LESLIE: This is Leslie Myers from Independence First, and I'll be talking about each of the four core services to give you an idea how violence and abuse can be woven into the existing services we already do. So we're looking at slide 18, information and referral. And having awareness of community programs is really paramount to providing effective information and referral services. We have to remember that victim service programs, whether sexual assault, domestic violence, district attorney, law enforcement, these are part of the communities so having information on these programs is essential for really providing comprehensive information referral. What we would want to do, looking at slide 19, is gather information on the programs and the services they offer. This can help you to make appropriate referrals when someone needs services from one of the violence agencies. 16 Having an idea of how that program is accessibility wise will help you make appropriate referrals and also gives you a chance to advocate for changes within any of those programs that are inaccessible. Looking at slide 20, providing information and referral over the phone, you can develop a list of programs and services in the community, what they offer, and this will help your staff who answer I and R calls and help them to identify where best to send individuals. If you're providing information and referral in person, you can ask programs -- these local programs for brochures, information sheets, that type of thing so that the consumers have access to that and they can have access to extensive information about the programs. If you are providing information over the web, you can have links to local and national programs as well as links to information on victimization, self-help strategies, safety planning, some of the national programs are going to be listed on slide 21. We have some information on the national domestic violence hot line, the rape , abuse and 17 incest national network. And the national center for victims of crime. For slide 23, some of the -- as a community program, CILs should also be on the information referral list of the local victim services programs. So you can provide them with information on what services you have, what programs you offer to consumers, and maybe they can then start looking at you as a resource for locating interpreters, providing information on skills on how to best work with people with different types of disabilities. Going to slide 24 -- or 23, I'm not sure -- 23, sorry. We next have to look at independent living skills training as one of our four core services. And whether or not your center does this on an individual basis or whether they also hold classes in groups, we can add in training on self-protection, safety planning and empowerment. Independence first has been teaching boundaries and personal space as well as relationship classes for the last ten years. We have information for those people who would like some additional resources, we have some information on classes and material that you can use in those classes. So 18 feel free to contact us. Abuse awareness can be added into our current curriculum, so classes on subjecting can include classes on financial abuse. Self-esteem classes can also include this information. Classes on transportation can include a piece about safety in the community and on public transportation. There are a lot of opportunities for independent living center staff to include safety issues for the consumers. On page -- or on slide 24, we're going to look at peer support. Peer support really offers the consumer a safe place to disclose violence and abuse. Our volunteers need to be trained on appropriate actions to take if they receive disclosures of abuse. This can be added to peer training curriculum. Oftentimes local programs will have training -- offer free training for volunteers that we have often sent our staff or volunteers to get training specially on violence and abuse issues. Peer support in the form of support group and individual support is an essential tool for victim services. So this is something that used in the victim service programs. For a person with 19 a disability, support being provided by someone they see as a peer is just as important as receiving support from someone else who has been victimized. It's a close piece we have with the victims service programs. On page 25 we're going to be talking about advocacy. Advocating for an individual or on a greater systems level is really the backbone of independent living centers role in the community. There are numerous advocacy issues that we have focused on. For example waiting lists. We know this is a big problem. But the issue of waiting lists really affects people with disabilities when it's applied to abuse or violence situation, it really can be a threat to that person's health and welfare. Someone waiting for disability benefits or social security right now could be stuck in a relationship that's bad for two years before they're even going to hear whether or not social security has been provided. So these waiting lists become a very big issue. Lack of affordable and accessible housing. While this is relevant to many people with disabilities, when someone needs to move out from 20 a current abusive or violent living environment, the shortage of accessible housing becomes really more prominent. Here in Milwaukee, we have waiting lists for most accessible and affordable housing and this waiting list causes a great deal of problems when we're trying to get someone to a safe location. Accessible transportation, this issue, of course, is pretty nationwide. It's a problem. It's very important because it helps people with disabilities get to work, go shopping, get to medical appointments. But when someone is being abused and they need to flee to safety, the lack of accessible transportation becomes even more important. So some of the advocacy things that we have been doing