This issue’s staff spotlight features Elizabeth Marshall. Elizabeth is an adult advocate, as well as the volunteer and intern coordinator at New Horizons. Elizabeth is passionate about her work and dedicates herself to serving clients.
Q.What is an adult advocate? What does a typical day look like for you?
A. An Adult Advocate is a Domestic Violence Crisis Counselor and Advocate who primarily deals with adults IPV victims. On any given day I may provide counseling related to IPV issue to members of the community, or safe house residents. Additionally, I communicate with other service providers or agencies, in an effort to advocate for my clients. I attend meetings or trainings, and sit on committees to better the lives of those we serve. I answer the crisis hotline to provide emotional support to IPV victims, conduct intakes for safe sheltering, and receive referrals. I’ve found that one day is never the same as the next.
Q. What drew you to working with victim-survivors of domestic violence?
A. While in law school I conducted my practical internship in the Westchester County, NY District Attorney’s Office’s “Special Victim’s Unit.” Months of working with women, men and children who had been subjected to physical and sexual violence opened my eyes to the horror these crimes wreak on the lives of those effected.
Q.What inspires you about your work in the intimate partner violence field?
A. I find something to inspire me every day. It may be knowing that I assisted in aiding someone to a safer location, or watching a client begin to feel less traumatized and cease the cycle of self-blame. Every success if inspirational and motivational.
Q.What advice do you have for possible clients who are looking for assistance from New Horizons?
A. Please call us. New Horizons advocates are trauma informed, educated in the power and control cycle of abuse, and all are willing to go above and beyond to suit needs of those we serve.
Q. What are you hopeful for in terms of a future without domestic violence?
A. I’m hopeful for better community understanding of domestic violence. Someday, I hope to never have to answer the question ‘Why didn’t she just leave?’ again. Equally, I hope for better legislation involving the nuances involved in this crime. The Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence does a wonderful job lobbying for new bills to protect and prevent. New Horizons is always on board to back up previously proposed legislation, and works to suggest additional statutory needs.
2021 has been a year of incredible change at the state and federal levels regarding legislation designed to provide better services and safety measures for families experiencing violence.
At the state level, Governor Lamont signed Public Act 21-78, also known as “Jennifer’s Law”, into law on July 27, 2021. This new state statute provides several protections related to family violence cases, including:
Expands the definition of abuse for Temporary Restraining Orders to include coercive control;
Requires landlords to change locks on individual units for victims with orders of protection;
Establishes legal representation for eligible impoverished victims when applying for a restraining order; and
Includes numerous other provisions to benefit victims.
At the federal level, President Joe Biden signed the VOCA (Victims of Crime Act) Fix into law on July 22, 2021. The Victims of Crime Act provides funds for domestic violence programs for case management, court advocacy, and other vital services. Over the past four years, VOCA funding was cut by two-thirds. This cut resulted in fewer resources for service providers across the United States, which meant less support for victims of intimate partner violence.
Through the VOCA Fix, intimate partner violence providers once again are able to use federal funds to help survivors access counseling, forensic exams, and other important services to ensure all survivors have what they need to escape a life of violence.
These sweeping legislative changes at both the state and federal levels give the survivors of Connecticut more resources, safety, and support. New Horizons looks forward to implementing these changes, ensuring that the survivors of Middlesex County continue to have the steadfast support that the community has relied on for over 40 years.
By New Horizons Family Violence Victim Advocate Schaene Shatto
When we discuss leaving, we mainly talk about the better life you are going to have and your bright future, yet we often neglect to talk about the pain that comes with leaving, both the expected and the unexpected. We often prepare ourselves for safety yet we do not prepare ourselves for the people and things around you that too will cause pain, hurt, shame, betrayal, and even re-traumatization and re-victimization.
Leaving a domestic violence relationship is often one of the hardest and scariest things you will ever face. You’ll second guess your decision, yourself, and whether it is the right thing to do, you will go back and forth, you will safety plan, you will put your supports in place, and you’ll rally your village. Everyone around you will remind you that it is in your best interest, your safest option, and that you are stronger than you think. They will promise you that they have no expectations and to allow you to take all the time you need.
