Resilience, servicing victims of domestic violence. 

Hi. I'm Ava Smith. I'm a psychology major and a senior here at Mount Holyoke. And I'll be talking to you guys about my time at a domestic violence shelter. 

First, though, I just want to talk about the link of UAF topics because I know that it can be kind of overwhelming to know where to start. But getting money for an unpaid internship is really awful, especially because you need money to live during the summer. So basically, all you have to do is just go on to ISIS, and you click on that link, UAF and link thing. 

And then there are three steps, and they're really specific. So all you have to do is just click on step one and start. And it's kind of a long process, so you want to start at the beginning of the spring semester. 

So as I said, I worked at a domestic violence shelter. And first, I'm just going to give you an overview about kind of my background in domestic violence and what it is and then what the organization was that I was a part of and my role and then the challenges I faced and I gained from the experience. 

So first, domestic violence is kind of like behaviors that are meant to control or have power over somebody else. And you can do that in a variety of ways, for example, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse-- financial abuse. These are just some of the big ones. 

And who is vulnerable? I think there's this assumption that only certain groups of people are vulnerable to domestic violence, and that's really not true. It's not just people that are underprivileged or struggling with poverty. It's really everybody, regardless of socioeconomic status or race or gender. 

And just to give you some sort of sense, one in four women struggled from some sort of domestic violence issue in their lifetime. And this is really under-reported because people don't want to report their loved ones, even if they may have harmed them in some way. 

And then I just want to talk about why people stay because I think it's hard for people to understand that have never been in this situation why somebody would put themselves in a position that hurts them. And there are a lot of different reasons, for example, financial. So maybe your abuser has the house and has the job, and you don't want to be living on the street. 

There's also love. These relationships are really complicated, and they start with love. And maybe you fall in love with somebody, and then the abuse starts to happen. So it's hard to kind of be realistic and rational about those situations. 

Children-- a lot of times, people want to be in a family that's not broken. They want a father for their children. And especially if their abuser is not harmful to their child and they're a good parent, it's hard to want to leave that because it seems selfish. 

And then safety-- a lot of times, when people leave, the abuse gets worse. And it's really scary, and some people are worried they're going to get killed. And then hope-- there's always this hope that things are going to get better and all of the above. So all of these things are kind of working together, and it's a really complicated situation. 

So I went to Harriet Tubman Crisis Center, which is a place in Minnesota that really works with the community to kind of support women, families, men that are suffering from domestic violence situations in kind of a holistic way. So we have legal services-- for example, if somebody wants an order for protection or needs help with their divorce. 

Psychological services, because a lot of times, mental health works kind of hand in hand with these types of experiences-- chemical dependency support, support groups. We get a lot of donations, so each shelter has kind of this consignment store for free clothes and things like that, if you want a job interview outfit and things like that. And then, of course, we have two shelters which house about 70 to 80 people. 

So I was a youth and family advocate at Tubman, and I did a variety of things. I had a lot of responsibilities, some of which included intake-- so when people come into shelter and kind of fill out forms about their safety needs, what goals they want to focus on in shelter, resources that we could give them to support them. 

I also met with them twice a week to see how their goals are going, whether they need any more services-- how they're doing in shelter because it's kind of a difficult place to be. I also ran a healthy relationships group, so I came up with topics for the group, such as stress management, grief counseling, things like that, and talked with the women about those things. 

I managed shelter conflict. Being in such a small space that's a communal living place-- and so your kids are running around, you're living with other people, and everybody's in this crisis mode. Everyone's really stressed out. A lot of them have mental health issues, and so this type of thing kind of fosters conflict. And so we had to work with each of the clients on that. 

I also attended and presented at staff meetings. We talked a lot about residents and resources that we didn't know of that we could use to support them because a lot of them have a lot of obstacles. And then I answered the crisis line, which is where people call if they need services or shelter. 

Challenges-- I had to learn really quickly. You're kind of thrown in this environment, and you don't really know anything, especially about, for example, how someone would receive unemployment benefits. I know nothing about that, and this is mainly what people wanted from me is that type of information because they didn't really know, either. 

And so my supervisor left for two weeks on vacation while I was at the beginning of my time there. And so obviously, someone filled in for her, but she was also really young and didn't know everything. And so we were kind of working hand in hand about, how do we support these women when we don't necessarily know as much information as we would like to know? 

And we had meet with all of them. We had to document all the times we met. It was very overwhelming. And so it was really important for me to talk with the rest of the advocates that were at the shelter to kind of get their take on everything. 

And then you're working in constant crisis, and so you're kind of emotionally involved with these women who are in crisis. And that kind of gets you into that crisis mode, too. So it's important to focus on your own mental health. 

I also just got attached. It's really emotional work, and you're working really closely with these women and families. And they're all in really difficult situations, and so it's hard to kind of separate yourself from that. And a lot of times, people aren't ready to change in the way that you want them to. And so you're giving them a lot of support and resources, but they may not act on that. 

Or they may go back to their abusers because it's really overwhelming to have to start from scratch. And so sometimes, people aren't ready to do that. But you're emotionally attached to their happiness, and so to see them leave is really hard. 

So how did I grow? I gained a lot confidence. When I first got there, I was kind of worried that I wouldn't really have anything to offer them. I've never been in this experience. What could I give them that would help them in any way? But I realized as I was there that I really was an asset, and it helped boost my confidence and helped me realize that I am powerful in my own way. 

And then really, the importance of collaborative work in this type of environment is so crucial. And so being able to work with everybody and kind of talk to them about all the things that are going on with the people that I'm working with was so important, especially when these women have multiple obstacles in their way. And so a lot of times, it takes a lot of strategic thinking and a lot of collaborative work to help them with that. 

And then I'm a psychology student, so I found kind of this new interest in trauma and kind of the ways that that impacts people. And then also, it reiterated my desire to focus on mental health because I wasn't necessarily focusing on their mental health issues. I was focusing more on how to get them housing, how to get them benefits, things like that. And so it really made me realize that mental health was really where I wanted to be. 

So yeah. Yeah. So that's my advisor. Nicole filled in for her, and she was somebody that I worked closely with. So thanks to them. Thank you. 

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