for years and years and years, if we add in the abuse component, it becomes much more important. And these are things that you can bring into when you're talking to your legislators or other individuals you talk to about waiting lists, accessible transportation and lack of housing. When we're doing individual advocacy -- this is on page 26 -- we might be doing it where we're 21 going to be advocating for the consumer to get the accommodations they need at a victims service agency or in the courts. We may even need to advocate for the consumer to get served from the victim's service provider. Many programs still remain inaccessible to individuals with disabilities. And many times this accessibility piece might only be the attitudes they have toward people with disabilities and sometimes just getting in the door is a very big battle with the programs, but once we do, we can work with them to make sure that everybody is getting what they need. Okay. We're on slide 27. We're going to talk about systems advocacy issues. There are a lot of things that disability has been left out in. Recently, the violence against women's act was reauthorized. This was written without any formal voice of the disability community. This was a big deal. This was one of the issues that we really tried to get our voice heard. We're hoping that the task force is able to accomplish this. We often find out about crimes being committed against people with disabilities in our 22 community, but often fail to hear or see that any justice has been done. Following up, looking to see if the district attorney is prosecuting cases. There's been several large cases here in Milwaukee area where crimes were committed against people with disabilities and they seem to go unprosecuted. This really needs to be unacceptable for all of us. All of these events such as the violence against women act reauthorization, some of the relate other acts that have been put in place in recent years, gives Independent Living Centers the chance to address the public's perception of people with disabilities. And I'm feeling like I'm going way too fast here. I'm on slide 28. We're going to be talking about additional IL services. Whether or not transition becomes a fifth core service or not, it does provide a very good chance for us to address violence and abuse that occurs within institutions. And the vulnerability of individuals who are transitioning into the community. This is a very opportune time to teach people to live safely in 23 the community as we're doing transition. Sports rec programs. This is a good chance for those of you with sports rec to teach adaptive self-defense. We hosted an adaptive self-defense course a few years back. Those of you providing youth services, this is a very good chance to teach about dating violence and date rape. This is the type of thing that doesn't often get discussed in the school system and oftentimes with kids in special Ed, they're not gets this information anywhere. So to talk about dating violence, date rape, relationship skills, even addressing it from the bully point of view and bullying of kids with disabilities, it's a good chance. We found that schools were really open to us coming into the schools an talking to kids about these topics. Again, you know, like Roberta said, some of the programs some of you may not have because we're a large center, but we also have a computer recycling program. And we use not only the information we have on our website about safety, but we also give out safety information to those consumers receiving computers. And that safety information includes information on identity 24 theft, scams, being safe in a chat room. So it gives a really good chance because people who are learning to use the web oftentimes might get themselves in trouble. This is a perfect chance to be responsible and help them to stay safe. If any of you have benefit programs, it gives you a really good chance to discuss financial abuse. We also in our benefits program have an employment program which gives us a chance to talk about disability discrimination on the job. And helping consumers learn to know what those signs might be. Personal care attendant services, however you define it, really gives an opportunity to teach consumers how to identify caregiver abuse and strategies they can use to stop it. We're up to page 30. Services that Independent Living Centers already offer like assertiveness training, team building are applicable to addressing abuse. Women and men who are experiencing abuse, it's important for center staff to know how to recognize abuse and understand it as a serious problem for both men and women with disabilities. Center staff are in a unique position to offer 25 initial counseling and referral for those consumers being abused. We must really be educated -- educate ourselves through trainings like this on abuse so we can create a safe environment for our consumers when they need to disclose abuse. And centers need to learn how to identify some sources of funding specifically related to abuse. There are several different grant funding opportunities that we're be talking about a little later that might help you to find some funding to do this work. We really have an important role to play in educating providers on disability issues and ways to address these. We can help victim service programs to learn about the many different components of the full accessibility. We can teach about sensitivity, issues providing needed services, how to get personal care attendants. Interpreters. These are things that we can provide to victims service programs. On slide 32, we also can provide assistance to shelters in trying to obtain personal assist assistants for those individuals in shelters. If we're trying to replace an abusive caregiver, part 26 of what we can do is provide the shelter with information on programs that are available for the consumer to go to. Replacing assistive devices or