We would be lying if we did not expect this to be challenging, if we did not expect for the fear of the unknown and wondering what is next to be paralyzing at times. Expect the unexpected that those who say they support you may be the very ones to criticize you. Some may tell you that you are not doing it right because it’s not how they would have done it or that you’re not moving forward fast enough… That you create an atmosphere of walking on eggshells and that they cannot keep up with your emotional rollercoaster. Sometimes they may feel it’s too much or even that you are. They may blame you and often talk about how you reacted yet never about what triggered you.
People will ask whether you’re in therapy or why this still bothers you or if you’re trying. They will remind you that you are still not over him or her yet and that you have not dealt with the trauma. Maybe they’re right, are we ever really over someone we once loved? Do we ever forget the trauma we once endured? They will comment on how one minute you’re happy, the next sad, and the next angry. That too is okay as anyone who questions that may never have experienced grief. They’ll tell you that you’re too sensitive and they’ll question why you do certain things a particular way without ever considering the life you just left behind and the habits that unfortunately do not go away overnight. They will remind you time and time again that only you can do this and that no one can do it for you. They may even want the very best for you and they’ll push you to be the best version of yourself yet even with the best of intentions, they may forget to cut you some slack. You may stop hearing from people that once were a significant part of your healing process because “you’re safe now” and they’ll let you know that you sound different and that you’re better now. It may get lonely and you’ll do everything you can to protect yourself and those around you. You will beg people to stop reminding you that you are young and have your whole life ahead of you and that you deserve better and you will so badly want someone to just tell you it is okay not to be okay. And that is okay. You’re not too sensitive, you are just healing and rebuilding the confidence that was so wrongfully stripped from you. You are not too much, you are everything you were meant to be. Allow yourself to grieve the loss of a relationship, the life you knew, and remember that neither healing nor grieving is linear and it gets messy. If you take two steps forward, and three backwards, it’s okay. It’s okay if you thought you were over it, but it hits you all over again. It’s okay to fall apart even when you thought you had it under control.
This is your story, the journey belongs to you. There are no rules and leaving does not come with a step by step direction book. You are going to have good days and bad. You are going to feel like it is you against the world at times. And at times, you may even want to go back despite how many times people tell you that you deserve better or question how you can miss someone who treated you so poorly. It is normal. It is a part of the journey. It is the foundation that you must lay in order to rebuild. But you can do it…. You are doing it… and you are going to continue doing it.
Your responsibility is to embrace the journey, to be easy on yourself, to show yourself grace, and go through the motions of every high and low. It is your responsibility to believe in the person you want to become. It is not your responsibility to try and help others to understand. Some days you will have no idea how are you going to do it, but every single day it still gets done. Iyanla Vanzant once said, “each of us face a moment in our lives called ‘the breakdown moment.’ This is the time when you must stand toe to toe, eyeball to eyeball, with the very thing you have tried desperately to avoid. In that moment, when there is nothing standing between you and the thing you fear the most, you will be forced to step into your greatness, because that is what life is demanding of you.” So, be committed to seeing yourself win. You owe everyone nothing, but you owe yourself everything.
This issue’s staff spotlight features our newest team member, Erika Heddesheimer. Erika is an Adult Advocate and oversees the New Horizons newsletter. As a new advocate, Erika is excited to continue working in the community and serving victim-survivors.
Q.What is an adult advocate? What does a typical day look like for you?
A. An adult advocate works with clients to meet their goals and help them move forward from the violence they have suffered. On a typical day, I provide clients with crisis counseling, advocate for various client needs, and answer the hotline. I coordinate the New Horizons newsletter and am part of the Legislative Working Group, so throughout the week I am working on tasks related to those projects.
Q.What drew you to becoming an adult advocate?
A. I’ve always felt called to help those in need in any way I can. I recently graduated from American University where I earned my master’s degree in justice and law. Learning more about the experiences of victim-survivors and the struggles they face in accessing resources opened my eyes and drew me to advocacy. Through being an adult advocate, I have found a sense of purpose in my work that I hadn’t had before.
Q.What inspires you about your work in the intimate partner violence field?
