Two updates...

First of all thank you for your support of the Pets in OFP bill, it passed overwhelmingly in committee! We will keep you updated as it moves through the process.

Secondly I finally have the pictures from the Rally Day at the Capital and I thought I would share those.

The roses represent the women and men who lost their lives as a result of domestic violence, including the police officers killed in the line of duty, and the little bears represent the children that were killed this year by domestic violence, child abuse and neglect.

Protecting our Four Legged Friends...

There is a bill right now that is in the Minnesota House of Representatives that would help protect pets within Domestic Violence Orders for Protection.

We know that many of our clients don't come forward for fear of what will happen to their pets. This order would help protect that.

Of 50 shelters surveyed about women and children escaping from domestic violence, 85% said that women in their shelter talked about pet abuse, 63% of children talked about pet abuse, and 83% said that they had observed the coexistence of domestic violence and pet abuse.

Here is a news clip about the bill... http://kstp.com/news/stories/s1463897.shtml

It will be heard in the Public Safety Policy and Oversight Committee on Thursday, March 18th!

Please take a moment to call YOUR rep listed below and leave a message with his or her aide that you'd like them to support HF1396 Domestic abuse; courts authorized to include pets and companion animals in protective orders!

Here is a place to find your legislator: http://www.gis.leg.mn/mapserver/districts/

HOPE Rides on!

What a great time was had by all last night!!

Thanks to the folks at Harley Davidson and the time and talent of Nick Sinclair and his team and the staff and volunteers at HOPE Center we were able to raise:

$432!!

It was a great time and we are so grateful for all of the support of those who stopped by and:

* the Northfield News and the Faribault Daily News for their story on this great fundraiser and Nick's passion

http://www.faribault.com/news.php?viewStory=97897

* KYMN radio for doing a story with Nick on Art Zany with Paula Granquist: http://kymnradio.net/2010/03/12/artzany-radio-for-the-imagination-nick-sinclair-sinclair-hot-rods/

* Ray Navarro for his donation of Taco Meat

* Faribault Harley Davidson for the great space, their warm and friendly staff and the chance to dream about firing up a Harley someday :).

Last minute touch-ups...

Friday was spent putting the last minute touches on the United Way grant application. Then in the evening some of the staff went to the Vagina Monologues, put on by some talented St. Olaf students and a much appreciated fundraiser for the HOPE Center.

Then Saturday afternoon was spent setting up for the HOPE Rides event, this afternoon was spent prepping a presentation for Monday morning and now off to do the last minute touch-ups for HOPE Rides.

Between Grant Applications, volunteer training, Sexual Assault Awareness Month prep (SAAM is in April), fundraising and all of our regular stuff, we have been busy here at HOPE!

If YOU aren't busy tonight come on down! From 6-9 we will be at Harley Davidson in Faribault eating tacos from a bag, looking at great art and chatting about HOPE Center.

See you soon!

Marital spat with a weapon?

OnYourMind: Marna Anderson, of WATCH, says it’s time to hold the media accountable on choice of words when reporting domestic violence

Most often, one encounters the media referring to a domestic assault as a "domestic dispute." That is like calling a robbery a "commercial dispute." As a society, we acknowledge that in a robbery, the person being robbed was at a disadvantage and had something taken against her or his will. But this is typically not the case with domestic violence. The media often minimizes domestic violence by framing incidents as "relationship troubles" or "arguments." This infers a degree of partnership and equality in the relationship, something that rarely, if ever, exists when abuse is rife. A study conducted in the state of Washington reviewed 230 newspaper articles on domestic homicide and found that fewer than 22 percent accurately labeled the incident as domestic violence.

A Star Tribune report on the domestic homicide of Kathryn Anderson ("Boyfriend charged with homicide in Eagan woman's death," December 7, 2009) describes how she had been stabbed over 100 times after a "domestic dispute escalated." The article goes on to report that the police had responded to previous "domestic disturbances" and quotes a friend of Anderson's who said there had been "conflict" between them.

The real story

But this is not the real story. The real story is told between the lines of the news reports. It is not one of troubled marriages or relationships or ongoing arguments or disputes. The real story that rarely gets the headline is of the abusive partner's controlling, threatening, physically violent behavior. This is the story that needs to be told. Domestic violence is a widespread community problem, and it is time the media reports it as such.

In large part to increased training and education on the topic, the courts have made the shift from viewing domestic violence as a private matter to treating it as a criminal one. A similar shift has occurred in the way the criminal justice system approaches the crime of rape. Thirty years ago, victims were often assigned blame because of the way they dressed or acted. Media reports routinely quoted perpetrators and 'experts' alike who said the victim was "asking for it."

A recent national headline, "Sheen accused of using weapon in spat with wife," reveals a common problem with media reports of domestic violence: They frequently report domestic assaults as arguments, spats or disputes.

This headline about actor Charlie Sheen is especially disingenuous because it reports that a weapon may have been used, yet still refers to the incident as a "spat." Recent examples from local media include two Star Tribune headlines, "Slayings and suicide follow turbulent times," (January 19, 2010), and "Domestic dispute leaves three dead at farmhouse" (January 18, 2010).