medications that are lost when the person needs to leave home, these are things we can do for the victims service program. We can offer transitional services to assist women and men in establishing independence from the abuser. We can support that woman who is in a shelter and support her to make sure she's getting the services that she needs. Probably most of off, the most important role for Independent Living Centers so assist and advocate for consumers, educating consumers in what services are available, but also training providers of these services to be more responsible and accessible to consumers with disabilities. This approach is used to address problems that people with disabilities face is also the most effective approach to addressing abuse. Now we're to our question and answer again. >> OPERATOR: If you have a question at this time, please press 01 on your telephone key pad. Again, if you have a question, please press 27 01 on your telephone key pad. First question. Go ahead, Susan. >> CALLER: Hi, my name is Susan. Can you hear me? I work in Canada and I work for our national umbrella organization and we -- we're a big country geographically, but we have a small population and we have centers spread across the country, 28 in all in the whole of Canada. So our population is I guess around 33 or 34 million for the whole country. One issue that often comes up for people in our centers and I hear about it in the national office, I wonder if it's an issue that effects you in the state is that sometimes you find it hard to reach out to consumers. (Inaudible) involve them in programs that support that we are able to offer. And the other community of people with disabilities, they get involved -- (Inaudible) -- >> TIM: Excuse me, caller, you're cutting in and out. I hate to do this, but I'm wondering if you could rephrase the question. >> CALLER: I'm going to put myself on the speakerphone and speak directly into the phone. Is that better? 28 >> TIM: Yes, thank you. >> CALLER: My name is Susan. I'm from Canada and I work for our national organization called independent living, Canada. And Canada is a big country, but we have a small population and we have 28 centers across our large country. We're newer in creation but we're certainly growing. One issue that occurs for us and I wonder if it occurs for you is sometimes a challenge for staff and members of the board to reach out to women or anyone who experiences abuse from the deaf community and also from the community of people with communication disorders, those with list boards and other forms of commission. I wonder if that's an issue that occurs for you and if you have heard about that through your research. >> There is in the states we do have some programs that are specific to women who are deaf and violence. There's actually -- they've actually expanded into several different programs across the country. And it started in Washington state. And as a center, we have several deaf staff and I think that helps us to do that 29 outreach. But I think things have changed here at least in Milwaukee because we have not only made this part of our program in general, but we have staff who also have the -- you know, as a focus have this. As we have tried to -- as Milwaukee has been a site that's been trying to expand like Washington state has, we -- I think it's brought about more awareness within that community and has opened some doors that maybe weren't open before. I don't know if that answered your question. >> CALLER: I think it's a start and something that we're always working on. >> I think another way that can be addressed is a person here in Arkansas which is about as rural as you can get in the States and as poverty stricken as you can get, one of the things we have been able to do is bring in a woman who is deaf to talk about violence and abuse issues and pair that individual with somebody from the state who's working on those issues here. Maybe not necessarily a person who's deaf, but somebody who's in the disability community who is addressing those issues so that that information about violence and abuse is threaded into that 30 community as well. That was a really effective means of at least kind of getting your foot into the door there. The other thing is here in Arkansas they've added a link on the association for the Arkansas associate for the deaf, they've added a website link to one of the programs that is run by people who are deaf who are addressing violence issues. So that's a step in the right direction as well. In terms of communication disorders, you're right on with folks who have communication difficulties experiencing abuse probably at higher rates because they're not believed or maybe we don't ask the questions or don't listen when they're trying to tell us. I think what we have addressed here and what we encourage everybody to do is this information needs to be shared with self-advocates. A lot of times while we may represent centers or represent programs, people with significant disabilities who have -- who are still experiencing oppression and many of the programs offered don't always feel comfortable accessing independent living centers or staff from independent living centers. So I 31 think it's important to reach out to self-advocates and provide them with information when they're asked they'll know how to connect to people in the services that are supportive. Mary, do you have anything to add? >> MARY: Thanks Roberta. I was making a note on the collaboration piece, finding other groups, whether that be nationally occurring support groups, circles of support that do include maybe a different type of disability or specific type of disability, for instance intellectual or developmental disability where they may not feel comfortable going across town to a different center. Part of our outreach responsibility is where do folks nationally go? Is it people first organizations? Is it part of their faith community and they