Safe Places SafeBlog

VISIONARIES

2011-04-09T12:31:00.016-05:00

Before us is a rare opportunity to tell our story to persons in 70 million households. If that happens, what might the results be?

Increased support?
More people praying for our clients and their well-being?
Persons who have been victimized find a source of help and hope?

Perhaps we would realize all three of these potential results. However, if I had to choose one, it would be that individuals who have suffered from violence find a source of help and hope.

You might be asking how that help and hope could possibly happen since Safe Places is a small nonprofit organization in Central Arkansas. A better description of Safe Places might give you the answer, and these are a few possible descriptions that have been suggested by some people who really know us:

Safe Places is a small nonprofit with a huge mission and vision. Safe Places is the "little engine that could." Safe Places sits in a house on Broadway in Little Rock, but it serves people all over the world.

It's true! Really!

Now here's a story you might be interested in - a true story that happened in the past two weeks as told by one of our victim advocates:

I received a call from a woman in Northwest Arkansas seeking help for her sister and her sister's daughter who are suffering violence from her husband and his boss. The thing is that she resides in Mexico. Anyway, the woman told me that her sister was almost killed two days ago by a powerful politician in her home town. He tried to strangle her and left her near dead. She is now in critical condition at the hospital. Because the husband is politically connected, he is having his wife monitored and also keeping an eye on her sisters, who are caring for her. Because it is a small town with a great deal of corruption, they fear retaliation. According to other sisters that live nearby, they have no resources and they are desperately looking for some help outside of their town.

After researching several options, I was able to find possible help for the sisters and for the victim. I made some long distance calls to contact two of the agencies at a national level that might be able to intervene in defense of this woman since they affiliated with rights for women, shelters and protection for women in living with domestic violence.

I am also contacting the director of the National Institute for Women in México, to see if she can provide me with more resources or to see if her office can intervene to protect this woman before she gets killed, either by the husband or the politician.

We continue to cross the borders with new cases. Tomorrow, I will be meeting with the FBI to assist with six new trafficking victims.

The End Result (thus far) of this True Story . . .

Just want to let you know the outcome of the request I received last week about the women in Mexico.

Her sister in NW Arkansas called me yesterday with news that she has been rescued by the authorities. I guess all the long distance calls I had to make to Mexico paid off after all. The great thing is that they took the situation seriously and mobilized the police to remove mother and daughter from that situation. It is my understanding that a formal investigation will begin to prosecute her husband and the politician abusing all the women in the town.

I am very proud of the sister for asking for help, but I am even more proud that the victim decided to speak up. Thanks to her, other women might be saved as well. Just when I thought that Mexico had no good stories, this is definitely one.

Obviously, jurisdictional issues prevented the FBI from intervening in the case, and even when the Mexican Consulate told her they couldn’t do anything, we did! All it took was the research, finding the right people and the willingness to go the extra mile to serve someone in need.

It feels pretty good!

Indeed it does feel pretty good! It feels great, in fact, to once again be reminded that the "little engine that could" not only could, but did.

That's Safe Places! And that's why Visionaries wants to profile our work.

We hope you'll help make it possible by underwriting even in a small way, by offering to host the field producer and film crew for a reception when they are here, by hosting the film's premier event here in Little Rock, and by helping us give them a real Arkansas-style welcome!

For underwriting specifics, contact Field Producer Jody Santos at jodys@visionaries.org

or read the full proposal at:
http://www.safeplaceslr.org/VISIONARIES.html

http://www.visionaries.org/

Failure to Protect: The Crisis in America’s Family Courts

2011-01-31T20:46:00.006-06:00

by Cara Tabachnick

Thursday, May 6th, 2010 2:00 am

When a mother’s bitter custody battle ends with the death of her child, something has gone terribly wrong with the system.

Wyatt Garcia was born in April 2009. Nine months later, he was shot and killed by his father, who then turned the gun on himself.

It might have turned out differently—if a family court judge had listened to Wyatt’s mother.

Stephen Garcia, 25, a Pinon Hills, California contractor, had been allowed unsupervised visits with his son only a few days earlier by San Bernardino County Superior Judge Robert Lemkau, who was adjudicating a bitter custody battle between Garcia and the boy’s mother, Katie Tagle. The judge had refused to take seriously her repeated warnings of her ex-boyfriend’s violent and abusive behavior.

Shortly after Wyatt was born, she left Garcia after he hit her so hard during an argument about his video-game addiction that “he knocked me out” Tagle said. After she moved home to her parents, her ex-boyfriend began harassing her and her family when he learned she was dating again, and he filed a motion for custody of little Wyatt. In turn she filed three motions for an order of protection against Garcia, which were ignored: in the last motion she charged that he had threatened to kill her and their baby.

Judge Lemkau, however, chose to believe her former boyfriend’s denials rather than the evidence she supplied of Garcia’s threats―including e-mails, text messages and voice messages. Although no extenuating circumstances were raised in court transcripts of the case, the judge simply accused Tagle of lying, and ordered that she turn Wyatt over to his father—with fatal results.

Tagle, 23, believes the odds against her and Wyatt were stacked the moment her case entered the emotional, chaotic world of the family court system.

“I was treated like a criminal, like a complaining woman,” she says.

The story of baby Wyatt Garcia is, sadly, not unusual.

In the nine months between June 2009 and April 2010, 75 children have been killed by fathers involved in volatile custody battles with their former partners, according to the Center for Judicial Excellence, a court advocacy organization which has been tracking news articles of such deaths around the U.S. Based in San Rafael, California, the Center focuses on strengthening court integrity as well as improving public accountability of the judiciary.

Some recent examples from the dockets of Family Courts around the country:

* Teigan Peters Brown (3 years old), shot to death by his father during a court-ordered visit. (Arizona June 2009)

* Bekm Bacon (8 months), killed by father, who then killed himself during overnight visitation. (Idaho Feb 2010)

* Janiyah Nicole Hale (1 year), father is charged with her death during an overnight visitation. He is a registered sex offender. (Alabama July 2009)

How did a system set up to protect families and children allow this to happen?

An investigation by The Crime Report shows such tragedies are the consequences of family court procedures that allow abusive spouses to manipulate the system and leave at-risk children at the mercy of prolonged, expensive court battles over custody. These battles end all too often with a parent forced to share unsupervised custody with an abusive spouse.

The problems have been complicated by systemic flaws in the nation’s family courts that have gone unaddressed far too long.

A Broken System

Lawyers, judges, psychologists and representatives of women’s groups interviewed by The Crime Report describe a broken family court system that is already burdened with a heavy caseload and too few judges—many of whom are forced to rotate between cases—and in which serious criminal allegations of domestic or sexual abuse are routinely ignored. The crushing financial costs of pursuing long custody battles is an additional burden on indigent mothers, who get little or no legal support. The odds are particularly stacked against children at risk when the court battle revolves over “he said, she said” arguments.

The system has particularly failed parents―usually mothers―whose efforts to protect their children collide with an approach to custody issues that is based on narrow legal concepts of balance and fair treatment rather than psychological or medical evidence. “Courts assume mothers are orchestrating misinformation, instead of trying to protect their children,” said Kathleen Russell, director of the Center for Judicial Excellence.

The idea of family courts or dockets began with the best of intentions. Established in the early nineteenth century, they were designed to protect the equitable rights of both parents and children and protect the family. Too often, however, that creates a built-in conflict. Judges, as in the case of Katie Tagle, adopt a skeptical attitude towards abuse charges, which most often come from the mother, on the grounds that it is hard to distinguish fact from fiction in arguments between quarreling parents.

“The problem is that family court is not set up to protect children,” says Joyanna Silberg, PhD,Executive Vice President of the Leadership Council. “It is set up with the intent of equitable division for families. And this presents an overwhelming paradigm: how can you equitably divide a child?”

And while the deaths of children are the public face of family court tragedies, the daily reality is that thousands of parents are trapped in prolonged court battles where they either lose their children to their alleged abuser, or are forced to share unsupervised custody.

Advocacy groups interviewed for this story reported receiving between 450 and 1,000 requests for help in contested custody battles this year. The National Network to End Domestic Violence, a prominent national not-for-profit, says it is the biggest problem they are now facing. And the Leadership Council on Child Abuse & Interpersonal Violence, an independent scientific organization, estimates that each year more than 58,000 children are ordered by family courts into unsupervised contact with physically or sexually abusive parents following divorce in the United States.

Experts say abusers use the court system to exercise control over their former partner’s lives, manipulating the players and risking the safety and well being of the children’s lives the courts are sworn to protect.

“Family courts are trained to look for cooperative behavior,” says Rob (Roberta) Valente, general counsel for the National Network to End Domestic Violence, which is based in Washington D.C. “When someone raises an abuse allegation, the court sees it as uncooperative behavior. The result, advocates say, is that the abuser is able to manipulate the court, while a child’s safety and well-being is placed at risk. Many judges are likely to view abuse complaints as a tactic to win custody battles. What the courts have failed to take into account but research has clearly shown time and time again, is that most of the cases that make it to trial in family court are high-risk abuse cases.

Compounding the problem is that judges, attorneys and custody evaluators have little or no training in detecting signs of abuse.

Just 20 per cent of the almost one million divorces and separations registered every year in the U.S. actually land in court. Most are settled in the pre-trial phase, according to Prof. Janet Johnston of San Jose State University, in research studies written for the journal, The Family Court Review.

But of the few who make it to a judge, over 75 percent of these cases are victims of some form of domestic or sexual abuse, according to a 1995 paper by Prof. Peter Jaffe of the University of Western Ontario, who studies children and violence in U.S. and Canadian court systems.

He Said, She said

Today’s family courts have also been affected by the rise of the Fathers Rights movement. During the 1950s, family courts almost exclusively awarded custody to mothers. But complaints by fathers that their rights were ignored in custody battles led to a shift in the 1970s to awarding shared custody, on the grounds that it was in the best interest of the child to maintain a relationship with both parents.

Nevertheless, only a small percentage of high-conflict cases require judges to act as conciliators between parties locked in otherwise endless litigation. The majority involve mothers and children that are suffering from serious sexual or domestic abuse.