A. I am inspired by the resiliency of victim-survivors and the network of people dedicated to helping them. Every day I talk to clients who amaze me with what they have been through and how they have overcome those obstacles. Working with the staff at New Horizons and local community organizations has shown me what it looks like to truly dedicate oneself to service and be selfless in your work.
Q.What advice do you have for possible clients who are looking for assistance from New Horizons?
A. It is always easier said than done, but reaching out for support is one of the most critical steps in empowering yourself and overcoming the obstacles that have been presented. There is a sea of people waiting to assist clients in whatever goals they want to achieve. Nobody deserves to endure any form of abuse and the staff at New Horizons is here and ready to remind clients that they deserve to be safe, happy, and thriving.
By Brandi Kennedy, Family Violence Victim Advocate
Trigger Warning: This blog post references or discusses information about sexual assault and/or violence/abuse, which may be triggering for survivors.
As a Family Violence Victim Advocate, I often notice a survivor’s past traumas impacting how they parent. Part of my work at New Horizons includes working on the agency’s domestic violence legislative agenda and writing testimony on behalf of the survivors serviced through our agency. While I was gathering testimony for Connecticut’s coercive control bill, I reached out to individuals whose cases contained aspects of coercive control that included financial, emotional and psychological abuse. Many of these survivors disclosed a history of childhood physical and sexual abuse. Each story highlighted how trauma associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and their past abuse as children continued to impact their daily life and the lives of their children, affecting the ways they parented, the partners they chose and their responses to abuse when there were red flags. What struck me in many of these chronic abuse cases was that children often became triggers that survivors could not avoid and this awareness caused them to spiral into cycles of hopelessness, many asking, “How could my own child set me off? Does this make me a bad parent?”
A survivor’s story
One particular survivor’s testimony expressed that, at 16 years old, her pervasive experience with emotional neglect, physical and sexual abuse created an environment where she constantly felt like she was walking on eggshells throughout her teenage and young adult years. As a teenage mother, she moved in with her controlling boyfriend to escape being physically abused by her own mother and sexually abused by her stepfather. She described that parenting a newborn was more challenging at times than actually enduring abuse, and being in a post-partum state increased her depression, anxiety, night terrors and onset of traumatic flashbacks as symptoms of her PTSD all at once. She said she internalized and hid many of these challenges due to the shame and guilt associated with her ability to parent her children. Even showing her children affection was particularly hard as she struggled with feelings of panic when changing a diaper, bathing or breastfeeding. She described feeling “tainted” by flashbacks of her own body being sexualized and violated throughout her childhood. Her post-partum state became the catalyst leading her into overwhelming cycles of negative self-beliefs and feelings of inadequacy during a time that she states she should have been at her happiest.
Parenting added a new level to her recovery that no one had ever warned her about and that she had to learn to navigate. She began to understand how innocent she had been at the time her abuse began by witnessing her children at the same age, and this realization showed up in her parenting style in which she called herself a self-proclaimed “helicopter parent.” She described needing to control everything around her and her children, recognizing that she felt she needed to limit her childrens’ independence and autonomy to keep them safe. Many of our discussions would focus on her inability to trust, hypervigilance of those around her, feelings of unworthiness as a parent and self-injurious behaviors that resumed shortly after giving birth to her third child.
Having a complex history of compounded and prolonged abuse as well as chronic toxic stress levels distorts connections in the brain and fosters an internal environment where a survivor’s nervous system rewires in an abnormal manner. Beseel van der Kolk , one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma, outlines in his research writings that trauma lives within the body. Van der Kolk says, “trauma victims cannot recover until they become familiar with and befriend the sensations in their bodies…the mind needs to be reeducated to the physical sensations, and the body needs to be helped to tolerate and enjoy the comfort of touch.” Survivors of violence and abuse can often feel numb when engaging with their children. Normal parenting actions like hugging, playing and cuddling children can trigger feeling disconnected from their own bodies.
Seeking help
It is important for survivors feeling this way to seek out someone who can help them process these feelings. Talking to a certified domestic violence counselor can allow survivors a safe place to emphasize on a strengths-based therapeutic approach recognizing the incredible amount of conviction, energy and resilience it takes to work through PTSD symptoms while raising children.