go to some kind of support or outreach effort there? The thing around the language and communication, I think it's up to us to ask the questions: Are you safe at home? Are you safe getting from home to work and how you use transportation? Are you safe at work? That we ask it in ways that is understood. I worked with a woman a number of years ago whose primary mode of communication was a talking 32 board. Her caregiver took out words for violence and abuse from her talking board. That perpetrator took those words out. We worked with pictures, put words in the computer back in. I'm working now with folks in the deaf community about how to sign appropriately victimization. When we talk about various types of violence, we're getting at specific kinds of trauma. This may lend better for specific type of safety plan. And it's not that we have to be so detailed to belabor the point of experience. But we're talking about financial victimization, say, with identity theft. That's a fairly abstract concept and how to use those words. That's different from another kind of victimization financially or physical assault. So asking the questions in a fairly detailed way and quite frankly making sure people have a means to express that, that just takes time. It is not impossible. It just takes a little bit for time and creative on all our parts. >> I just want to add one little thing for the Canadian caller. I would like to thank you, because I'm sure Mary and Roberta can back me up. Most of our data comes from Canada that we have been using an violence and abuse against people 33 with disabilities. You guys seem to have started addressing this long before the United States did. So I want to thank you. >> CALLER: Thank you. >> Well done. >> OPERATOR: Next question comes from Deb -- (Inaudible) go ahead, Deb. >> CALLER: Hi, this is Deb in D.C. I was just wondering for others on the call -- I was excited to hear that we're getting involved in the reauthorization of violence against women act and I'm wondering when that will be reauthorized and how others on the call can get involved. (Laughter.) >> In promoting the amendment you were talking about. >> You're putting me on the spot. Do you know? >> It was reauthorized in 2005 and it gets reauthorized about every five years. If you go to the website of some of the agencies that help to -- the violence agencies that really help to push that legislation through, you can find out 34 who, like are on the advisory board of some of the agencies. I think that's where we need to start to get involved. Before we can do that, we have to educate ourselves on what the issues are in relation to this. So that's one of the reasons we're trying to create a movement within independent living because we need to be educated ourselves to go to the table and talk about violence issues and be up to snuff when they start getting into all of those things. So I think just guessing here, I'm going to say it's going to be in five years from 2005, which would be 2010. Somebody else might know, but that's kind of what I remember from the last time I looked at all of this. >> I think any time -- I'm going to keep talking if nobody's going to say anything. When you have something like this, it's important to try and get as many people together as you can. This is pretty intense work to do and you have to have a real passion for it. And you kind of get burned out after a while doing it. And Leslie and I and Mary are all getting kind of older so it's important for us to 35 encourage as many people in other places to get involved in the work as possible so that they can help to continue the message into the future. Because the work has started. We have wonderful allies in some of the agencies within the Department of Justice, within the office of civil rights, within some of the national organizations like the national center for victims of crime. We have great advocates that are internal. Any time you work internally you can push it so much and folks from the outside can push it to a different place and we all have to work together towards the goal of trying to eliminate the victimization of people with disabilities and continue to have that be something that we address. >> I'll just add to that Roberta. This is Mary. If we think about what are the consequences of this violence abuse. You can take it to the very personal level consequences, all the way through public epidemic and national epidemic which doesn't necessarily cover the U.S. act, but there's a public health consequence of victimization of violence, physical health, psychological health, there's documentation that the presence of disabilities gets in the way of 36 maintains health and wellness. It gets in the way of maintaining, finding and keeping a job. It gets in the way of independent living in a community where you feel safe. It gets in the way of raising your family the way you want to raise your family and the way you want to be in the world. So I think bringing in partners that have to do with employment, that have to do with business, that have to do with physical health and wellness, that have to do with public health, spirituality, unfortunately or fortunately, violence affects all of us and we are integrated in so many pieces of community, that all these pieces can be part of it too. Like Roberta said, it takes time. But these conversations are happening and I think sometimes folks might ready step forward to participate if they realize it's happening to them, to their sister or brother, to the gentleman down the street, their grandmother. If you bring the personal to the political, maybe that keeps the political movement going when the personal getting a little bit tired or not as interested. But you have allies and that's where I think we rely on each other, whether that individual support group 37 all the way to national conversations, that collaboration is just so key to keeping it going. >> I think too we have to