Blog Archives

"It still takes tons of courage"

12/13/2013

Note: This blog was originally posted on the Stop Abuse Campaign blog. For the full post, please go to the following page: http://stopabusecampaign.com/uncategorized/policing-the-police.

Real quotes from real survivors

“… In 10 years I called twice. My first call I had a bloodied lip and their response was if he wasn’t there then they could do nothing. My second call was when he yanked me down by my hair with my newborn daughter in my arms. I was told since I had no visible injuries they couldn’t make him leave.”

~`~`~

“I called 911. One of the two police officers responding stated ‘It’s his house … he can punch a hole in the door if he wants to,’” as well as “They didn’t think it was rape, because he didn’t hold me down or anything.

~`~`~

“The police didn’t enforce my protective order. [They] told me they had to witness my ex in the act of violating it…”

~`~`~

“You need to stop provoking him.”

~`~`~

“I was also asked to go on a date by one of the officers involved at the time.”

~`~`~

These are real quotes from real survivors of intimate partner violence. Unfortunately, these are responses from law enforcement officers when survivors reached out for help.

One of our goals is to eradicate the stigma that still surrounds intimate partner violence – this includes educating and raising awareness about some of the injustices survivors face everywhere. The last thing that a survivor needs after calling 9-1-1 for help is to be met with these types of responses.

For more, please visit the Stop Abuse Campaign blog: http://stopabusecampaign.com/uncategorized/policing-the-police.

It's a Journey, and Sometimes You Have to Take it a Second at a Time

12/12/2013

By Christine Murray, See the Triumph Co-Founder

This December, most of the quotes we're featuring from participants in our studies focus on the theme of the journey. The theme that overcoming an abusive relationship is a long and unpredictable journey is one we heard frequently from the survivors in our studies.

I've thought about this idea of the journey often, and it especially came to mind recently when the flurry of news stories came out about recent studies on the long-term health impact of domestic violence for survivors. These studies are very important, as they can help healthcare providers more accurately diagnose and treat health concerns. Likewise, they can empower survivors to seek treatment to address the physical and mental health consequences of the abuse they experienced.

At the same time, however, I think it's important that these findings are communicated in a way that doesn't increase the stigma that survivors of abuse already face. We know that many survivors of intimate partner violence face a myriad of challenges as they rebuild their lives and heal from the trauma of abuse. In addition to the physical health consequences, these may include post-traumatic stress and other mental health symptoms, safety risks, and economic and career challenges.

For a survivor--especially one who is considering leaving an abusive relationship or making some other big transition to move toward safety and positive, healthy relationships--these challenges can appear insurmountable.

That’s why the notion of a journey resonates so much with me, as well as with so many of the survivors who shared their stories with us. The first survivor we quoted this month said, “A day at a time is all it takes to go from victim to survivor.” And the participant we quoted yesterday said, “It became a very spiritual journey...Through this process I fortified my boundaries.”

We hope that there is hope conveyed in this theme of the journey. When recovering from an abusive relationship, survivors need not--and cannot--know that they’ve got every detail of the rest of their lives figured out to be able to move forward in their journeys. Often, it’s enough to know that this journey unfolds a day at a time, and sometimes, you even have to take it one second at a time.

"It became a very spiritual journey"

12/11/2013

Intimate Partner Violence, Stigma, and the Media, Part Three: Writing a Letter to the Editor

12/10/2013

By Christine E. Murray, See the Triumph Co-Founder

Let’s say you’re drinking your coffee one morning and reading the newspaper. And let’s say that you notice a story about intimate partner violence (IPV) that’s in today’s paper. You’ve read the story, and while on the one hand you’re probably glad to see that the topic of IPV is getting some media attention, there may be something in the story that doesn’t sit right with you.

Maybe the story used obvious victim-blaming language.

Maybe the story failed to provide any information about local resources for others in the community who are experiencing IPV.

Or maybe you think some of the statistics presented in the story are misrepresented or described in a misleading way.

Or maybe, you’re upset because there is no story at all--even though you know that IPV is occurring daily in your community.

What can you do? Of course, you could just go on with reading the paper and drinking your coffee, but you also may want to do more to try and challenge some of the problems you saw with how the story was reported.