The National Father Resource Center disputes this, claiming that its member organizations report that 80 percent of mothers’ abuse allegations are false. Although Canadian research from the University of Toronto studying false allegations in U.S. and Canadian custody cases has found that between one and two percent of mothers make false allegations, the fathers’ rights argument has had a powerful impact. As shown by the Tagle case, courts don’t want to hear the mothers’ allegations.

“Historically, allegations of abuse and incest are [met] with a great deal of suspicion, and there is a tremendous resistance to hearing these types of allegations,” said Eileen King, director of Justice for Children, a national non-profit that works to protect children involved in contested custody cases.

Such resistance has already cost Deborah Hicks, 46, a former New York City television editor, six years of pain. In 2003, she filed for sole custody of her son, then three years old, when he came home from a visit to his father with suspicious signs of sexual abuse. There was reason to be worried. Her ex-partner had already been convicted of molesting a two-year old boy in Florida for which he served eight years in prison, and he was a registered sex offender in New York City. Despite her ex-boyfriend’s record, the judges who heard the case (there have been two), decided they had to give a fair hearing to his denials.

She has already spent almost $100,000 on the case, with no end in sight. Nevertheless, she still shares custody with her ex, and says, “I am not about to give up on my child.”

Even for those mothers who can afford it, the battle can take a psychological toll. Even when the evidence of risk to their children seems impossible to deny, the family court system that has proven incapable of treating these high-conflict cases with the serious attention and professionalism they require.

Moreover, courts are now often swayed by a concept called “parental alienation syndrome” (PAS), coined by the late psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Dr. Richard A. Gardner in the 1980s to describe situations in which one parent is trying to turn the children against the parent during a divorce process. Dr. Gardner, a former professor of child psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, testified in more than 400 child custody cases about its effect on children.

PAS has been seized by the Fathers Rights movement as a way to defend husbands and other male partners from what they consider unjust accusations, and it has received support from other psychologists, who deny that it allows genuine child abuse to go unpunished. “If attorneys, child care evaluators, and judges were all doing their job, protective mothers wouldn’t have anything to fear,” says psychologist Amy J. Baker, author of Adult Children of Parental Alienation Syndrome: Breaking the Ties that Bind.

The concept has made little documented headway in the professional and legal field, and the syndrome has been used very rarely in legal precedent. PAS is not included in the most recent American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, although the association is currently weighing whether to include it in the 2013 issue of the manual.

It may be ironic that efforts to give fathers more rights in custody cases have increased the odds against victimized mothers and children,

“When the pendulum swung to shared custody somewhere in the midst of that (fathers) movement, the safety of children was compromised,” argues Helga Luest, founder of Witness Justice, a group that helps heal victims of violence.

A Complex Web

Tears fill Amy Leichtenberg’s voice as she recounts the horrible months before her two young boys, Duncan and Jack Connolly, ages 9 and 7, were killed by their father last March. “I felt like I did everything right, I sat there, I didn’t speak out of turn,” she said of her courtroom experience. After a 20-year abusive relationship with her ex-husband Michael Connolly, she finally gathered the strength to leave him. But he wouldn’t let her go. . Each time she moved her address, he showed up at her house. She got numerous orders of protection; he violated them repeatedly.

Every six or seven weeks, the couple was back in court, following a motion filed by Connolly for one reason or another. Representing himself, he would badger Leichtenberg on the stand. Yet despite his behavior, the court allowed him unsupervised access to his young sons.

“The ball was dropped in so many places,” said Leichtenberg. “Court was just one of them.”

That points to another problem. Once a family enters the family court system, other forms of protection of women and children often fall by the wayside. Typically, law enforcement agencies are reluctant to investigate abuse charges if they learn that the parties are involved in a custody battle, said Karen Borders, a former police officer and victim of a contested abuse case, who now runs an forensic risk assessment company called Borders McLaughlin. Orders of protection that are filed in criminal court often don’t make its way over to the civil system. Child protective services (CPS), which investigate allegations of child abuse, usually close or suspend a case if the child is involved in a custody battle, she said.

In the 450 high-risk custody evaluations her company investigated over the past five years, almost 90 percent of the children were abused.

“One of the things you see very often is when there is a custody case pending, child protection services, prosecutors and law enforcement will not take the charges seriously or be willing to investigate because they think it is about custody instead of a crime,” says Barry Goldstein, author of Domestic Violence, Abuse and Child Custody: Legal Strategies and Policy Issues.

Decision-making in these highly volatile cases are left to an army of custody evaluators, guardians ad litem (volunteer lawyers who are assigned by the court to represent the child), and other members of the court who may not have experience in domestic violence issues.

Custody evaluators can be assigned by the court or hired by one of the parties. The cost, which can run from $5,000 to $20,000, can be picked up by the parent who hired the evaluator, or it can be split by both parties. The custody system is beset by charges of cronyism―arising from evaluators’ employee relationship with the court―and incompetence. Advocates charge that evaluators are often poorly trained on how to handle or detect an abuser.

There is scant research on decision-making by custody evaluators and how they effect their cases. “Many child custody evaluators are not comprehensive (and ) their work is not buttressed by collateral evidence,” says psychologist Eugenia Patru, who has worked as a custody examiner in Louisiana and Michigan for the past 30 years.

According to Patru, the difficulty of custody cases increases when domestic violence is an issue. “Most (evaluators) are not educated enough and just in for the money,” she says.

In the saddest irony of all, attorneys have learned to caution their clients not to reveal abuse allegations in custody cases since research suggests that such allegations can work against mothers fighting for custody. A National Institute of Justice-funded study found that 35 percent of mothers who alleged abuse got primary custody, while mothers who said nothing got custody 42 percent of the time.

Moreover, when abuse allegations are raised, judges tend to suppress or not enter the abuse into evidence, making it harder to try these cases at the appellate level. “Family courts don’t adequately deal with abuse by refusing to hear the evidence,” charges Joan Meier, director of the Domestic Violence Legal Empowerment and Appeals Project, which provides legal representation at the appellate level, trains trial lawyers and has represented the domestic violence advocacy community in Supreme Court briefs.

Meier, a professor at George Washington University Law School who has been appealing contested custody cases for the past decade, says such suppression of evidence makes it very hard to overturn bad case precedent on appeal. Additionally, cases tend to be an intense financial and time drain, with the average case running over $100,000 in costs and lasting eight years.

Signs of a Shift?

“There are thousands of good decisions being made by judges each day who err on the side of safety,” says Judge Janice Rosa, who sits on New York Supreme Court in the 8th Judicial District and is chair of the Family Violence Department Advisory Committee for National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges.

Judge Rosa points to New York’s practice of appointing a separate attorney for the children as a best practice in sorting out custody cases. Another breakthrough idea has been integrated domestic violence courts. There are approximately 40 such courts in New York State, which has become the trendsetter in this area. These courts, which have civil and criminal jurisdiction, could offer women and children a way to get the protection they need.

In 2002, the Office of Violence Against Women developed and implemented a four-year demonstration initiative to examine promising practices in the field of supervised visitation and safe exchanges called Safe Haven.

Grants were awarded to four demonstration sites: the Bay Area, California; the City of Chicago, Illinois; the City of Kent, Washington; and the State of Michigan for four years. Praxis International, a nonprofit research and training organization that works toward the elimination of violence in the lives of women and children, and oversaw these projects still offers technical assistance and advice for visitation centers.

Praxis International also partnered with The Battered Women’s Justice Project starting a two-year research project to determine a best model and legislation for Family Courts.

But the resources are not in place now for children and mothers who need a way to safety now. One of the more promising projects The ABA Child Custody and Adoption Pro Bono Project ended in August, 2008.

“For the moment, abused mothers who are trying to protect their children through the overworked family court system have the cards stacked against them,” says Silberg of the Leadership Council.

“I did everything right, and my children are in a cemetery now right now,” said Leichtenberg, who founded “In Loving Memory” to in order to lobby for changes in legislation relating to the response of family court and law enforcement to abuse cases. “I have a lot of ‘what could have, what should haves’ every day. But with my last breath, I will make sure they did not die in vain.”

Cara Tabachnick is news editor of The Crime Report. Additional reporting by John Jay Center on Media, Crime and Justice researcher Daonese Johnson-Colon.

Who Should Answer for Yeardley Love's Murder?

2010-05-11T18:08:00.003-05:00

By Casey Gwinn

Family Justice Center Alliance

May 10, 2010

Last week, Yeardley Love was murdered by her former boyfriend, George Huguely at the University of Virginia. The media has given it much coverage. Though three other women died the same day Yeardley died and though four women have died every day since her death, this case has captured more attention. She was from an upper middle class family. Her killer was from a wealthy Florida family. They were both good looking, white, successful college lacrosse players with scholarships. This kind of thing is not supposed to happen with people like this, right? They were young…with their whole lives ahead of them. Now, George Huguely will spend the rest of his life in prison. Yeardley Love is dead. Who is responsible? Who should answer for her murder? Fingers are pointing at the university, at his family, at their friends, and at law enforcement professionals who dealt with him in the past. People are calling for an investigation and a review of everything that happened. The University is pledging to do more about the issue of relationship violence on their campus.

But perhaps we are missing out on the big picture. Perhaps we are missing out on the much less obvious cause of Yeardley Love’s murder. And perhaps we can actually learn from it and do something about it if we will get honest about those who should be accountable…So, who is responsible for the murder of Yeardley Love? Who should answer for her death?

We are all responsible. I am partially responsible for her murder. You are partially responsible for her murder. We should all answer for her murder. But George killed her, right? The rage-filled, jealous, obsessive boyfriend is responsible not us! Yes, he is responsible too. And he will personally pay for savagely beating her to death in what his attorney has called an “accident.” But it was not an accident. It was a pre-meditated, predictable, preventable, murder. The University of Virginia should have seen it coming. Their friends should have seen it coming. And if we were all well-educated on the issues and the research, if we all were aware of everything going on in every abusive relationship in America, we would all see each and every one of these murders coming.