be able to let people tell their stories. And if we're not asking the questions, then we're not allowing people to validate their experiences and to get support from others. Our greatest successes I think and greatest inspiration have come from the people with disabilities who have shared their experiences in the hopes of making it better for people with disabilities who experience violence in the future. >> One of the things Leslie was talking about a while ago in terms of support, really as workers in the movement whether at ILs, victims assistance program, because the stories are prevalent, you will hear the stories, whether you ask the question or not, you will hear disclosure of violence and trauma. In order for us to listen, it's been mentioned that we have to be ready and that's where going to our community domestic violence program or sexual assault program and saying can I sit in on your training? I work at this agency down the street and we are hearing stories, but I don't know if I'm going to 38 say the right thing or wrong thing and I have my own trauma to deal with. More than likely the workers in the movement are dealing with past or current experiences of violence or abuse. It's just that common. Maybe we don't talk about it because we're personally ashamed or embarrassed or we indeed haven't been supportive. So you go back and listen to survivors, like Roberta said, what worked and what didn't for them. And the more we begin the conversation, the more we're comfortable with it. Survivors will feel that. And that trust on a very individual level can begin to happen or the trust can be reconnected if somehow it's been broken. All the way to national conversations, we're sitting around the table talking about these things, there needs to be that trust and understanding in the room that I don't know everything. We don't know everything as individuals and yet we're trying to figure this out along the way. I trust my process. I'm going to trust that you trust yours and we can kind of stumble along the way and reauthorizing anything at the national level I think, mirrors how we shift policy and practice at our community level. We know that 39 turnaround in these programs happens pretty quickly and so if we can systematically put in place policies that if this one stellar person has been working for years in the system and he or she leaves, that their wisdom and knowledge and all of the effort that they put in doesn't leave because it's been trained and instilled literally in the culture of the program. >> If there's no other questions, I can move on or are there others? >> TIM: There may be. Let's check with Lisa. Lisa, any questions? >> OPERATOR: There are no other audio questions at this time. Are there any web questions? >> TIM: I have no questions for the webcast. So we can go ahead and proceed. Thanks, Mary. >> MARY: Sure. Okay. Talking about collaboration and I am on slide 34. It says here to cross referral between CILs and abuse intervention programs. There's a little bit more about the abuse intervention programs and what they may be called. Victims assistance programs 40 typically are for crime victims. It's been told to the police and authorities and within the criminal justice system there's victim's advocacy programs. Here in Oregon, they're held in district attorneys. Every state or jurisdiction may have them differently. We're working to what we call co-locate victims assistance folks so maybe there can be a crime victims advocate, for instance, as a CIL or department of human resources that works with children or folks who are older, an elder program, that they don't necessarily need to be housed in district attorney offices or courthouses. Which we know sometimes courthouses can be older buildings, not physically or structurally accessible. And quiet frankly slightly intimidating to go into. But if I am a crime advocate and was raped and have gone through my rape exam and I go to a CIL nationally. If somebody is there, boy, that's really going to help me in the process. And it makes their job as a victims advocate easier because they're going to where the victims are, where the survivors are. Domestic violence centers sometimes will have physical houses, shelters or safe places. Sometimes they don't have a physical structure, 41 but they have programs. Sometimes they're located -- loss for words -- a secret location, you don't know where the building is, but oftentimes you'll have a crisis line or warm line or hot line. I know these hot lines can be confusing because sometimes they're violence related, sometimes related specifically for suicide or mental health. I would say advocates on the lines, it's important to collaborate with where people call systems. I'm known as someone in the system and when I'm working with someone with trauma, it might be confusing on what pieces I need to go to as a survivor. But if we're as systems people understanding these things together, then maybe I can help a little bit. And I know the person down the street who could help more because I'm not exactly versed in trauma, per se, for that kind of abuse or traumatic brain injury, which is often a disability that occurs as a result of being a crime victim or it exacerbates on existing disability. I might not know about that, but I know a good program who does. It makes me confident when I know there's somebody else out there. 