JBWS Interview

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Great, that is a philanthropic project, who are donating 100 percent of our profit to the most effective closer’s, like protecting the rainforest and funding climate change technology. And if you want to help our cost and please subscribe to this channel, the topic of today’s domestic violence. How do we support people who have lived through abuse and close relationships? To understand more about that, we have invited Diane Williams. Wow. Sorry, I lost my brother. How would you spell your name? How would you say your name?

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Dan Williams.

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Dan Williams. Williams. That’s great. Sadoun Williams, who’s the CEO and president of J. B w. S, which is a nonprofit agency who supports and creates solutions for people, have gone through domestic violence. I want to say welcome to Diane.

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Thank you so much for having me here today and really putting a spotlight on this issue. It’s not just important to me, but really important to so many people. And if it’s not important to you, it should be in by the end of the interview today, you’ll understand why.

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Then help us understand, I guess one one way to start is how common this kind of research says that abuse and relationship is. How common is it?

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Sure. So certainly domestic violence is an epidemic around the world. But if you look at what the CDC estimates, it’s that one in four women, one in seven men and one in three teenagers will actually be victims of violence on the earth, interpersonal relationships in their lifetime. And those statistics are staggering.

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You’re saying basically. Five in our school class, if you’re a mom, almost 10 Alti, 10 in our school class of teenagers are similar to women. So everybody would know someone or you’ve been through this yourself.

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Absolutely. I mean, even if you think about your own family and the make up of your own family, how many people are in your family? And statistically, think about how many people are then impacted by that. And if one of the things I can get across today I want someone to walk away with is that domestic violence is absolutely around you. If it’s not you, it’s a friend. It’s a loved one. And victims of domestic violence, people have this vision of what they look like and victims of domestic violence. They look like me. They look like you. It cuts across all nationalities, ethnicities, socioeconomic lines, religions, races. It’s an issue for all of us. And so that’s why we really need to pay attention to it, because we can do something about it. We are doing something about it.

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How would you know what it looks like when people are in that position, could you describe the situation, what domestic violence looks like?

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Sure. So domestic violence is really a pattern of behaviors that is used to either maintain control or initiate control over someone else. And when people think about the issue of domestic violence so many times they think about physical violence. They think about hitting and and pushing, kicking and strangulation, which is really one of the most concerning and lethal forms of physical abuse. But it’s so many other forms of abuse. It’s economic abuse where someone is controlling your ability to have access to resources. They’re monitoring how you’re using finances, they’re giving you an allowance or just monitoring your use of a credit card or only giving you so much, giving you so much of a tank of gas so that you would only be able to go short distances to everything, to emotional abuse where they are blaming you for things or criticizing you of verbal abuse, where they’re calling you names or giving you put downs to really one of the biggest forms and most common forms is isolation and one of the most concerning forms of abuse, because it’s almost subtle, that sort of isolation that happens where you start to get disconnected as a victim from your friends and your family members. And it’s so covert that you don’t even realize that it’s happening and all of the sudden that you’re there. So it takes on so many different forms. It’s about intimidation. It’s about someone being monitored on a consistent basis, someone monitoring your social media, all types of communication, who you’re emailing your telephone consistently going through your telephone. We’ve also had people who use abuse track their victims so that they’re either tracking them through their phone or they’re tracking them in their car, following them. So domestic violence looks so very different in many situations.

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Yeah, I can hear that when you explain it this way, there’s not just physical, emotional and mental abuse and the controlling kind of abuse, which I guess is the pattern for all of this. So how would you know if you’re actually living in those conditions? How would you know that? OK, I’m being a victim of abuse right now.

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Yeah. So if any of those sorts of things are present, you know, a lot of those behaviors that I just talked about, those things are really red flags. You start to analyze your own relationship and typically there is a sacrifice of one person over another. And if you think about it, you’re being monitored or you’re being limited. You’re not feeling good, you know, when you are walking on eggshells because you’re afraid of what your partner’s response is going to be to a

situation that you need to really check in with someone in a safe way. So there are so many resources that are out there. There’s national resources that are out there. There is a national hotline that’s called the hotline dog where you can go on. And if you don’t want to talk on the phone because somebody is going to overhear you, there’s the

ability to chat and that is a national resource. And when you talk to them, they can get you connected to one of your local resources. So we have a twenty four seven helpline that is really designed to provide support and resources to those that might be experiencing domestic violence, but also to people who might be concerned that one of their loved ones, their friends, their family members, their neighbors might be in a domestic violence relationship. What can they do about it? So make sure that you are aware of what the resources are both for yourself and for someone else.

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So if I would be living in a relationship today and there are things that I’m afraid to express to my partner, that could be a sign that it would be maybe helpful to connect to one of those help centers, you say we can call someone and just, uh, get someone to talk to.