Advocates can also make immediate referrals to clinicians for long-term behavioral health therapists to offer more in-depth trauma support. This is essential to healing as children often respond to their parent’s PTSD behaviors in similar ways either exhibiting many of the same symptoms themselves, having to “parent-ify” themselves to take on more of the parent’s roles or shutting down their own ability to express their emotions. The impact of traumatic stress on children can also manifest as learning problems, lower grades, somatic complaints such as headaches and stomach aches, insomnia, attention problems and either refusing to eat or overeating. These effects can last a lifetime.
For survivors, it is critical to understand you are not alone. Your emotions and the trauma you have endured are valid and you do not have to go through it in silence.
It’s a call no parent wants to get – another call from school saying you have to pick up your child for behavior issues. You may wonder: what is going on? Why are they behaving this way? How can you help?
Tantrums, mood swings, testing boundaries and being energetic or shy are all typical behaviors for children, but what does it mean when you notice these behaviors are happening a lot more frequently or at an inappropriate age? Is this just a phase or could it be something more?
This is why mental health awareness is important; it helps answer these questions and advocate for people experiencing mental illness. Knowing the symptoms, how to seek treatment, end stigmas, and educate others on how to become a support system can significantly reduce the impacts of mental illness.
These impacts can include suicide, risky and dangerous behavior, physical health impairments, and lack of positive social and emotional development, although the list goes on.
In the developing mind of a child or adolescent, it is very important to address any mental health concerns and provide early intervention before these negative emotions and behaviors grow. If left unaddressed, continued impacts can show themselves later in life in substance abuse, difficulty with daily functioning or trouble finishing school, keeping a job, and so on.
What can you do? Educate yourself, seek professional help, and talk to your children about their emotions in a safe environment.
Children may also come up with coping mechanisms on their own. Helping them come up with positive coping mechanisms can teach healthy ways to regulate their emotions.
Some examples of positive coping skills can include:
Breathing exercises – Watch Sesame Street “Belly Breathe” for an example (click here)
Create a space to calm down – Just like adults, children may just need a moment to cool down. Create a safe space that has items like a feelings chart, a journal, stress ball or playdough, calming music, and something that has a calming smell (lotion, oil diffuser, etc.), and maybe a picture of something that makes your child feel calm or happy.
Stretching/exercise – Most of us know that there is a mind-body connection. There are a ton of benefits to physical activity and helping build a healthy body is a good way to build a healthy mind. It may also help kids release any extra energy they may have.
Art – If your child enjoys art, this may be a great way for them to express their feelings visually through artwork.
Humor! – They don’t say “laughter is the best medicine” for nothing! If your child is feeling sad, anxious, embarrassed, etc., lightening the mood with a funny joke or video can be a great way to cope with negative emotions.
These are just some examples of coping mechanisms but individual tactics should be tailored to each child’s interest and what may work for them.
For more information about mental illness, how to talk to your kids about emotions, and additional coping mechanisms, please reach out to a professional in your area.
In Connecticut, anyone can call 2-1-1 to find out about local resources, including for children’s mental health.
By Erika Heddesheimer, New Horizons Adult Advocate
Prioritizing your mental health can be hard. I did not start prioritizing my mental health until I reached a space in my life where it was openly discussed and okay to be vulnerable. I realized that unless I was taking care of myself, I couldn’t put my full energy into taking care of others. You need to put your own mask on before helping those around you, as they say, otherwise you’ll end up not being able to help anyone.
Not prioritizing yourself and your mental health can lead to stress, burnout, and negative emotions. Mental health matters to me because, just like physical health, it has the ability to impact your entire life. Understanding and taking care of yourself allows you to know yourself better, to support others more effectively, and will allow you to work toward your goals in a healthy and productive way.
Mental health is never perfect, and to our dismay, doesn’t just get better overnight (although, sleep is great for your mental health). There are many skills, both physical and emotional, that we can use to take inventory of our mental health and cope with the negative emotions we all come to face in our lives.
Try these:
Self-care.