42 And I think if women with disabilities who are survivors know that the system is trying to work together, they can pick and choose where they want to go. For instance they might have to go this specific place or talk to this specific person about filing a restraining order, but they can practice that conversation with the IL worker they are known for years. How to talk to an attorney or victims advocate about a restraining order. What does that mean when my story gets into the criminal justice system, a huge system that may not know really where your case is going to go. It's an as found out. You don't know what's going to happen with the prosecution of your case. But the more we have a chance to let people know what might happen or just let them know that it's a confusing process, that in and of itself is enough to maybe just calm prosecution to happen more often if indeed it does. Moving to slide 35, if I can read my writing, additional outreach activities for crime prevention initiatives. I think Leslie mentioned getting the education out to youth. Where does that primary prevention occur? And schools may be reluctant. But if you knock on the door or make a 43 phone call and say can we talk to the children in the classroom or do an after-school program around bullying. We're finding harassment via is Internet is something I need to know more about, use of computers and use of stalking or manipulation or Internet bullying. All along the way it's part of philosophy of us and probably all folks in the disability movement is including people with disabilities in every part of initiatives, either ongoing or that begin to happen. So when we're talking about reauthorizing the act, where are folks in the disability community who are survivors? They need to be at the table. So hopefully folks feel that that's part of assistance they need on the advocacy level. Activities like we talked about in the beginning, there's lots of things to do about languages and attitudes. The stigma on a social level is also a stigma on things we have as an individual level. And letting each other know if we hear something that's not okay or if we say something that hurts somebody, hopefully they can stop and say, you know, Mary, that didn't feel 44 good. This is why it doesn't feel so good when referencing me or my experience in this way. It takes courage to interrupt that and I certainly kind of shake my voice when I feel a need to interrupt someone else. But the use of labeling and stereotyping and tokenism that is still common is part of this as well. In terms of who to collaborate, that's your decision in where your community is and where you want your community to go. Maybe you have collaborations with other agencies on a different initiative not involving violence against people with disabilities, but it might be something around housing or fair and honest employment, it might be around minimum wage. Whatever it is, these issues are going to be there too. Awareness of violence in the workplace is going to be about human resources conversations. So bringing this in and saying we get together -- we've gotten together for two years to talk about faith employment practices, equal employment practices and safety on the workplace. We have talked about structural safety. I also want to talk about interpersonal safety in the workplace. And that group already exists and you trust them and I 45 would suggest bringing the other issue up as well. The last piece on screen 36, making sure that wherever we are there is accommodation and effective communication with the goal of full participation. I have been doing trainings in Portland for several years now and it is in practice that our domestic violence and sexual assault agencies include in their training awareness of people with disabilities and way back when, when I first starting these trainings, the first one I went to, the location was not structurally accessible. So we sat down and said where can we hold these from here on out where everybody can come, where there's child care, public transportation and where the building is structurally accessible. Plenty of places in town. The question had not been asked. So now we have them. And that lends itself to all folks coming and whether that be a structural accessible accommodation, I think more for me, it's the attitude that all are needed, all are welcomed, include it's necessary to have everybody there at the table. Suggestions on ways to do this is holding staff trainings, slide 36. On violence and abuse. 46 So when you talk about in your weekly or monthly staff trainings or programmatic updates, how is it that conversations about these issues are arising? Are you able to -- say you want to do really great training around traumatic brain injury and the effects of psychological abuse or how things intersect, and you talk for ten minutes at the staff training and let people know this is what you have learned or this is what helped me when I talked to the survivor. This is what the survivor said in her safety plan is helping her. The more we share and learn from what we know, I think it gives that peer to peer training really good emphasis that we can become the experts as well. The screens, which is kind of a public health word, but asking questions about: Are you safe, about abuse, noticing -- I don't remember who said it, if behavior in somebody is changing, asking questions about that. And when I ask a lot of youth, I caveat it and say, I ask everybody these questions. You don't look one way more than another. I assume that this could happen to anybody and I move that from belief system. But I want to make sure that people know I'm not targeting them for the questions. They may not 47 tell you a thing. And if they don't, that's just fine. But if we've asked the question, maybe there's a feeling that this person cares, this agency is aware, and they might listen to me in a month. They might listen to me tomorrow when I come back in. They might listen to me on the phone. It gives the impression -- not the impression for inaccuracy, but it gives us the thought that it's important to this agency, these issues. Maybe it hasn't happened to me, but I'm supporting a woman down the street and I've talked to her about her experiences of abuse, but I'm not a systems person, so next time we go together, maybe I can come with her and say, I heard this person ask me about abuse, maybe they'll ask you too. I think it's pulling the issue out from under the rug. I assume people will disclose