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For sure, there are so many resources, the Internet is an amazing thing where it can give you that advice, but you need to be really careful because if you’re being monitored, one of the things that could be monitored is the types of websites that you’re on or the types of information that you’re looking up. So if you have any way to look up that information safely, do so. If you can utilize a friend or someone that works on a computer or laptop or electronic device so that you can look up that information, look it up through their website, you never know what is being monitored. And technology abuse is also another form of domestic violence. And so one of the things is you can reach out and

it’s not just to reach out if you want to leave your relationship, it’s to reach out. If you think you’re in an unhealthy relationship and you want to get help in figuring out what you need to do about that. And we have people that are all along the spectrum of being in an unhealthy relationship and will provide support and resources for anyone that calls. And that is with the national hotline as well. You won’t be turned away. Don’t think that you have a silly question or a stupid question. Just be safe. Safety is number one.

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And that helps us to understand a little bit of how Jabe, the US kind of fits into the puzzle, can you help us explain more? What is it that you guys are doing? Sure.

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So JBWere US is actually one of the larger domestic violence organizations in New Jersey, and that’s in regard to the amount of services that we provide and the amount of staff that we have. And the way that we approach the issue

is really three fold, because when we talk about GBW, we have this tag line and it’s called Safety Support and Solutions for Abuse. And when we talk about safety, we’re really talking about immediate safety for someone who is in an unsafe relationship. So we have a shelter where we will provide up to 60 days, which is completely flexible for safe housing for a victim and their children. And we also have something called transitional housing, where a survivor and their children can stay for up to two years to really get themselves back on their feet financially, economically, emotionally. And these are all safe housing options where they’re in a confidential location and they do not have to pay any sort of funds to be able to reside there outside of when they start to transition out in the community. And we also have something which is called our crisis response team. So our crisis response team is actually made up of volunteers so that every time in our county, when there is a call that goes into a police station, we have a volunteer that gets dispatched to go out and talk to that victim, to talk about safety, to talk about resources, to talk about options.

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And so just last year, we had over six hundred and fifty callouts to police stations. And just last year we had over five thousand phone calls that came in to our helpline where we talked to them about what their resources are. And that’s really the safety aspect of the services that we provide. We also provide support and that really speaks to our counseling options primarily. So we provide counseling for adult survivors. We provide counseling for children that are witness to domestic violence. We also provide counseling for the perpetrators of the violence because we recognize if we are not addressing those that are using abuse in the relationships and get that to stop, it is going to be an issue that kind of perpetuates itself. And then the other aspect of the support that we provide is something called a family justice center. The Family Justice Center is an evidence base nationwide model that is recognized as being a community’s response to domestic violence. And it is almost like this one stop shop where victims for the first time in our county can walk in off of the street. It’s our first nonconfidential location where they can just walk in and say, I need help. And right there on the spot, they’ll have access to 10 to 15 resources. So they don’t have to go from place to place to get the support that they need.

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Everything from housing to social services to sexual assault counseling, domestic violence counseling. They have access to the prosecutor’s office, the sheriff’s department. They can file a temporary restraining order right on location there without ever having to enter the courthouse, which can be really a challenge when you have some children in tow with you as well. And so really, those are some of the solutions, some of the supports that we provide. And then the other aspect of what we do is called the solutions, safety, support and solutions. And that’s really a lot of the preventative work that we do. So last year in our county, we provided education to over nine thousand students in our school districts, high schools, middle schools and universities to talk about teen dating abuse, teen dating abuse prevention, what a healthy relationship looks like, and to let them know that there are resources out there if they themselves or one of their friends is in an unhealthy relationship. And the other piece of that is just community education in general, which is a huge part of our mission, is to get the issue of domestic violence out there as part of the conversation because it’s impacting all of us. So I will go out and I will speak in front of any sort of group that will listen to me, houses of worship, rotary groups, pitas, book clubs, you name it.

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And I’ve probably stood in front of it and talked about what the issue of domestic violence is so that people recognize how prevalent it is in our community, so that they know what the resources are. If they have someone or come across someone that might have a concern or an issue with this and then they know what to do about it. So in addition to that, we work very closely with a lot of the corporations because we will do lunch and learn. We will go out and we will talk to them about what it looks like if their colleague is at work, because there are huge issues with the impact economically with domestic violence in the workforce. So we have this reciprocal relationship where those corporations support us in the work that we do. And we go out and we support their employees and we talk to them about what the issue of domestic violence is in the workplace. And then we will go out and we will also provide professional counseling to professional counselors and social workers, to medical professionals, to first responders. We will do this sort of training so that if they come across domestic violence, a victim in their work and their day to day, they’ll be able to recognize what those signs are and then be able to provide services, resources and support that can help them be safe.