Unfortunately, we cannot always just remove negative emotions or circumstances from our lives. Self-care is one of the best ways to cope with those difficult emotions and situations you experience. Self-care can come in many forms, and allows an individual to better process and react to the things effecting their mental health in the first place.
People often think of meditation and mindfulness when they think of self-care. While these can be useful practices, that kind of self-care may not be helpful for everyone. Self-care is anything you can do to be selfish for a moment and focus on what makes you feel good. Sometimes self-care is working out and staying hydrated. Sometimes self-care is takeout and a movie. Prioritizing time and activities to focus on you is one of the best ways to protect your mental health.
Self-care cannot be the sole route to better mental health, though, as important as it is. Sometimes you need physical coping skills, rather than emotional, to get yourself through a hard time.
Lists.
When your mental health is suffering, completing tasks that may improve your situation can seem daunting in the moment. Big problems, or even small daily tasks, can be easily be put off or ignored. Over time, though, they may grow to seem unmanageable and never be addressed. Creating a list is a good way to first outline what needs to get done. Include everything in your lists, even small things like brushing your teeth or sending an email. Once your list is made you can focus on checking off small things, one at a time, and eventually the things to get done won’t seem so impossible. Especially when you are going through something, or when your mental health is not at its best, it’s okay to walk before you run.
Ask for help.
Learning to ask for help can be one of the hardest things to do, especially for victim-survivors. Trusting people can be hard. Admitting that you need help can be hard. But we cannot do it all on our own. Support systems are essential to being happy and to being the best version of you. Talking to friends and family or establishing a relationship with a behavioral health professional are ways that you can lean on others for support.
For more resources and information on taking care of your mental health, please visit the Mental Health First Aid website or call New Horizons at 860-344-9599.
This issue’s staff spotlight features one of our Family Violence Victim Advocates, Brandi Kennedy. Brandi helps clients navigate the court system and is the team lead for Office of Victim Services compliance. Brandi’s dedication to helping victim-survivors shines through in every aspect of her work. Click here to read the full spotlight!
Brandi Kennedy
Q. What is your role as a Family Violence Victim Advocate? What does a typical day look like for you?
As a Family Violence Victim Advocate (FVVA) my primary role is to provide services within the Middletown Superior Court to victims of family violence crimes. Some of these services include court support, help with temporary restraining orders, accompanying victims to court, emotional support counseling, safety planning, and advocacy with family relation counselors and state attorneys, as well as legal referrals designed to enhance victims’ safety from the time of their abuser’s arraignment and throughout the court process. I help the Court Support Services Division Unit recognize victims needs pre- and post-arraignment – ensuring that every victim’s voice is heard. My position requires working closely with law enforcement to ensure protective orders and other sanctions are enforced. Lastly, as a FVVA, I lead New Horizon’s Office of Victim Services compliance and ensure every victim knows their rights and entitlement to victim compensation if eligibility is met.
A typical day for me consists of reviewing the daily DV docket, organizing files, gathering that day’s arraignments and collecting victim input for cases. This includes making contact with all victims listed in the police reports and completing safety risk assessments. I typically stream into virtual court and gather all the arraignment outcomes to call the victims back with the information and then correspond with the state attorney’s office to see which cases need updated input from the victim. There are days that I attend multiple meetings, hold conferences with victims and their legal counsel, conduct research for New Horizons’ social media content, participate in event planning, and ensure that New Horizons’ stakeholder voices are represented in the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence’s priority legislation to advocate for changes that improve current IPV statues. I spend a lot of time on the phone speaking with victim-survivors, on Zoom, researching, and advocating for change in systems outside of but that directly impact the field of intimate partner violence.
Q. What drew you to working with victim-survivors of intimate partner violence?
My drive to work with victim-survivors of intimate partner violence comes from a very personal place. I survived a home that would be considered a combat zone with frequent IPV. I left home at 16 to escape abuse and have lived on my own since. By 18, I had experienced my own IPV relationship where a firearm was held to my head and left me with feelings of anger, shame and fear for many years. The cycle of abuse is very real, and when we are not provided the tools to understand the red flags or live in homes where violence is normalized, we often perpetuate the cycle. During my undergraduate experience, the professor for my Women & Violence class introduced me to the idea of a “Take Back the Night” event, and I felt empowered by this movement. In 2010, I worked with UConn to host this event on campus where I spoke my survivor story. I was completely shocked by the turnout and the many survivor stories that echoed through the space. Through community, studying trauma and its impact on the brain and understanding my own history with IPV, I applied to the UConn School of Social Work to complete my Master’s degree. I learned that I could process my shame, affect change and work to advocate for the use of evidence-based, trauma-informed interventions in macro systems.