when they're ready. If they have, I realize, usually it takes a little bit of time. So if I'm hearing a story, I'm pretty honored and I need to be aware that that's a very scary time for somebody to tell. But if we develop policies and procedures that this is routine in work, we become more comfortable if asking and hopefully, I believe we 48 become more comfortable and confident in providing the advocacy. Doing your best advocacy is the best that you can do. And that I believe sometimes the fear that we don't do the right thing or will make a mistake, that doesn't matter. But we're doing something. To me, this is my own belief, doing something is better than doing nothing and having mistakes along the way, they're going to come. Whether it be around anything that we do and if we use that intention to say, I made a mistake, I need to know, but I'm really interested in your safety. Survivors are going to realize the intention is you want them to be safe and that mistake will be a learning place. Let's see. 37. I think I said this before, but visit your local victims service agencies. You can invite yourself in to partner trainings. You can invite yourself in to conferences or task force meetings. A lot of these meetings are for public consumption. And if you're curious about what the agency does and your eve only seen them in the yellow pages or on the street, but you think they're worth learning about, make a call and say I want to learn more about what you do. I think people would be honored to talk with you. 49 Particularly if again our philosophy is keeping folks safe, that's the real thing we can join on. Making visual, verbal, communication around we think violence is important to deal with, to talk about and safety is of utmost concern. Safety in community, safety in the job, safety in living independently, safety going from one place to the next. We talk about readiness for safety or integrity were disaster preparedness and that's not necessarily personal violence, but preparing for a national disaster, if that's what we start talking about, that can lend itself to personal safety as well. Having a support circle for people to know where you are, having backup personal attendant, having the neighbor down the street have telephone numbers. If you can extend the network, you too can be the support person for somebody else. Let's see. I'm trying to think of any other examples we've had -- oh, one other, places where victims services come together, sexual assault or domestic violence, oftentimes with the county level there's domestic violence task forces or courts. Another word is family violence 50 multidisciplinary teams, these are already occurring groups that look at violence. Sometimes the disability community voice is not present on multidisciplinary teams or maybe it's a public house voice, but not specifically around disabilities. Again, those are public forums, so I encourage you to look at where your domestic violence programming is bringing people together and inviting yourself there to go to the annual meeting or task force roll call for instance. And sitting in and making sure that real accommodations and attention is given to the disability community and, quite frankly, it's ripe for access into victims' services types of agencies. That's all I have. >> We've been talking a lot about the webbing of violence abuse awareness into the four core services. If you think about the list that I encouraged you to make in the beginning about what services at your center or your program are you good with, I think the most important thing is not so much to try and tackle everybody at once, but to steal Nike's statement, just do it. If you have not been involved before, get involved in a 51 task force or community action groups that Mary talked about. When we approach state plans of any type whether state plans for independent living or disability and health, we look at three key areas: Education awareness, access and then policy. It's really hard to influence policy if the people who are involved in doing that do not have the education and awareness. When we put this task force together several years ago and when the three of us and numerous people who have assisted in that sort of devoted ourselves to try and help do this on a national level better, we recognized the importance and awareness of collaboration with programs nationally and to get the information out to you and to the other Independent Living Centers so they can become more educated an way ware. Because it's difficult in this work to be able to influence policy (Inaudible) if you don't have the education and awareness. So when we're talking about these issues, those are some of the important things that come to mind. Your center staff is the best place to start to create a safe environment for consumers to disclose abuse and ensure that protective actions can be taken. 52 How do you support this work? What are the next steps? The next steps are look at the list. Look at the services you provide at your center and just do it. Just start somewhere. If you want to take it to the next level, get involved in the crime victim assistance academy, if your state has one of those. Be involved with some of the organizations. Begin to seek funding from some of the sources. If you look at slide No. 38, there's several offices that have funding for violence activities nationally. Those offices nationally also fund programs in your states. Find out who disburses that money within your state. And get to know those people. Get to know those programs that are involved there. Other resources are mentioned in your handouts as well. Slide 39 lists some more of the resources nationally that might be of help to you. Slide 40 also had another list of other programs that are good. The important thing is to just begin. We never -- I never personally ever intended to work on a national level or be on a national teleconference call like this, I didn't