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So let me summarize what I heard. I heard three main categories of kind of support that you’re providing safety, which is the immediate safety, bring these people into safe houses, places where they get that immediate support. We have the support, which is counseling and. The conversation, I’m guessing, with ongoing conversations and directions, guidance and then the last one you talked about is solutions and you’re going into education is very needed in this.

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Uh uh. Could you talk about some kind of signs for a healthy relationship? Could you tell us some signs so that you actually know that you’re in a healthy relationship? Well, what would that look like?

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Absolutely. So if you feel like you can have a conversation with your partner and not be unsafe in any way, whether

it’s emotionally unsafe, physically unsafe, you’re not afraid to bring up sometimes hard to discuss topics. And when I say afraid, I don’t mean sometimes people get a little nervous when they think they’re going to tell their partner something that they didn’t like. You know, it’s not like, oh, my goodness, I just spent three hundred dollars on a TV and I know that my partner is not going to like it. It’s really about that actual safety. So if you have a balance in your life, a balance of someone not trying to isolate you from friends and family members, that you have the ability to make choices on your own without having to get the approval of someone else before you do that in your relationship. If there is that level of trust and it goes across and it’s reciprocal, those are all signs of a very healthy relationship. There’s so much information out there. I would certainly advise people if they’re interested in understanding what healthy relationships look like, that they can certainly do that, go out and access resources. If you look up domestic violence and what a healthy and an unhealthy relationship looks like, all of that information is right at our fingertips these days. So make good use of that. And if your parents and you want to know what I should be looking for, how do I guide my child in regard to healthy relationships? Certainly information is out there about what a healthy teen dating relationship looks like. But I also want you to remember that kids really get the cues about what a healthy relationship looks like at home. So if there is a lot of conflict that’s happening in the house, if people are not managing anger or emotions in a safe way, in a way that is not sacrificing someone else, you need to understand that no matter what you say to your children, the biggest impact on them is the way that you model those behaviors.

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So learning myself would be the best thing for my child like us.

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Absolutely learn and be a model, right? It’s not just what you say, it’s what you do and reinforce on a daily basis. And that becomes ingrained in your child. What does a healthy relationship look like? What does a marriage look like? What does the relationship look like between two people that love each other? And they’re really going to be seeing that firsthand with what they witness.

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Thank you for helping clarify also that part of it, the healthy relationship side.

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It’s very interesting to just look at the differences, to see do I recognize myself? And I know these were going to the Herald in India and I would like you to get the chance to also share. Do you see what do you see the need is right now in this area for helping prevent or actually ending, if that’s even possible. What do you want people to do after listening to this interview or what kind of support do you guys need in those calls?

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Sure. So you really come at it from all directions like the art organization has looked at? If we’re just providing those immediate safe options and we’re not providing counseling so that people recognize and process the traumatic event that they’ve been through. Also understand what a healthy relationship looks like from the viewpoint of a perpetrator of violence as well as a victim so that they can understand how they need to either change their behavior or what their expectations are in a relationship to the solutions aspect of it, of really getting out there. And what people could do is make this part of their conversation. They can look up their local domestic violence organizations information. You can look up g w w w w w w asphaug. That’s our website. And get connected to our social media pages and like and share. Right. If you like and share. There’s so much educational material that we put out there that what you share could actually save somebody’s life. And that’s extremely powerful. If you’re able to participate in any of our fundraising events, that’s obviously always great because that just ensures and sustains our solutions for the future. But it’s also just a way to create that sort of awareness. Start conversations, start conversations in your household and start conversations with your partner, with your friends, because domestic violence grows in isolation. So the less isolation we have, the less shame that victims will feel and their inability to sometimes break out of that relationship.

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Hmm.

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If you would like to end this interview by sharing, what would you like for more people to really understand anything that you think that we missed or talked about today or something that you want to empathize?

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Sure, and the one thing that I really wanted to to highlight is the fact that domestic violence almost seems like this underground issue, because if you’re not working in the field of domestic violence, you may not know how prevalent this issue is in your community because of the confidentiality around so many of the services that sometimes it doesn’t seem like it’s an issue. It’s an issue. It’s an issue in your community. So just understand that what a domestic violence victim looks like is like me, it looks like spirit, and it looks like you who is listening there. And so educate yourself about what the resources are, because if you don’t need the resources, someone you know and love does. And so keep your eyes open for what the red flags are being nonjudgmental people. If

someone approaches you with this issue, especially if they’re not ready to leave, not everyone’s ready to leave the relationship that they’re in. But if you provide that nonjudgmental ear and resource for them, that is going to go so far along with providing that sort of support that they need that at some point if they decide to leave their relationship, they know that they can count on you for support.

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Diane, thank you very much for taking time to clarify and just to show your expertise in this field to help us to put words on things that I guess many people would be affected upon.

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Thank you so much, Spirit, for putting a spotlight on the issue of domestic violence, and I appreciate how many people are going to be impacted just by you doing what you’re doing today. So thank you so much for what you do.

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