Q. What inspires you about your work in the intimate partner violence field?
As a MSW Policy Practice graduate student, political advocacy is extremely important to me in my intimate partner violence work. I strive to address issues and concerns that demand change on the state policy level and work within the intersections of DV/IPV, disabilities, human trafficking and international femicide. I absolutely love to research and spend many hours in all the aspects of my life between work and school researching intergenerational trauma, national and international policy and therapeutic modalities. I am also inspired to create a safer world for my daughter and son. Lastly, what inspires me the most is getting to work and bond with my clients and helping them through some of the worst experiences of their life – being trusted to listen to their stories, validating their emotions and helping to empower them through their fear, anger and shame.
Q. What advice do you have for possible clients who are looking for assistance from New Horizons?
The best advice I could give clients who are looking for assistance from New Horizons would be that abuse thrives in silence. We cannot change what we do not acknowledge. Sometimes we are not ready for change and that is okay – our advocates are here for you if and whenever you want to talk, vent or cry. We understand how powerful shame can be, and it often inhibits us from reaching out for connection and keeps us isolated in our most vulnerable moments. IPV comes in many forms and the verbal, emotional, psychological, and financial forms can break down a person’s will. Community can be empowering and we will welcome you into our healing community with open arms.
Q. What are you hopeful for in terms of a future without intimate partner violence?
My hope is that we’ll soon live in a nation where the societal norm is that people understand that behavior equates to the function of the person within their environment. If we understand this concept, we can end the stigmas against mental health and therapy. I truly believe that in order to end domestic and intimate partner violence we need to address all the risk factors associated with the perpetuation of it. These risk factors include poverty, low self-esteem, unemployment, attitudes accepting or justifying violence, unplanned pregnancy, isolation, the belief in traditional gender norms and gender inequality, cultural norms in respect to femicide and lastly, weak health, educational and social policies and laws. Ending intimate partner violence is going to take advocates in all arenas working towards incremental change. It is a lot of work, but we get into this work because we have hope.
Political advocacy is a top priority for New Horizons. I recently participated in a Higher Education and Employment Advancement Committee public hearing to advocate in favor of one bill that is long overdue: HB 6374, An Act Concerning Sexual Misconduct on College Campuses. As a Family Violence Victim Advocate and Certified Domestic Violence Counselor, I know that law reform and policy changes have brought about some improvements, but data shows we need more drastic change to address the sexual misconduct many victim-survivors face while attending a college or university in Connecticut.
When I provided my written and verbal testimony, I talked about providing secondary stakeholders – college administrative staff, advisors, the judicial branch, and anyone who can directly impact the primary stakeholders: victim-survivors – a paradigm shift in knowledge and a deeper understanding of victim-survivor reactions to traumatic violent crimes.
We have seen alarming trends regarding victim perception when disclosing sexual misconduct; often victim-survivors are plagued with guilt, shame and silence because they believe they are somehow responsible for the abuse they have endured. These emotions are often perpetuated by the messages victim-survivors hear, whether on social media or from individuals who may not be trauma-informed. These messages include the many prevention facts and healing quotes one can see by simply scrolling through Instagram – prevention messages telling victim-survivors that if they only knew the warning signs, they could have prevented getting involved with their abuser, or healing messages stating they must forgive or risk bringing what they don’t heal into their next relationships. These messages breed shame, guilt and silence and solely focus on the victim-survivor’s actions instead of the abuser’s.
Trauma is pervasive and rewires our brain’s defense circuitry. It impacts how we respond to the world around us. HB 6374 demands that Connecticut increase and improve sensitivity to the diversity of victim-survivors’ trauma responses and reflect it in policy. Sexual assault, intimate partner violence (IPV) and stalking are intensely private crimes due to the stigma involved, causing those who disclose it to face victim-shaming tactics. HB 6374 seeks to not only protect but to understand the voices of enrolled Connecticut college students and validate their lived experience.