But, sadly, we have condoned intimate partner violence for too long. We, as a society, have failed to educate every man, woman, and child about the issue. We have failed to hold abusers accountable in our community. We have failed to demand culture change. We have failed to implement awareness efforts in every corner of society. We have failed to put enough resources into prevention and education programs with children. We have minimized domestic violence, ignored it, and rationalized it. We have viewed it as someone else’s problem. We have viewed it as someone else’s responsibility. We have viewed it as a women’s issue. We have viewed it as about “those people” or “those women.” And therefore we must accept some responsibility for Yeardley Love’s murder. In a country where one in four women will be impacted by intimate partner violence in her lifetime, we really are duplicitous in every incident as long as we are not doing enough to stop it throughout our society.

Most intimate violence is perpetrated by men. Why do they do it? Because we let them. They don’t grow up hearing over and over that it is wrong and will not be tolerated. They don’t grow up in homes seeing the men in their lives model respect for women. And when they choose to use violence, they get away with it. Most abusers aren’t arrested. Most abusers aren’t prosecuted. Most abusers are not confronted by a caring group of friends and family members when they are violent or even near violence. Most churches don’t make this a high priority topic. In most schools, it is a one hour class if it is talked about at all. Most news stories are only about the cases with broken bones and dead bodies. There is never enough media focus when the victims are still alive and the violence is minimal or has not yet started at all.

What of the case of George Huguely? Once all the truth is out, there will be clear evidence that he was a man of rage, who was never held accountable. It will be clear that he was violent and/or emotionally abusive with Yeardley in the past and nothing happened to him. Many people probably knew something about the risk to her and others because of his rage. Certainly the University should have known about his past violence and police interventions. Who should have told? Who should have shared information? Who should have realized that everything means something in an abusive relationship? The answer of course…is…all of us.

Let’s remember that such murders and murder-suicides happen all over America. They happen in every state of the nation. They happen in every age group, every socio-economic group, and every ethnic group. And intimate partner violence happens between teenagers, young adults, dating couples, heterosexual, gay, and lesbian couples, married couples of all ages, and couples that live together. Murders never happen out of the blue in domestic violence situations. There is always a ramp up. There is always a pattern of escalation. Sometimes it might happen fast, sometimes it might happen slowly. When the victims tries to leave or break it off, she is more likely to face greater violence or death. When no one knows and no one is holding the abuser accountable, there is more likely to be continued violence and escalating violence. The research on each of these topics is clear and convincing. It is no longer a mystery. If you don’t know all this, do some research! Get involved, and figure it out. Don’t see intimate relationship violence around you? You are not looking.

Here are some resources to help you get educated and then reach out to everyone you know:

· National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline – http://www.loveisrespect.org/

· Choose Respect, a great curriculum for children that could be used in every middle school and high school in America – http://www.chooserespect.org/

· Boss of Me, which aims to prevent teen dating violence - http://www.bom411.com/

· Start Strong, which helps 11-14 year olds develop healthy relationships – http://www.startstrongteens.org/

· National Family Justice Center Alliance, which helps communities organize community centers where all the services for prevention and intervention in family violence can come together in one place - www.familyjusticecenter.org

· Peace Over Violence – http://www.peaceoverviolence.org/

· A Thin Line, a national campaign to end digital abuse – http://www.athinline.org/

So, will you do something? What can you do today? Talk to your kids about violence and relationships. Ask your minister, priest, or rabbi to speak on the topic. Talk to your friends and family members about their knowledge of violence and abuse in relationships. Write a letter to every elected official in your community and tell them this is an important issue for you and you want them to make it a priority in your community. We are all responsible. We should all answer for what is happening to women and girls in this country. We should all care about what many men do to so many women. And we should all do something about it. It is the least we can do in memory of Yeardley Love since we are all partially responsible for her murder.

Child Abuse Causes Lifelong Changes To DNA Expression And Brain

2009-11-10T13:30:00.002-06:00

This study confirms what many in the trauma field already know - that child abuse permanently alters the brain. Now we know it also alters DNA - so it can actually impact evolution. The stress response - cortisol - apparently can seriously change brain function (shrinking the hippocampus and enlarging the amygdala) and can also change gene expression at the DNA level.

Child Abuse Causes Lifelong Changes To DNA Expression And Brain
A study led by researchers in Canada who analysed post mortem brain samples of suicide victims with a history of being abused in childhood found changes in DNA expression that were not present in suicide victims with no childhood abuse history or in people who died of other causes. The affected DNA was in a gene that regulates the way the brain controls the stress response.

The research was the work of scientists from the Douglas Mental Health University Institute and McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, and the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences and was published online on 22 February in Nature Neuroscience.

Previous studies have shown that child abuse or neglect changes the hormonal stress response and increases the risk of suicide in the victim. Animal studies show that maternal care can influence the expression of genes that control the stress response.

In this study the researchers looked at samples of the hippocampus from human suicide victims with a history of childhood abuse. The hippocampus is a region of the brain that plays a key role in regulating the stress response.

They found changes in expression of the NC3R1 gene that were not present in suicide victims with no history of being abused in childhood. The changes weren't present in people who had died of other causes either.

For the study the researchers used samples from 36 brains: 12 came from suicide victims who had been abused as children, 12 came from suicide victims who had no such history, and 12 came from people who had died of other causes (the controls).

The researchers found that the child abuse victims had different "epigenetic" markings in a part of the brain that influences the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) function, a stress-response that increases suicide risk.

This finding builds on an earlier study published in May last year that showed how child abuse can leave "epigenetic" marks on DNA.

Epigenetics studies the way that DNA is expressed: that is when the code behaves in a way that is not exactly what the DNA program says. DNA itself, the fundamental code, is inherited from the person's biological parents and remains fixed through a person's lifetime.

But the genes in the DNA are coated with a layer of chemicals called DNA methylation. These chemicals influence how the DNA is interpreted and they can be affected by changes in the environment, especially in early life such as when the new embryo is made, in the womb, and then later in childhood.

Co-author Dr Gustavo Turecki, associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University and who practices at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute, said:

"We know from clinical experience that a difficult childhood can have an impact on the course of a person's life."

"Now we are starting to understand the biological implications of such psychological abuse", added fellow co-investigator Moshe Szyf, a professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at McGill.

The interaction between environment and DNA plays a key role in our ability to resist and deal with stress and this affects the risk of suicide, said the researchers. Epigenetic marks are the product of DNA and environment.

The researchers found that different types of care from the mothers changed the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) function in rats by altering the receptors in the brain. In earlier studies they showed that simple behaviours such as when mothers licked their baby rats in early life had a significant effect on epigentic markings on specific genes that affected behaviour throughout the offsprings' lives.

But they also found that these epigenetic marks can be changed in adulthood with treatments that change the DNA coating: the treatment is called DNA methylation and it reverses the change to the stress response.

The brain samples in this latest study came from the Quebec Suicide Brain Bank and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and the National Institute of Child Health and Development in the US paid for the research.

"Epigenetic regulation of the glucocorticoid receptor in human brain associates with childhood abuse."
Patrick O McGowan, Aya Sasaki, Ana C D'Alessio, Sergiy Dymov, Benoit Labonté, Moshe Szyf, Gustavo Turecki & Michael J Meaney.
Nature Neuroscience Published online: 22 February 2009.
doi:10.1038/nn.2270

Click here for Abstract.

Sources: Journal abstract, McGill University.

Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD
Re-posted with permission from Integral Options

Safe Places Sexual Violence Support Center

2009-11-09T10:30:00.008-06:00

Safe Places now provides a comprehensive range of services to victims of sexual violence in Pulaski County, and statewide through a toll-free sexual violence crisis line.

Crisis intervention, trauma counseling, support groups, hospital accompaniment, criminal justice advocacy, and other supportive services are available for children, youth and adults.

Local hospitals emergency departments who request assistance for individuals who have been sexually assaulted will receive trained advocates at any time of the day or night if the patient desires our services.

Local Sexual Violence Crisis Line: 501-801-2700
Statewide toll free: 1-877-432-5368

Family Violence: Collateral Damage

2009-11-03T21:18:00.010-06:00

"Domestic Violence"

We have heard it so much, it begins to mean nothing to us.

"Domestic Violence" is a sterile way to say, "Violence is happening in my family - in my home, in the one place I should feel safe and protected.

In some ways the term itself, and the services we currently provide to victims of family violence, are what I call "old school."

The reality is that family violence also means that children are being exposed to violence at home, and that this exposure is having devastating effects on them. Statistics tell us that 70% of men who batter their spouses are also abusing their children.

(National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information, In Harm’s Way: Domestic Violence and Child Maltreatment, Washington, DC: National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information, 1999)

We are also hearing very disturbing statistics like these:

Children raised in violent homes are:

6 times more likely to commit suicide

26 times more likely to commit sexual assault

57 times more likely to abuse drugs

74 times more likely to commit other crimes against persons

A recent study found that children who had witnessed their parents fighting, had IQ scores 8 points lower than their peers. (Development and Psychopathology, June 2003)

We must begin addressing family violence in a more holistic manner, in the context of family, and with intentional intervention and prevention services for children. Shelter services are important, but only 3% of women who experience intimate partner violence ever go to a shelter.

Most of the rest are in their homes where the secrets of family violence are securely kept.

A few have found refuge in the homes of friends or family.

We will find them in their communities . . . at work places and PTA meetings, in the grocery store or in the beauty salon, at their place of worship or at civic club meetings.

And their children? We'll find them in the classroom and on the playground.

Those are the places where we must focus our services - in the places where the victims and their children are living and playing and working . . . and acting as normal as possible so that they can keep the secret safe.

"Old school" domestic violence services cannot meet today's need. We have to go to the women and children in their worlds, walk with them on their journeys, encourage them to trust us, and assure them they are not alone anymore.

Our staff at Safe Places learned this very important lesson from one of our clients, an eleven year old victim of family violence who said to his advocate, "Why should I tell you anything? You can't protect me."

He was right. If we continue to do the same things we have always done, providing the same services we have always provided, we will not protect him. It is going to require more of us - more commitment, more creativity, and more attention to the children of family violence.

As he said through his T-Shirt for the Clothesline Project last year:

"Children should get a say. Your life is valuable."

It's Not about the Prince!

2009-10-28T13:16:00.006-05:00

We just completed our second annual Cinderella Ball - an enchanting evening and an enormous success for Safe Places. The young women ages 12-17 who participated in our Cinderella Princess Leadership Program ended their year of education and community service by being presented (debutante-style) at this elegant Ball with almost 300 people in attendance.