In today’s world, there are many ways to express your opinions publicly, including by commenting on newspaper web-sites and using your own social media pages to share your opinion. And yet, writing a Letter to the Editor remains a viable way to share information and thoughts in a way that can reach a wide audience and foster ongoing dialogue. Many newspapers today even have Comment sections with the on-line Letter to the Editor sections, providing an additional opportunity to engage people in a dialogue about important issues.

Anyone can write a Letter to the Editor, and the following sections are important to include with any letter (1, 2):

1. An opening statement: What is the problem that your letter addresses? If it relates to a recent story in the paper, cite the story.

2. The importance of the problem your letter addresses: Why should people care? You may want to provide a brief anecdote or relevant statistic to illustrate this importance.

3. A description of how the problem is being addressed currently: Are you trying to highlight something good that happened? Or are you trying to highlight a problematic response?

4. Your opinion about what needs to be done next, and why: Leave the reader with some action they can take, or they can encourage others to take, to foster more effective responses to IPV.

5. Your name and contact information: Most media outlets will need to verify your identity prior to publishing a Letter to the Editor.

Be sure to follow any of the publisher’s additional requirements or word limits when writing and submitting your Letter to the Editor.

Letters to the Editor can be an effective strategy for keeping the topic of IPV in the media and providing important information about the dynamics of IPV and resources for those who need help. Consider how you might begin using this tool to help challenge the stigma around IPV and bring more attention to the issue in your own community.

Resource:
(1) Seekins, T., Fawcett, S. (1984) A Guide to Writing Letters to the Editor: Expressing Your Opinion to the Public Effectively. The University of Montana Rural Institute: Montana.

(1) Brown, B., Murray, C. E., & Smith, P. H. (2013). Domestic violence representation in media: A toolkit for advocacy professionals. Poster presented at the UNCG Public Health Education internship poster session.

"I went back to school"

12/9/2013

"I changed myself from the inside out"

12/6/2013

Intimate Partner Violence, Stigma, and the Media, Part Two: Media Advocacy Strategies

12/5/2013

By Christine Murray, See the Triumph Co-Founder

In part one of Intimate Partner Violence, Stigma, and the Media, I discussed how the news media can perpetuate stigma by the way it covers, or fails to cover, stories of intimate partner violence (IPV). I had the honor of working with a recent Masters of Public Health graduate, Brittany Brown, as well as my colleague Paige Hall Smith, on a study of media coverage in our local newspaper about IPV.(1) As part of this work, we learned about some strategies that advocates can use to work with local media organizations to help improve reporting of IPV-related stories.

These strategies include the following:

1. Make connections with people working in your local media. If you have expertise on the subject of IPV, get to know local reporters and other media professionals so that they’ll know they can turn to you for information when stories arise.

2. Encourage media representatives to accurately report the context in stories on IPV. Sometimes, stories are written in a way that implies that the violence was spontaneous or an isolated incident. However, because IPV often occurs in a long-term pattern of power and control dynamics, providing information about this context, when available, helps to convey a more accurate portrayal of the dynamics of IPV.

3. Encourage reporters to include educational information and local resources in stories about IPV. When someone reads or sees a story about IPV in the media, this may lead them to recognize that they are in an abusive relationship, or that they know someone else who is. Therefore, reporters can provide a valuable service to the community when stories include contact information for local sources of assistance for survivors. In addition, educational information about warning signs of an abusive relationship can help people recognize when they or someone they know is at risk.

4. Advocate for stories that raise awareness about IPV. The media need not wait for tragic incidents to occur before they can report on the topic, and awareness-building pieces are valuable for informing community members about local IPV statistics and resources. Some story ideas may include stories of survivors who have overcome past abuse, coverage of professionals in the community who are working to support survivors and hold offender accountable, and local statistics, such as the number of calls to a local crisis line or to the police.

Readers who are interested in learning more about reporting on IPV in the media can look the following web-sites for more information:

Resources:
(1) Brown, B., Murray, C. E., & Smith, P. H. (2013). Domestic violence representation in media: A toolkit for advocacy professionals. Poster presented at the UNCG Public Health Education internship poster session.