“Take one step forward if you or someone you know have a family member, a friend, or a co-worker who has experienced sexual or domestic violence or abuse.”
It’s an icebreaker exercise we sometimes do when we introduce our services to groups of adults or college students who aren’t familiar with Turning Points Network. We offer all the options as a way of not singling anyone out and to avoid causing additional trauma. But the sad truth is, when we do this exercise, often everyone steps forward.
Why? Because we all know someone.
At TPN, our phones ring every day and often in the night, with victim-survivors who are dealing with fresh incidents, repeat assaults, and old traumas. These events aren’t just physical: emotional abuse, financial abuse, reproductive coercion, manipulation, stalking and sex trafficking are also included. In some years, more than 1,000 individuals talk with us or receive support services, safety plans, or emergency housing, many of them more than once. In a small county of 30,000 people and with more than 40 years of TPN serving the community, it adds up. Everyone knows someone.
The reasons behind the pervasive and enduring nature of domestic and sexual abuse are myriad, whether it’s economic factors, social isolation, familial dysfunction or any combination. But prevention boils down to all of us creating families and communities where violence doesn’t have to be the response to anger, emotional upset, or perceived injustices. To do that we need to build the skills of empathy and understanding, learn how to value our differences, and find support in the community when we need it. What does a healthy (or unhealthy) relationship look like? What boundaries are appropriate? How do I create healthy ones? And how do I combat bullying and aggression in my school or neighborhood?
TPN teaches these skills in public schools across the county in our Health Relationships program and in community settings through Bringing in the Bystander. Starting with preschoolers and working into elementary, middle, high school and beyond, we are striving to end the cycle of violence by equipping children and youth with the tools to protect themselves and to avoid becoming aggressors in the future. We also teach older youth and adults how to step in safely when they see bullying occur around them. All of us benefit when the children, youth and adults in our lives have empathy and concern for one another and support each other when the going gets rough. We do have options for how to create safer, violence-free homes and communities.
Together we can learn and model the kind of change we want the world to be. Where no one has to say, “Yes, that happened to me…my friend…my family…my town.” This October, during Domestic Violence Awareness Month, let’s all commit to taking one step forward to ending violence for everyone we know, including ourselves.
OUR TURN is a public service series by Turning Points Network (TPN) serving all of Sullivan County with offices in Claremont and Newport. We provide wraparound support for survivors of domestic and sexual violence, stalking, and human trafficking and we present violence-prevention education programs in our schools. For more than 40 years, TPN has helped people of all ages move from the darkness of abuse toward the light of respect, healing, and hope. For information contact: 1.800.639.3130 online at www.turningpointsnetwork.org or find us on Facebook.