The Cinderella Ball is most certainly about raising money for Safe Places, because working with children and families who have been devastated by violence is a cause that desperately needs funding.

The Cinderella Ball is most certainly about raising awareness as well, because children are victims of every day of sexual violence, family violence, bullying, child maltreatment, abduction, trafficking, and most every other violent crime one could mention.

But The Cinderella Ball is NOT about debutantes and it is most certainly not about "The Prince." As the Cheetah Girls proclaim in their song, Cinderella:

When I was just a little girl,
My mama used to tuck me into bed,
And she read me a story.
It always was about a princess in distress
And how a guy would save her
And end up with the glory.

I don’t wanna be like Cinderella,
Sitting in a dark, cold, dusty cellar,
Waiting for somebody to come and set me free.
I don’t wanna be like someone waiting
For a handsome prince to come and save me . . .I’d rather rescue myself.

I can slay my own dragons. I can dream my own dreams.
My knight in shining armor is me.
So I'm gonna set me free.

The young women in our program love the enchantment of being presented at the Ball, but what they also know is what they learn as a part of their leadership program: that violence against women and children - sexual violence, domestic abuse, harassment, and violence in any form - is NOT OK!

So The Cinderella Ball and Princess Leadership Program is not about the prince; It's about personal empowerment that allows individuals to live their lives free of violence.

"52 Days of Domestic Violence Flu in America"

2009-05-04T15:37:00.009-05:00

I just had to use Safe Places SafeBlog to publish the following Blog post written by former San Diego City Attorney, Casey Gwinn, Esq.

This week I have been reflecting on those that would choose to ignore the importance of dealing with domestic violence in America. After over 30 years of the modern domestic violence movement, we still struggle for funding, we face budget cuts and reductions when the economy goes bad (though domestic violence rises) and we rarely are the primary focus of public policy makers in America. This week the news is consumed with coverage of the swine flu, an important public health issue in America. As of May 2, there have been 167 confirmed cases of the swine flu in the United States and one death. But there has been little news about the mass killings of 68 people across America in the last 52 days, with men doing all the killing and virtually all related to men with a history of violence against women.

Public health officials in the United States fear a global pandemic from the so-called H1-N1 virus. A pandemic is defined as a global outbreak of disease that causes serious illness or death and then spreads easily from person to person worldwide. Pandemics differ from seasonal outbreaks of an illness. The news this week quoted many officials talking about high levels of illness, death, social disruption, and economic loss from pandemics. We must all be vigilant about addressing swine flu in the days ahead. But the pandemic of violence by men against women, men, and children has killed more people in the last 52 days in America than swine flu. This pandemic has been going on now for hundreds of years causing high levels of mental and physical illness, death, social disruption, and economic loss.

There have been 12 mass killings in the last 52 days in the United States. In 11 of the 12, the killer had a history of abuse against women or they were directly related to or defined as domestic violence. 68 people have been killed in those mass killings including 20 children and 7 police officers.

Let's honor those who have been killed in the pandemic of domestic violence flu by identifying their killer and listing them:

March 10 - Michael McLendon, 28, killed ten people, including his mother, grandmother, aunt and uncle, and the wife and child of a local sheriff's deputy in rural Alabama. He then killed himself. The worst mass killing in the history of Alabama killed: Virginia White, 74; James White, 55; Tracy Wise, 34; Dean Wise, 15; James Starling, 34; Lisa McClendon, Michael's mom; Bruce Maloy, 51; Andrea Myers, 31; and Corrine Gracy Myers, 18 months.

March 21 - Lovelle Mixon, a parolee with a history of violence against women, sexual assault, and other violent crimes shot and killed four heroic Oakland police officers - Sgt. Mark Dunakin, 40; Officer John Hege, 41, SWAT Sgt. Ervin Romans, 43; and SWAT Sgt. Daniel Sakai, 35 before he was shot and killed by police.

March 29 - Robert Stewart, 45, shot and killed eight people at Pinelake Health and Rehab Center in Robbins, North Carolina. He came to the center seeking to kill his wife, Wanda Neal, 43, a nurse's assistant. She was working in the Alzheimers Unit when he entered the facility and survived after herding residents into the TV Room and locking the door. The dead included: Tessie Garner, 88; Lillian Dunn, 89, Jessie Musser, 88; Bessie Hendrick, 78; John Goldston, 78; Margaret Johnson, 89; Louise Decker, 98; and Jerry Avent, 39. Jerry was a newly hired nurse at the facility. He was shot 27 times but continued protecting patients until the final shot. Police estimated his efforts saved at least ten others patients and staff members.

March 30 - Devan Kalathat killed six people in a murder-suicide in Santa Clara, California including his children. During his rampage he shot his wife, but she still clings to life in critical condition. Police identified the victims as Kalathat's children: 11-year-old Akhil Dev and 4-year-old Negha Dev; Kalathat's brother-in-law Ashok Appu Poothemkandi, 35, Poothemkandi's wife, Suchitra Sivaraman, 25; and the Poothemkandis' infant daughter, Ahana Ashok.

April 4 - Pittsburgh police officers Eric Kelly, Stephen Mayhle, and Paul Scuillo were shot and killed responding to a "domestic disturbance" call. They were ambushed by Richard Poplawski when they arrived at the house. Officer Eric Kelly was not on duty. He was on his way home to his wife and three daughters when he heard the call on his radio and responded to support his fellow officers.

April 5 - James Harrison killed his five children in Pierce County, WA while his wife was at work. Police confirmed that the couple had a domestic violence incident earlier in the day and the wife had left. The husband demanded that she return and while she was away he methodically shot Maxine, Samantha, Heather, Jamie, and James. The first four children were shot in their beds. The last child was shot as she was running toward the bathroom.

April 5 - Kirby Revelus, 23, killed his 17 year old sister, Samantha and his five year old sister, Bianca. Police officers responding to a domestic violence incident shot and killed him as he was trying to kill his 9 year old sister Sarafina.

April 7 - Kevin Garner fled Greenville, Alabama late in the afternoon after setting fire to his wife's home and car. Hours later, police found his wife and daughter, and her sister and her sister's son shot to death inside the burning home. Garner later shot himself before being apprehended.

April 10 - Two students at Henry Ford Community College were found dead in a murder-suicide in the Fine Arts Building on campus in Dearborn, Michigan. Police determined that Anthony Powell, 28, killed Asia McGowan, 20 with a shotgun and then turned the gun on himself.

April 18 - Christopher Allan Wood, 34, an accountant for a railroad operator, killed his wife, Frances, and his three children in Middletown, Maryland before taking his own life with gunshot to the head. Chandler was 5 years old, Gavin was 4, and his daughter, Fiona, was 2 years old when she was shot and stabbed by her Dad.

April 19 - William Parente, 59, killed his wife, Betty, 58, and daughters Catherine, 11, and Stephanie, 19 before killing himself in Garden City, New York. Each of the victims was killed by asphyxiation and blunt force trauma.

April 25 - University of Georgia professor George Zinkhans shot and killed his wife, Marie Bruce, and two of her friends from a local community theatre group in Bogart, Georgia. Two others were seriously injured by bullet fragments. Her two murdered colleagues were: Ben Teague, 63, and Tom Tanner, 40. More than 200 police officers are currently searching for him the dense woods near Bogart, 60 miles east of Atlanta. Police believe Marie was preparing to get a restraining order, file for divorce, and leave him after a history of domestic violence.

So, we are not done. We all must re-double our efforts to raise awareness, call for more resources in the war by men against women and children. We must call it what it is...it is not Violence AGAINST Women. It is most often Violence BY Men AGAINST Women. All the killers in the mass killings of the last 52 days have been men.

The next time you hear someone say they cannot afford to keep a Family Justice Center or domestic violence program open because of the economy, ask them to read this article. Next time, you hear someone say that we don't need any new, evolving, innovative approaches to family violence prevention because our current service delivery models are doing the job well; ask them to read the list of 68 names from the most recent 52 bloody days of domestic violence in 2009. Don't be silent; don't let elected officials, or policy makers, or bureaucrats, or disinterested community members ignore the tragedy of domestic violence. We must address swine flu in America and around the world but we must also take guns away from men who are violent and start spending the time, energy, and money necessary to stop the pandemic of violence by men against women that is destroying families, killing women, men, and children, and continuing to destroy the lives of so many.

(Casey Gwinn is the former San Diego City Attorney. He founded the internationally recognized San Diego Family Justice Center which is credited with reducing domestic violence homicides in San Diego by over 60%. He currently serves as the President of the National Family Justice Center Alliance which is developing specialized, multi-agency Centers to stop domestic violence across the United States and around the world.}

Just Sharing Casey's Thoughts,

Kathy Findley at Safe Places SafeBlog

A Tragic Anniversary of a Tragic Day

2009-04-22T02:20:00.013-05:00

Remembering Columbine High School
April 20, 1999

Teenage shooters spilled the blood of children before Columbine - in Alaska, Arkansas, Mississippi and Oregon.

After Columbine, more blood was shed in Minnesota and California, in Germany and Finland.

The rampage at Columbine High School, where 13 people were gunned down 10 years ago today, casts a dark shadow on each of us. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, seniors at the suburban Denver school, detonated homemade bombs and opened fire with shotguns, a rifle and a semiautomatic handgun on April 20, 1999. They killed 12 students, injured 23 others and mortally wounded a teacher before committing suicide.

The shooting shocked the country like no other. It was the worst school shooting in American history at that time, and it came in the wake of a half-dozen others. Its shadow would stretch across the nation, and its aftermath continues to affect both law enforcement and educators today.

Marion City Schools Superintendent James Barney, who was superintendent of Old Fort Local School District in 1999 said this:

"We at that time sat down with kids, talked about what happened. We invited kids to help us be the eyes."

Barney said that, after Columbine, teachers and administrators became more sensitive to threats.

"We don't say that's just kids talking," he said. "We immediately investigate."

We must also remember Jonesboro Middle School, the shooting at Stamps, at UALR and at UCA, and the attack of a teacher at Sylvan Hills in Sherwood.

Words of a School Shooter

I just remember life not being much fun.
Reject, retard, loser.
I remember stick boy a lot, cause I was so thin.