I went down a rabbit hole of statistics as I was researching for my testimony, but a few stuck out to me. According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network:
Only 20% of female victims ages 18-24 report their sexual abuse to law enforcement;
12% of female victims believed their abuse was not important enough to report; and
90% of rapes at colleges are perpetuated by only 3% of college men.
These statistics indicate two things: there is a significant issue of repeat offenders on college campuses, and the impacts of sexual abuse lead to underreporting and shame with many victim-survivors. We need to do better.
Connecticut’s current legislative endeavor with HB 6374 strives to provide protections for students who report alleged sexual misconduct including amnesty if the victim was incapacitated due to the influence of drugs, alcohol or medication, and the existence of a past or current dating or sexual relationship. The bill also establishes a Council on Sexual Misconduct Climate Surveys, which would identify and approve surveys for colleges and universities to utilize biennially. Lastly, the bill will provide on-going and updated data regarding the climate surveys no later than six months after distribution and every two years thereafter. These changes are fundamental to the betterment of changing the stigma around trauma-informed care and victim-survivor’s long lasting response to trauma. These surveys will provide Connecticut’s higher education institutes firsthand knowledge, safety needs and perceptions from the voices who matter: victim-survivors.
As a member of the New Horizons team and a MSW Policy Practice graduate student, I strive to empower victim-survivors to find their voice in advocating for legislative change.
If you are interested in learning how you can contact your local legislators in support of HB 6374, please contact me at [email protected].
This issue’s staff spotlight features our Director, Alyssa Martin. Alyssa oversees the operation of New Horizons and works with advocates to best support clients. As a former advocate and community educator, Alyssa knows the challenges clients may face and is always ready and willing to help. Click here to read the full spotlight!
Q. What is your role as director? What does a typical day look like for you?
My role as director involves a variety of responsibilities that range from overseeing the day-to-day operations of our services to supporting the growth and larger impact that our program has on the communities and people we serve.
Like many of the members of our team, there’s never a typical day in this role. My days usually consist of a variety of New Horizons and Community Health Center-related activities, ranging from the not-so-glamorous expense reporting to the community building initiatives with our partners and friends at Community Health Center and throughout Middlesex County. My favorite part of each week is when I get to meet with the New Horizons team, who are an incredible group of leaders and hard-working women that I greatly appreciate and admire.
Q. What drew you to working with victim-survivors of domestic violence?
I’ve been a part of the field for a long time. My first job was providing childcare at a women’s shelter in my hometown of Bismarck, North Dakota, and later I worked in intimate partner violence and sexual assault prevention education and crisis intervention at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. What drew me to this work apart from those early experiences is the fundamental desire to help people. I strongly believe that we will end relationship violence by investing in our communities and taking care of each other. Supporting each other and lifting each other up changes the conversation around how we handle intimate partner violence, and I believe this type of support is crucial and necessary in building a future without violence.
Q. What inspires you about your work in the domestic violence field?
The resiliency and bravery of our clients. I’m always in complete awe at how, even if they feel that they are doing something wrong by helping themselves or are terrified to seek help, our clients still find their way to us despite how uncertain and unsafe they feel. The clients we serve are making the hardest choices in order to keep themselves and their families safe, and their willingness to bring us with them on their journey is one of the greatest gifts.
Q. What advice do you have for possible clients who are looking for assistance from New Horizons?
My advice for potential clients is to know that we are here for them regardless of where they’re at in the relationship. I feel that many clients may not seek us out because they do not feel that they are in enough danger to receive services, and the most important thing I would like potential clients to know is that we offer a range of programs that could benefit them even if they are not in a place where they are ready to leave. We are here to help regardless if the service is as simple as answering a brief question or if the situation requires complex case management and crisis intervention. A phone call or message to us asking for help is never unwanted or unnecessary.
Q. What are you hopeful for in terms of a future without domestic violence?
I am hopeful for the day when we work ourselves out of the job because there will no longer be relationship violence.
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