feel like 53 I had the expertise to do it. But we're not doing as much as we need to so folks like me and you are part of work and we need to step up to the plate so we can influence the access and policies that are made. I think we're to another question section. >> TIM: That's right. Thanks, Roberta. We'll go ahead and jump into the final Q and A session. Lisa, would you find facilitating that for us. >> OPERATOR: If you have a question at this time, please press 01 on your telephone key pad. Again, if you have a question at this time, please press 01 on your telephone key pad. There appear to be no questions at this time. Do you have any on the web? >> TIM: I do. Thank you, Lisa. I have a question here from Wendy Hanson and Wendy asks as an IL coordinator, one of the biggest obstacles I face is elder abuse. I know abuse is occurring because it's visible. What are being done to empower the aging citizens? >> Well, nobody's going to field that, so I'll jump in here. What we have done here in 54 Arkansas is we've worked collaboratively with adult protective services and attempts to have them be able to do better investigations of elder abuse and of abuse against people with disabilities. We have tried to network and have the independent living center directors and people involved there get to know the adult protective service workers in their community. We've attempted to get the information about recognizing signs of abuse out to people who are elderly and working with the leaders in the aging community to try and make sure the information gets out through meals on wheels or various methods that might be utilized to provide information. Some folks are not comfortable with disclosing different types of abuse. In elder abuse and people with disabilities it's very much the same. There's a fear they'll be put in a restrictive environment or institution or lose independence. We have to look at trying to take away whatever barrier it is that's keeping people from being honest about what's happening to them. >> This is Mary. I didn't hear the very first part of question, but I think when we're 55 looking at trying to understand abuse towards the elderly, oftentimes the perpetrators are family members or adult children. So it's oftentimes has happened for years and years and years, and it's within the family. And it's a different way to think about who the perpetrator is. In expanding our definition of who survivors are, when we look at people with disabilities, perpetrators of elder abuse are often very much there and can hurt in extremely critical ways because they have access to the home, access to the bank account, access to literally everything. Access to wills, anything that deals with probate. It's hard -- I went to a wonderful session on undue influence. And contracts are written that have had your signature all the sudden has your daughter's signature and you didn't realize that your signature was no longer on your home or within your bank account or in your will. And tricky, tricky, tricky cases to prosecute. Whether there is memory loss, confusion around -- I don't really read for read all these contracts. Legalese terminology, so it's an area that when we talk about adult 56 protective services and I was working with somebody who was elderly and experiencing abuse, I definitely would ask for help in understanding what it is that they may not be telling me. They're telling me a little bit of piece, this is probably what survivors in general, just my guess, but if they're telling one part of picture, my hunch is that there's other things going on. >> You also may want to look on the web at national clearinghouse on abuse in later life, www.NCALL.US. It has a ton of information related to elder abuse. There have been many programs doing domestic violence work that have been doing abuse in later life work as well over the past several years. So I would encourage also to look for assistance from the local domestic violence program. >> I think one of the things to keep in mind and one of the things I try to remind myself as I do this work is to do just keep hanging in there with them. We represent the disability community. They represent the domestic violence law enforcement community and you have to find what your common ground is with those other organizations and really stay in the room together 57 and try and talk through to some kind of resolution. Because when we stop talking to each other, then both of us lose. So it's important to bridge with the elder community and the firms that provide services to them to help us do the work. >> TIM: Okay. Well, thanks. And with that, we are just one minute from the end of the presentation. So I'm going to jump in here and I want to again offer my sincere thanks to Mary, Leslie and Roberta for taking the time to put together today's presentation and for doing a good job presenting today and taking your questions. I also want to offer myself to take any follow-up questions that should come in. Again, you can e-mail me. My e-mail address is simple to remember. It's just tim@ncil.org. And I'll be happy to take any of your follow-up questions or requests for further information. And do my best to answer them myself or pass them along to presenters. One last plug and reminder for our evaluation form. Again. It only takes a moment to complete. While I do ask you to fill out yourself, if you're participating in a group, 58 discuss what you thought about today's call, the materials and ways that we can make improvements or topics we can cover for further events and give us the information. So one more time the address for today's evaluation form is http://ncil.org/training/violence awareness materials.html. And you can submit that on line evaluation survey very easily. And I want to thank you for participating today. Trainers, if you wouldn't mind staying on the line. Everyone else, thanks so much and we'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.