- Barry Loukaitis, 14, Moses Lake, Washington 1996

A School Shooter's Journal Entry

I am not insane. I am angry.
I am not spoiled or lazy,
for murder is not weak and slow-witted, murder is gusty and daring....
I killed because people like me are mistreated every day....
I am malicious because I am miserable.

- Luke Woodham, Pearl Miss., 1997

School Violence: Is It Bullying Turned Tragic?

Currently in Pulaski County our local school districts seem to be seeing an epidemic of bullying behavior. Safe Places works with more than 1,000 children and youth annually, so we hear what they say and listen to their fears.

These days, we are learning that there is also a new twist to the bullying problem in our local schools. It's what we used to call "tattling" and school officials are sometimes condemning children who "tell" when they are being harassed.

And yet, "telling" is one thing we have taught our children to do in bullying prevention classes.

Bullying is a signal, a red flag. If we don't pay attention to that signal, it is likely that the bully will grow up to be the abusive adult."

- Former AMA president Robert McAfee, MD

Just how common is bullying and harassing behavior?

83% girls and 79% of boys report experiencing harassment

- Bullying, Teasing, and Sexual Harassment in School
(AAUW, 2001)

The CDC reported an average of 16.5 "school-associated homicides" annually
against "a backdrop of 55 million students enrolled in K-12."

What does a parent do?

Most school districts now have an emergency response phone service where parents and guardians can be called or texted quickly if there is a situation at a school.

According to an American Red Cross press release, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that U.S. schools remain relatively safe places. Among children ages 5-18 who were victims of homicide, suicide or legal intervention, less than one percent of those losses happened on school property, at school-sponsored activities, or in traveling to or from school or the activities.

Be prepared
While the chance of such an event as Columbine happening at a local school is statistically remote, the Marion County Chapter of the American Red Cross suggests that people should still take basic steps to be prepared:

Know how you would communicate with each other during, or immediately following, an emergency. Make sure each member of the household has a current list of key names, phone numbers and addresses, including some close friends, neighbors or relatives;

Establish a short list of locations where members of the household should meet if a crisis occurs. Work out several possibilities. Choose more than one option because some routes or entire neighborhoods ma be inaccessible under certain conditions;

If you have school-age children, be familiar with the school's emergency procedures.

Know whether or not they will keep children at school until a parent or designated adult can pick them up. Ask what kind of authorization may be needed to release a child to someone you designation if you cannot pick them up yourself.

When your contact information changes, share the changes with the school.

For an online memorial and a list of school shootings, please follow this link.

If your child is being bullied and needs help, contact Safe Places at 501-374-7233 or email amcgraw@safeplaceslr.org.

Money, Money Everywhere!

2009-03-18T19:31:00.004-05:00

Money does seem to be everywhere in these days of stimulus. Groups are meeting and talking, scheming and planning, developing smart strategies for getting some of that plenteous stimulus money. For nonprofit organizations like Safe Places, this could well be a dream come true. At best, it could be for us a pot of treasure at the end of a rainbow. At worst, it might result in a few extra dollars to provide a little cushion against disaster.

But there are some problems. Getting any of that money is not going to be easy. Proposals for funding will have to be written quickly, far more quickly than the typical grant proposals we write.

And there will be strings attached. Probably a few more strings than the usual strings that are tied to our grant funding. Finally, there may not be time to think about whether our mission really fits the money that's going to be so stimulating. So in order to make the most of these days, we are going to have to re-visit our mission and be very sure that our actions - and our grant proposals - fall within the guidelines of our mission.

All this really means is that our mission and vision is still our primary guiding light, in seeking money, in planning programs, in serving people. When stimulus money has come and gone, our mission and vision will remain steadfast. So we'd better honor it and follow it, whether money is flowing freely or whether it has dried up.

When all is said and done, the Vision of Safe Places will always be ...

envisioning a world without violence, a world where every child can experience safety, nurture, and opportunities that ensure a future filled with hope.

And our Mission is just as clear:

Safe Places affirms the right of every child to safety, protection, and well-being at home, at school, and in our neighborhoods. To that end, we work in the community to help children and their families break cycles of violence and abuse through counseling, advocacy, support, and education.

Just my thoughts for these glorious days of stimulus,

Kathy at Safe Places SafeBlog

2009-03-02T12:01:00.001-06:00

Barry Nolan Report on Jennifer Collins

2009-02-28T12:49:00.011-06:00

Here's another perspective on the story of Jennifer Collins. Safe Places thanks you for reading this and making yourself knowledgeable about the injustices faced by battered women and their children. Again, we ask that you remember our client who is in a similar circumstance.

This Is Really Hard to Believe

By Barry Nolan
January 11, 2009

This is really hard to believe. I am sitting in a room filled with women who were beaten, and violated in terrible ways. The room is not in Bosnia, or some far flung third-world hell-hole. I am in a function room in a hotel in Albany at the Battered Mothers Custody Conference.

Many of the women around me are sobbing now, as a child tells her story. “My father beat me” she begins. Well, she is not a child now actually, but she is a child to me. She is a poised, attractive young woman named Jennifer Collins who is a survivor of child abuse and of a Child and Family Court System that betrayed her and her brother, just as it betrays children across this country every day when it orders children to live full time with an abusive parent.

I know you do not believe me. And that makes me realize that this is the experience that these women who surround me have all had. No one believes them. No one believes this can happen. But it does. Sometimes this happens despite voluminous evidence, eyewitnesses and medical records that the child has been beaten, even raped and sodomized by a parent seeking custody. Sometimes the courts do this even if the parent seeking custody has been convicted of, or admitted to domestic violence or sexual assault. I know you don’t believe me. But you would believe Jennifer if you were here.

It is a strange world in Child and Family court. For instance, even as much energy in the wider world goes into efforts to make certain that sex offenders have no access to children, that they can’t live near a school and walk near a playground, in this odd little corner of our judicial system, courts routinely order children to “reunite” with a sexual predator parent who hurt them. All in the name of family re-unification.

I know this sounds impossible. It is against all common sense. This is America after all. But come sit here with me, and listen to this woman/child tell her story. She has “aged out” of the system and is no longer under the thumb of a court that tells her she must be silent. There is a whole group of courageous kids like Jennifer who are old enough now to tell their story to you, face to face. Jennifer’s story is a pip. And it is pretty typical.

Jennifer tells us about her mother Holly and her dad. He was a batterer who beat Holly. And he beat the children. Jennifer moves her story along quickly to the day when her older brother, then about 4, tried to intervene as dad was beating mom. Dad threw the son against the wall and fractured his skull. There is much more. But I will move the story along quickly to what happens when Holly finally decided to leave this man who beat her and the children. She fled that terrible house, only to find herself in a house of mirrors, the Child and Family Court system.

It is almost as if none of the people who run the Child and Family Court system ever read about or learned a single thing from sad saga of the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandal. It’s like they never heard about how victims of physical or sexual abuse are often silenced by their own sense of shame. How their terrible stories can sometimes finally come pouring out in torrents. It may be years later, but it is no less true. This is not theory. This is fact. We have all watched these sad dramas on the 6 O’clock news.

But, uniquely in Child and Family Court, if allegations of physical or sexual abuse are raised during a divorce where custody is an issue, the allegations are used, not against the perpetrator, but against the victim. There is this invented thing, a bit of junk science called “Parental Alienation Syndrome”. It basically says that any time a woman raises the issue of physical or sexual abuse, of herself or the children in the midst of a custody dispute, she is just trying to make the man look bad and make the children hate him. She must be lying.

Look, I am not a fool. I know people lie. I know some women lie. I know people say awful things about each other in divorces. I have watched Jerry Springer just like you. But I have also watched “To Catch a Predator” and I know “respectable” people can do horrible things. So, do a thought experiment here. Pretend you are a woman who had finally left an abusive relationship, taking your children with you. If your controlling soon-to-be ex-husband sought to get full custody of the children as one last slap at you, what would you say? OK? Sure, that sounds fair? Fat chance.

The thing a real court would do when this happened is to consider all the evidence, and talk to all the witnesses. Witnesses like the children. They were after all, there when “it” happened. This is what a court would do if a stranger were accused of beating them. Or raping them. But this is not what the Child and Family Court system does.

Jennifer, the survivor, tells us of the day the representative of the court came to take her away from her mother and take her to live at her dad’s. How she clung desperately to her mother’s leg, until they pried her fingers loose, lifted her up, carried her away, and compelled her to live with the man who would beat her.

Jennifer tells us how her mother, desperate beyond all measure, kidnapped the children, spirited them away to the Netherlands, where they became the first Americans to be granted asylum. How she lived in a refugee camp, with refugees from Somalia and Sierra Leone, people who had to learn how to use toilets and forks. How this was better than “home”. This was a step up. She was with her mom.

Jennifer lived in exile for 14 years. She finally aged out. The court has no jurisdiction now. And so Jennifer had the freedom to come home to America, to this room where I sit, surrounded by women who are now weeping with joy and cheering for Jennifer’s mom for being so brave and for Jennifer for telling her story to this room full of people who know her story is true. Because the same thing happened to them. So they believe her.

I believe her, too.

And so do we.

Kathy Findley at Safe Places SafeBlog

A Story of Injustice - A Tribute to Courage

2009-02-27T00:23:00.016-06:00

I am using my Blog today as a tribute to one of our clients. I will not include her name because of a pending legal process that we believe will eventually result in justice for her and her children.

A Tribute

I believe I can speak for the entire staff of Safe Places in offering this tribute to our client - a courageous woman who refuses to give up on her children and their safety.

We pay tribute to a courageous mom who loves her children, and who has persevered in the face of injustice to protect them.

We pay tribute to her children, languishing in the custody of their father, and pray every day for their physical safety and emotional well-being.

We gratefully acknowledge the national advocacy organization that is joining with us to bring justice to this family and restore the children to the custody of their mother.

We will not give up; we will not shrink from the truth; we will not lose heart; we will not stop until this injustice stops!

Now, Jennifer Collins speaks through Safe Places SafeBlog. She is a young woman who is using her voice to tell the story of her family as she describes what she calls "Court Appointed Child Abuse."

