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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