For the rest of the story please visit:

http://www.womenspress.com/main.asp?FromHome=1&TypeID=1&ArticleID=3550&SectionID=2&SubSectionID=738

Domestic Violence Counts...

IN JUST ONE DAY:

1,648 participating local domestic violence programs (83%)

• Assisted 65,321 adults and children through shelter, transitional housing, and advocacy
• Answered 23,045 hotline calls, over 16 calls every minute
• Trained 30,735 attendees at 1,468 community education sessions

These are the incredible results of the fourth annual Domestic Violence Counts: a 24 hour census of Domestic Violence Shelters and Services. The survey was conducted on September 15, 2009 and the report was released March 8, 2010 in recognition of International Women’s Day.

A FEW NOTES:

• 9,280 requests for services went unmet because of a lack of resources or staffing. 60% of the unmet requests were for emergency shelter or transitional housing and 40% of the unmet requests were for non-residential services.
• 17,445 Children under 18 spent the night of September 15, 2009 in a domestic violence shelter or transitional housing program - far more than the approximately 11,000 children who are born every day across the U.S.
• This year, 25 states and territories achieved a 100% participation rate!

Thank you to all the amazing local programs that helped make this third annual national, coordinated, and safe DV count a success!

• For the full 2009 report and state summaries please go to www.nnedv.org/census
• 2009 press release and media enquiries, see: www.nnedv.org
• For additional information, handouts, Frequently Asked Questions, and survey methodology, go to www.nnedv.org/census

Lots Of Ways to Support HOPE Center!!

There will be great art, a taco bar, classic cars, music and more...

Stop by and support Nick and HOPE Center.

Help Nick reach his goal: http://www.razoo.com/story/Hope-Rides-Fundraiser

And we invite you to attend the Vagina Monologues

Thanks to the talented students at St. Olaf

THURSDAY MARCH 11th

THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES IN THE PAUSE AT 8PM
---Eve Ensler’s powerful play featuring monologues on the good and bad experiences of being a woman.

FRIDAY MARCH 12th
THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES IN THE PAUSE AT 8PM

SUNDAY MARCH 14th
THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES IN THE PAUSE AT 2PM

Another fine example of connections and collaboration :)

Using video games to help prevent domestic violence:

In Development at Champlain College: a Video Game to Help Prevent Domestic Violence

By Jill Laster

A team at Champlain College wants to educate boys about the effects of violence against women. So they are creating a product using two things that appeal to their target audience: soccer and video games.

http://chronicle.com/blogPost/In-Development-at-Champlain/21474/

United for Kids...

One of the best parts for me about being at HOPE Center is being involved in other collaborative efforts that aim to help create a healthier environment for all of us to live in. One of these collaboratives is an effort called United for Kids which is a community initiative promoting literacy and learning for families with children age 5 and under.

At a meeting today we were talking about some of the projects that we have coming up and I had mentioned this great website that is for parents, educators and anyone who cares about kids that helps connects child development and violence prevention

"Understanding Child Development as a Violence Prevention Tool".

Which can be found here: http://actagainstviolence.apa.org/understanding_child_dev.pdf

There are some great tips on handling anger and conflict, parenting tips and techniques and so much more...

http://actagainstviolence.apa.org/

I also came across this...

Constant Yelling Can Be Just As Harmful to Children as Physical Abuse

What does the research show?

Most parents, even the most patient ones, lose their temper and yell at their children. According to a 2003 study published in The Journal of Marriage and Family, 88 percent of the 991 families interviewed admitted shouting, yelling or screaming at their children in the previous year. That percentage jumped to 98 percent in families with 7-year-old children.

While occasional yelling is common in American families, parents who constantly yell at their children are subjecting their children to emotional abuse that researchers say can be as harmful as physical abuse. A 2001 study in the American Journal of Psychiatry involving 49 people with depersonalization disorder (a mental disorder in which a person has a feeling of detachment or estrangement from one’s self) and 26 emotionally healthy people, found that yelling and other forms of emotional abuse was a more significant predictor of mental illness than sexual and physical abuse.

Besides being potentially harmful if overused, yelling is often ineffective. “Children can become immune to being yelled at and start to tune it out,” according to psychologist Myrna B. Shure, Ph.D., of Drexel University. Dr. Shure’s research shows that parents whose only way of disciplining their children is by yelling, demanding or commanding have children that at age four or five are more likely to display physical or verbal aggression, social withdrawal, and a lack of positive/prosocial behaviors, such as sharing and empathy. She says instead of yelling, which makes children feel angry and frustrated, parents should use a problem-solving approach in which children are taught to think about their own and others’ feelings. For example, if your children will not pick up their toys, ask them to think of how you feel when they won’t pick up the toys. Then ask them to think of something they can do so you won’t feel that way. This approach can have large and long-lasting effects on children's behavior (see http://www.psychologymatters.org/shure.html andhttp://www.thinkingchild.com).

http://actagainstviolence.apa.org/specialtopics/yelling.html

Domestic and Sexual Violence are about so much more than just dealing with that... we need to look at parenting, at resources, at prevention, at connecting why businesses should care about these issues, supporting schools to educate about healthy relationships and building safer communities.