Jennifer Collins will share a story that I could not have believed before our own client experienced a similar injustice. Sadly, Jennifer's story is not all that uncommon these days.

This is the story of Jennifer Collins from the following Blog site: http://www.americanchildrenunderground.blogspot.com/

Jennifer's Story

My name is Jennifer Collins. I am a 23 year old American and a university student living in exile in the Netherlands.

My brother (Zachary who is two years older) and I were severely abused by our father when we were children. My father also beat our mother (who was only 22 years old at the time) but she stayed with him because she was terrified. Our father, Mark Collins was extremely violent and he vowed that if our mother ever left him, he would murder us all. This young woman didn’t know what else to do and she tried her best to protect her family. So many times our mom stepped in front of us and took severe beatings which were intended for her children. When my father fractured my brother’s skull by repeatedly slamming him into a wall, child protection became involved and threatened to charge our mother with “failure to protect” if she didn’t take us and leave our father. When we finally left, the child abuse case was transferred from juvenile court to family court. We were granted an ‘Order for Protection’ but we were forced (by the family court) to go alone on visitations with our father. (Child Protection claimed that they no longer had jurisdiction in our case.) Our father regularly beat up our mom in front of us during the exchanges and he continued to abuse us during his visitations.

We told our Mom that our father was still hurting us and she believed us. We would show our mother the bruises when we returned from our fathers and we would beg her not to send us again. She pleaded with the court to protect us but they refused. When my father appeared at our home to pick us up I would cry so hard that I would throw up. Many times my mother would also cry and sometimes she couldn’t bear to make us go with him, but then my father would call the police. The policemen would enter our home and search for us. My brother and I would hide in the closets or under our beds. It was terrifying. The police would pull us out from underneath our beds and hand us over to this man who was beating us as we were kicking, screaming and begging for help.

My father filed for a custody reversal based on Parental Alienation Syndrome and used the police reports as evidence that our mother was interfering in his relationship with his children. Even though the judge found that our father was abusive, in the very same order he issued a reversal of custody, citing that our mother was too traumatized from the abuse to care for us. I was 7 years old when a court officer arrived with my father and pried my fingers loose from my mothers dress. I was fighting with everything I had. Witness heard me screaming “Mommy, Help Me Mommy! Please don’t make us go with him. He hurts me and he hurts my brother!” The court officer simply stated “I know” as he handed me to my father. I continued screaming “Mommy! Help Me! Mommy! I want my Mommy!” It was the worst day of my life!

We weren’t allowed to have any contact with our mom for what seemed and eternity. My father and his new wife told us that our mommy didn’t love us, that she was crazy and she didn’t want us anymore. Even though we knew it wasn’t true, it was devastating. When we were finally allowed to have very limited supervised visitation with our mom I showed my mom and the court supervisor the bruises on my back and said “He’s still hurting us.” The court supervisor scolded me, “You know you are not allowed to talk about those kinds of things anymore.” We started writing notes to our mother at our father’s house and we secretly slipped them into her pockets during the supervised visitations. We kept begging her to come rescue us.

On June 30 1994, I ran away with my 11 year old brother and we met our mother at a parking lot. We fled the United States and were granted asylum in Europe. We lived in secrecy for 12 years until we were publically found by the FBI in 2006. (The US authorities were aware of our location for 12 years, but kept our secret until it became public.) Fortunately I was already 18 and Zachary was 20 but the United States demanded my mother’s extradition from the Netherlands.

The Dutch Government requested an FBI investigation to answer the questions: Were we physically abused by our father? Were we telling the truth about the severity of the abuse? Did my mother exhaust all legal options to protect us? Did our mother reasonably believe that she was honestly protecting us from severe physical danger? The FBI concluded yes to all of the questions! Even though they were adamant that our mother broke the law and should be turned over to the American authorities to face criminal charges, the Dutch Government refused. We were protected under the Hague Convention and we were granted indefinite asylum in the Netherlands.

In November 2007, I started an email campaign and I have sent out over 1000 mails demanding justice for our mother. I also wanted to find a way to hold the responsible officials accountable for the (court appointed) child abuse we suffered as children. I wrote to every US Senator, all of the Minnesota State Representatives, and any organization I could think of.

Eventually all International and Federal kidnapping charges against our mother were dismissed. The ‘parental interference’ charges were dropped as well. My mother was instructed to apologize to the local judge for disobeying his order but she refused. In September 2008 my mother returned to the United States and (I think) she was bullied into plea bargaining to one count of ‘contempt of court.’

Our mother replied “I admit to being in contempt of a court which failed to protect my children.” She completed 40 hours of community service and has been officially released from probation. Our mother is a free woman! Now the same family court judge who failed to protect me and my older brother has issued another warrant for my mother’s arrest for not returning our younger 16 year old brother (from another relationship) to the United States. Despite the conflict of interest, and the fact that he is not presiding in family court, this biased judge refuses to recuse himself.

In the criminal plea bargain with the district attorney, they agreed that they would not bring any future criminal charges against our mother pertaining to our little brother. However the judge has issued a civil warrant demanding my mother to be held incarcerated for contempt of court for a minimal of 6 months. It doesn’t really hold any legal weight, but we are forced to remain in the Netherlands for 2 more years until my brother turns 18.

Surprisingly, I was invited to Washington D.C. and I have met with Congressman Steny H. Hoyer (Democratic Majority leader) and several of his colleagues. I have had numerous consultations with Marlene Kaufmann, General Counsel CSCE (Commission for the Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission.) I was a key speaker at various conferences around the United States and I have started my own organization, CA3 (Children Against Court Appointed Child Abuse.) I have attained all of the court documents in our case and over 10 boxes of all of the records have been shipped to Washington DC. for investigation and safe keeping. I am working with several leaders and organizations in Washington and nation wide to try to find a way to prevent this from happening to other children. I have had personal interviews with ABC/CBS, Inside Edition and even appeared on a live American Talk Show with Dr. Joyanna Silberg, and Geraldo Rivera opposing a ludicrous cover up of child abuse called PAS (parental alienation syndrome.)

My mother is a remarkably strong, incredible woman and an amazing, loving mother. . . It has been unsettling watching her being pulled back into her past of trying to prove that her children were telling the truth about being abused. We have been advised that her current fears are indicative of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder so I have decided to take over my own case. Now that I have reviewed the court documents, I am even more outraged. The supporting evidence is overwhelming! They knew our father was abusing us and they tried to cover it up. I was determined to find a way to find a way to hold court officers in our personal case accountable although it looks like that is not possible. Even though they have clearly broken the law, they have immunity and can not be held accountable. It is so unfair and I want justice!

I am determined to use our case as an example to initiate change in the family court system and demand protection for children.

Sincerely,
Jennifer Collins

http://www.americanchildrenunderground.blogspot.com/
http://ca3cacaca.blogspot.com/

More to come in the days to come. Until then, we will lift up hope so that our client can see it clearer, and stand beside her in the journey toward justice.

Enraged but hopeful,

Kathy Findley at Safe Places SafeBlog

Love Is Not Abuse!

2009-02-22T18:57:00.005-06:00

Just two days after the end of National Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Week, singer and teen “role model” Chris Brown was arrested for alleged domestic violence felony battery and then released on a $50,000 bond. Police reports reveal that Brown’s girlfriend, Rihanna, suffered contusions and bite marks in the alleged assault.

If you take time to check out some Facebook or MySpace profiles posted by Arkansas teens, you will likely find Chris Brown listed under “favorite music.” I wonder if the singer’s recent behavior will concern any of Brown’s young male and female fans to the extent that they would change their favorites list.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) 2007 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 14.1 percent of Arkansas high school students report being hit, slapped, or physically hurt on purpose by their boyfriend or girlfriend. That 14.1 percent represents the fifth highest percentage rate of teen dating violence in the nation.

For students who were physically forced to have sexual intercourse, Arkansas has the highest rate in the nation, 14 percent according to the same CDC study.

In 2007, Brown revealed in an interview with Giant magazine that his mother had been physically abused by his stepfather. "He used to hit my mom," Brown told the interviewer. "He made me terrified all the time, terrified like I had to pee on myself. I remember one night he made her nose bleed. I was crying and thinking, 'I'm just gonna go crazy on him one day.' ... I hate him to this day."

We cannot continue to gloss over the correlation between adult domestic violence and violence among young dating partners. We cannot continue to underestimate the lasting and devastating effect of intimate partner violence that is so obviously passed down from one generation to the next. Whether violence exists in an adult or a teen relationship, it reveals a great deal about gender inequality, unhealthy relationships, the abuse of power, the level of self-determination among young women, and a host of other significant issues.

Arkansas’ teen dating violence rates should alert us that teen dating violence is a serious public health concern that poses a significant threat to our children and youth. Arkansas teen dating violence statistics as indicated below indicate that rates of “hitting, slapping or purposeful physical harm” are continuing to increase.
1999 - 10.10%
2001 - 10%
2006 - 13.80%
2007 - 14.1%

(Data Source: 2007 CDC Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey)

A Note to Young People: You deserve to be treated with respect in your relationships. Listen and watch carefully for signs that a dating partner is abusing you. Some of the red flags are:

* Your dating partner is intensely jealous.

* Your partner sends you text messages or calls you constantly.

* Your partner tells you what to do, what you can wear, or where you can go.

* Your partner sneaks on you or monitors your calls or e-mails.

* Your partner frequently shows up unannounced.

* Your partner publicly embarrasses you.

* Your partner frequently accuses you of "cheating" or flirting.

* Your partner keeps you from doing things you enjoy or isolates you from friends and family.

* Your partner threatens to kill or harm him/herself if you break up.

A Stronger Voice for Justice

2009-02-09T18:36:00.006-06:00

Domestic Violence Legal Empowerment and Appeals Project (DVLEAP)

Despite the reforms of recent decades, battered women and children continue to face unfair treatment and troubling results in court. Appeals can overturn unjust trial court outcomes – but they require special expertise and are often prohibitively expensive.

DVLEAP empowers victims and their advocates by providing a stronger voice for justice by fighting to overturn unjust trial court outcomes, advancing legal protections for victims and their children through expert appellate advocacy, training lawyers, psychologists and judges on best practices, and spearheading domestic violence litigation in the Supreme Court.

Consider the following joint press release.

Parental Alienation Syndrome Misused to Defeat Valid Abuse Claims in Child Custody Cases

In response to the increased media attention surrounding the release of Alec Baldwin's book entitled, "A Promise to Ourselves," the National Network to End Domestic Violence, the Domestic Violence Legal Empowerment and Appeals Project, the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and StopFamilyViolence.org release the following:

(September 29, 2008) Washington, DC - The National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV), the Domestic Violence Legal Empowerment and Appeals Project (DV LEAP), Stop Family Violence, and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, four of the nation's leading domestic violence victim advocacy organizations, call on the media and the courts to rectify the misunderstanding and misuse of Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) in custody cases.

"Child custody cases are among the toughest cases courts have to handle. And in custody cases where domestic violence is involved, the judges have an even higher responsibility to ensure that the safety of family members is not dangerously impaired by misleading, and legally unjustifiable,'parental alienation syndrome' theories," said Sue Else, president of the National Network to End Domestic Violence.

"Parental Alienation Syndrome" is a claim that has been used to suggest that some parents try to undermine their children's relationship with the other parent, typically the noncustodial parent, by making false statements about that other parent, most often in the form of abuse allegations. In fact, actor Alec Baldwin made that claim about his own child custody case in a recent interview with Diane Sawyer. "PAS is being used by some abusers as a tactic to demonize parents' attempts to protect their children from abuse, denying victims of domestic violence justice in the courts. The fact that some parents behave badly in ordinary cases is no reason to ignore real abuse when it is presented to the court," also stated Else.

Joan Meier, DV LEAP's Executive Director, said "PAS was invented to defeat child abuse claims - and it has been remarkably successful in misleading family courts into believing that women who are sincerely trying to protect their children and themselves from abuse, are just seeking to end the children's relationship with their noncustodial father."

According to NNEDV, DV LEAP, SFV, and NCADV, victims of domestic violence face a surprisingly uphill battle in family court to win custody of and safety for their children. All too often, courts award custody and unsupervised visitation to parents found to have committed domestic abuse. Many courts handling custody cases do not understand the dynamics of domestic violence and fail to properly factor in the impact of abuse when considering the best interests of the child.

"The most important factor judges should be weighing in making custody decisions is the safety of the mother and children, and the introduction of PAS overshadows this critical need for safety," said Rita Smith, Executive Director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

Meier states that research has shown that children become "alienated" from a parent for a variety of valid reasons, most often resulting from the parent's own negative behavior and relationship with that child.

"The proponents of 'parental alienation syndrome' are purveying invalid junk science is not even legally admissible. PAS has been emphatically rejected by the Presidential Task Force of the American Psychological Association and by the National Council of Juvenile & Family Court Judges. Leading researchers in the field of custody have agreed that PAS has no scientific validity and the only courts to address the issue have found it inadmissible," said Meier.

"With the increased media attention surrounding the release of Alec Baldwin's book, it is important to let the public know that victims of domestic violence are being silenced through the use of 'parental alienation syndrome.' We cannot afford to consign thousands of children to unsafe custody or visitation with abusive parents because family courts have come to believe that abuse allegations mean nothing more than a campaign of alienation," said Else.

To learn more about DV LEAP's programs, please click here.

And Justice for Some?

2009-02-07T17:46:00.005-06:00

That's the title of Wendy Murphy's book - And Justice for Some.

The book is an expose of the attorneys and judges who let criminals go free. That's my world - a world where criminals go free more often than not. Or so it seems.

I see it from the other side, the victim's side. As a victim advocate, I have the opportunity to see (up close and personal) that the rights of victims are often not protected.

These words are on the dedication page of Wendy Murphy's book:

"To all the victims, win or lose, who fought for justice.

And to the silent ones who didn't even try because they had no faith."

Profound words, especially for those who advocate for victims of violence everyday.

May it NEVER be said of us that we were "the silent ones who didn't even try because we had no faith."

Just my thoughts,

Kathy Manis Findley at Safe Places SafeBlog

Just Some Late Night Thoughts

2009-02-05T01:15:00.006-06:00

Today someone told me that she did not feel valued. I have thought about that for several hours and what keeps coming to mind is how very sad it is when one does not feel valued. There is no magic bullet to fix it. Even if it is an irrational feeling, a person feels it none the less. Words cannot change it. Promises cannot change it. Plans to change things cannot change it. Even changing things cannot change it.

I cannot help but think of the millions of people all over the earth who don't feel valued. And the most tragic thing of all is this - for so many of them it is not just a feeling.

For so many folk, feeling unvalued is not a feeling at all, it is their reality.

They feel unvalued because they are unvalued.

Just my thoughts,

Kathy at Safe Places SafeBlog

2009-01-31T18:58:00.016-06:00

The Education and Technical Assistance Grants to

Meet my brother, Andrew. You may have read about him in my previous post. What you may not know about him is that he has created quite a stir after an article he wrote a while back about the "race factor" in the election of President Barack Obama. Blog readers who read Safe Places SafeBlog expect to hear about violence. So it seems appropriate to me that you should read about nonviolence here as well. That's where little brother comes in. You see, he has spent the better part of his life writing about the civil rights movement and the heroes of nonviolence in this country. Here's what The Cotton Field Chronicle had to say about his article:

This article, which I understand was written on December 12, 2008, by a History Professor from Macon, GA has mushroomed all over the internet, on blogs, on newspaper websites, and everywhere. It was published in The People's Voice Weekly News, a black weekly out of Alabama, and I have reproduced it here. It is one of the most profound articles I have ever witnessed written by a southern white man, and I am sure that it resonates with most who will read it....

(From The Cotton Field Chronicle http://www.cottonfieldchronicle.com/archives/2009/01/dr-andrew-manis-when-are-we-going-to-get-over-it.html)

I decided that since major publications all over the place have decided to reprint my brother's article for their readers, then I can re-print it as well. After all, he is my brother, and this is my blog. So here's what he wrote that has caused all manner of public comment from sea to shining sea!

When Are We Going to Get Over It?
By Dr. Andrew M. Manis

For much of the last 40 years, ever since America "fixed" its race problem in the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, we white people have been impatient with African-Americans who continued to blame race for their difficulties. Often we have heard whites ask, "When are African-Americans finally going to get over it?" Now I want to ask "When are we white Americans going to get over our ridiculous obsession with skin color?"

Recent reports that "Election Spurs 'Hundreds' of Race Threats, Crimes" should frighten and infuriate every one of us. Having grown up in "Bombingham," Ala., in the 1960s, I remember overhearing an avalanche of comments about what many white classmates and their parents wanted to do to John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Eventually, as you may recall, in all three cases, someone decided to do more than "talk the talk." Since our recent presidential election, to our eternal shame, we are once again hearing the same reprehensible talk I remember from my boyhood.

We white people have controlled political life in the disunited colonies and United States for some 400 years on this continent. Conservative whites have been in power 28 of the last 40 years. Even during the eight Clinton years, conservatives in Congress blocked most of his agenda and pulled him to the right.

Yet never in that period did I read any headlines suggesting that anyone was calling for the assassinations of Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan or either of the Bushes. Criticize them, yes. Call for their impeachment, perhaps. But there were no bounties on their heads. And even when someone did try to kill Ronald Reagan, the perpetrator was a nonpolitical mental case who wanted merely to impress Jodie Foster.

But elect a liberal who happens to be black, and we're back in the '60s again. At this point in our history, we should be proud that we've proven what conservatives are always saying "” that in America anything is possible, electing a black man as president. But instead, we now hear schoolchildren from Maine to California are talking about wanting to "assassinate Obama."

Fighting the urge to throw up, I can only ask, "How long?" How long before we white people realize we can't make our nation, much less the whole world, look like us? How long until we white people can -- once and for all -- get over this hell-conceived preoccupation with skin color? How long until we white people get over the demonic conviction that white skin makes us superior? How long before we white people get over our bitter resentments about being demoted to the status of equality with nonwhites?

How long before we get over our expectations that we should be at the head of the line merely because of our white skin? How long until we white people end our silence and call out our peers when they share the latest racist jokes in the privacy of our white-only conversations? I believe in free speech, but how long until we white people start making racist loudmouths as socially uncomfortable as we do flag burners? How long until we white people will stop insisting that blacks exercise personal responsibility, build strong families, educate themselves enough to edit the Harvard Law Review, and work hard enough to become president of the United States, only to threaten to assassinate them when they do?

How long before we start "living out the true meaning" of our creeds, both civil and religious, that all men and women are created equal and that "red and yellow, black and white" all are precious in God's sight?

Until this past Nov. 4, I didn't believe this country would ever elect an African-American to the presidency. I still don't believe I'll live long enough to see us white people get over our racism problem. But here's my three-point plan during the Obama administration: First, every day that Barack Obama lives in the White House that Black Slaves Built, I'm going to pray that God (and the Secret Service) will protect him and his family from us white people.

Second, I'm going to report to the FBI anyone I overhear saying, in seriousness or in jest, anything of a threatening nature about President Obama. Third, I'm going to pray to live long enough to see America surprise the world once again, when white people can sing of our damnable color prejudice, "We HAVE overcome."

Andrew M. Manis is associate professor of history at Macon State College in Georgia. He is the author of A Fire You Can't Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham's Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and Macon Black and White. He serves on the steering committee of Macon's Center for Racial Understanding, and last but not least, he is my brother.

The Education and Technical Assistance Grants to

About Dreaming . . .

2009-01-31T18:03:00.004-06:00

I recently received an email from my younger brother in which he wrote, "After some 25 years of dreaming about it, I . . . have received a Fulbright Award for Spring ’09 and will be teaching and researching at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece."

What a dream come true for him, and for me. Of course, there is a big part of me that is terribly envious of the chance to actually live in the country of our heritage. But my better self is very proud of him and so happy he is seeing the realization of a dream.

Dreams, you know, are hard to realize by most folk. Dreaming a dream is easy - even healthy and life-affirming. But a dream actually becoming one's reality is something else altogether. I have dreamed so many dreams - most of them unrealized. One thing, though, that I have learned in my maturing years is that it is better to have dreamed and not realized your dream, than never to have dreamed at all!

So I am thrilled for my brother Andrew's dream.

He is going to teach various topics at the University, including race and religion in American presidential elections. He will, no doubt, also begin research on another book while there.

My brother and I are of Greek heritage, with relatives in Athens and elsewhere, so my brother's dream come true will undoubtedly result in some very important connecting with family he has never met.

In his email he also wrote, "It is not often that long-held dreams actually come true, but this time they have."

Needless to say, I am very glad that he has spent his life dreaming.

On that note, I am particularly proud of his study, research, writing and activism on the Civil Rights Movement in our country. I learned this week that he has been invited by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, to speak at the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site for the 52nd Anniversary of the 1957 desegregation events at the school.

So here's to dreaming! Maybe if I do it long enough, I will actually get to Greece myself during the time he is there.

If not, I'll see him when he comes to MY HOMETOWN in September to speak at the 52nd Anniversary of the desegregation of Central High.

Kathy Manis Findley at Safe Places SafeBlog

Connecting in 2009

2009-01-28T22:16:00.004-06:00

2009 seems to be a year of new connections . . . or renewed connections.

In the day to day routine called my life, there is far too much talk of hurt and harm. One cannot work with victims of violence and avoid the emotions that come from knowing too much and seeing too clearly into another person's life. Domestic violence, child abuse, human trafficking, sexual abuse . . . some days I would almost run away, as far away as I can get and as fast as I can run.

What keeps me engaged in the struggle is what I see in the faces of those who have been hurt and who are still hurting. How could anyone give up when so many people are devastated by violence and abuse?

There is the child's voice that keeps ringing in my head when he says, "You can't protect me. Nobody can protect me."

And then worst of all is realizing that he is right, that we did not protect him, and that we cannot seem to find any way to protect him.

So what does this all have to do with connecting?

I am not completely certain of the answer, but I do know that connecting is comforting. Finding those old friends I had inadvertently set aside seems like the thing to do. Watching for them, listening for them, looking for them seems important.

Perhaps it is the fact that violence - all kinds of violence - destroys connections. Perhaps I am discovering a way to respond to the destroyed connections caused by violence that I see in my work.

And just maybe connecting with someone I almost lost reminds me that kindness, fondness and esteem for another person is stronger than violence.

Just a few late night ramblings,

Kathy Findley at Safe Places SafeBlog

2009-01-14T10:34:00.017-06:00

Remembering the Struggle for Civil Rights: Thoughts From a Birmingham Child / a Little Rock Grown Person

With Little Rock Central High within shouting distance of our office, it seems appropriate to be pensive about our collective history. Those of us who actually were children through the Civil Rights movement in this country, especially those of us who lived in the South, have both shared and individual memories of those years. Where we lived determined what specific image marked our psyche. These were images that left permanent and indelible marks. My personal mark, and my earliest one, involved dogs, bombs and firehouses, and a governor standing in front of the door of the University of Alabama.

I was a Birmingham Child, so my image is of four little girls killed in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing - an indelible mark, to be sure, for a sensitive child. The sensitive child that I was during that time grew up to be a sensitive adult, and so I have adopted another image from my city of residence.

Once a Birmingham Child, I am now a Little Rock Grown Person. One cannot live in Little Rock for almost 30 years, raising a child who was a student of Central High School, and not be marked by these names and the images their lives evoke:

Thelma Mothershed-Wair, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Jefferson Thomas, Dr. Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls Lanier, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Melba Pattillo Beals, and Minnijean Brown Trickey - The Little Rock Nine.

Between today and January 19-20 would be a good time take in a new image, and a beautiful one at that. One can do so by visiting Little Rock, where a magnificent sculpture of The Little Rock Nine reminds us how the nine children might have looked on their way into Central High. The memorial is located on the Arkansas State Capitol grounds on the north end of the building off Third Street - ironically, outside the office window of former Governor Faubus who tried to stop the students.

Every time I see these life-size cast bronze statues, I am deeply moved and grateful that I am a student of my history - all of my history, bad or good. When you stand among these statues - designed and sculpted by Little Rock artist John Deering, assisted by his artist wife Kathy - the experience will no doubt leave an imprint on you. I plan to visit the bronze Little Rock Nine this week to make a memory for myself, to mark a time in history for me. I plan to go because I want to remember that one day after we celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. this year, we will inaugurate Barack Obama as our President.

In case you can't join me on the grassy site where the statues stand, I share a photo by Gary Crallé posted on his blog (http://garyodyssey.blogspot.com/2007_09_23_archive.htm l).

Here's how Mr. Crallé described the experience of capturing this photo of Elizabeth Eckford:

I asked her to rest for a few minutes by leaning against the statue, saying she must be tired. “I was tired a long time ago”, she murmured. For a brief moment, Elizabeth’s thoughts were somewhere else. I clicked the shutter. She is a strong lady, and her fight continues as she now seeks to protect her son from discrimination.

Why all of this musing on civil rights?

Lots of reasons, I suppose, but for Safe Places SafeBlog it's mostly about what violence has done to us throughout our history. And it's also about the faces of violence we still see every single day . . . the face of inequality, prejudice, racism, hate, unequal power, the face of one person abusively controlling another.

Let's not do it anymore.

Just my thoughts for this moment in history - more later.

Kathy Findley at Safe Places SafeBlog

Meet an Everyday Hero: Polly Franks

2009-01-10T16:30:00.002-06:00

Polly Franks has lived through every parent's worst nightmare. On a cold October night in 1995, she learned that her two daughters (ages 8 and 9) had been attacked by a trusted neighbor and family friend. This "friend" turned out to be a convicted serial predator from the state of Texas; a man who years earlier had become known as San Antonio's "Ski Mask Rapist." By his own defense attorney's admission, this predator had committed over 200 sexual assaults on women and little girls. However, instead of going to prison, he was placed on probation and ordered to undergo "treatment" in the form of "chemical castration" at Johns-Hopkins University Hospital. Instead of prison, this predator was released back into society and allowed to monitor himself. Instead of punishment, he was allowed to move into Polly's neighborhood, one block from an elementary school. Upon being allowed to move into her community in Richmond, Virginia, this predator quickly became known to police as the "Bandanna Bandit," and was linked to at least 86 more innocent victims (mostly children) in the Richmond area. Following the attack on her children, this predator was yet again given probation and released back into society, left to monitor himself. Enraged with the lack of justice in her children's case, Polly decided to do something about it. Despite being born with a severe physical disability, Polly became a licensed private investigator for the sole purpose of bringing this animal to justice.

This child predator is now in prison for life without parole.

From The Franks Foundation website: www.franksfoundation.org

Sad Words for Victims of Spousal Abuse

2009-01-09T18:46:00.000-06:00

Good evening, all:

Today I came across a published article written by an old friend of mine, Bob Allen of Associated Baptist Press. The article was about Pastor Rick Warren and the Saddleback Church. The following are excerpts from Allen's article:

LAKE FOREST , Calif. (ABP) -- Rick Warren, the Southern Baptist megachurch pastor chosen to offer the invocation at President-elect Barack Obama's Jan. 20 inauguration, says the Bible does not permit a woman to divorce a spouse who is abusing her. In audio clips on his Saddleback Church website, the Purpose Driven Life author says the Bible condones divorce for only two reasons -- adultery and abandonment. "I wish there were a third in Scripture, having been involved as a pastor with situations of abuse," Warren said. "There is something in me that wishes there were a Bible verse that says, 'If they abuse you in this-and-such kind of way, then you have a right to leave them." Warren said his church's counseling ministry advises separation and counseling instead of divorce in abusive marriages, because it's the only path toward healing. "There's an abusive cycle that's been set up," he said. "Separation combined with counseling has been proven to provide healing in people's lives. So we recommend very strongly separation."

He defined what he meant by physical abuse. "When I say physical abuse, I mean literally somebody is beating you regularly," he said. "I don't mean they grab you once. I mean they've made a habit of beating you regularly. You need to separate in that situation, because that's the only thing that's going to solve that."

Obama's invitation to Warren has been criticized from the left because of his opposition to gay marriage and from the right for giving the president-elect credibility with religious conservatives. But recently his views on domestic violence caught the attention of Because It Matters, a blog by a lifelong Baptist and abuse survivor who uses the pseudonym Danni Moss. Moss said Warren 's commentary "expresses a distinct lack of understanding about the nature, heart and spiritual roots of abuse."

A women's rights blog called The New Agenda called Warren's views "alarming," especially in light of recent statistics showing a 42 percent rise in reports of domestic violence from 2005 to 2007. "Warren 's views give abusive spouses one more tool to control their victims: the Bible," the blog said. The New Agenda said Warren 's teaching "undermines the resolve of women who are debating ending an abusive marriage" and "omits mention of contacting the police, seeking medical attention or obtaining legal assistance to secure orders of protection for yourself and your children."

Being an ordained Baptist minister, as well as a long-time victim advocate, I am experiencing this Warren/Saddleback Theology with dual lenses. I know what it is like to be a student of the Bible and the pastor of a church. I served as a pastor for more than eleven years in two different churches.

I also know what it's like to be a trauma counselor and a victim advocate. I know all too well what it feels like to sit day after day in a "crying room" at Safe Places listening to horrific stories of physical, sexual, verbal, emotional, and even spiritual abuse committed against a woman by the spouse she trusted and loved. So these sad words on the Saddleback website bring up so many personal emotions for me - grief, betrayal, loss, hopelessness, fear, captivity . . . and the list goes on. My primary emotions, though, are two:

One: Deep disappointment in a faith community that does not have any understanding about how to minister to victims of domestic violence OR to the children in these homes whose lives are being forever scarred;

Two: Extreme rage because a minister and a faith community can be so Theologically and Biblically ignorant.

Thanks to Bob Allen for bringing this to our attention. Bob always writes fairly and factually, regardless of his personal opinions. I end with this . . .

May our God forgive us all when we bring our personal biases to our Bible reading, when we fail to care for victims of violence and abuse with compassion and good sense, and when we fail to understand how important it is to hold perpetrators accountable for their evil acts and sinfulness.

Just my thoughts,

Kathy at Safe Places SafeBlog

Note: I would direct you to the writing of The Reverend Al Miles and his book:
Domestic Violence: What Every Pastor Needs to Know
Copyright 2000 Augsburg Fortress
Book Available at Amazon