October is Domestic Violence Awareness month! Join us in reading and understanding the facts and information about domestic violence everyday. #EndDVinMO #DVAM2022

Fact 1 - More than a black eye: domestic violence does not only include physical violence. Domestic violence is defined as a pattern of abusive or coercive behavior used to gain and maintain power and control over another person. This includes: emotional abuse, financial control, intimidation, pet abuse, sexual coercion and so much more. 

Fact 2 - 1 in 4 women and 1 in 10 men experienced contact sexual violence, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner in her lifetime (NISVS, 2017).For transgender and gender nonconforming individuals, more than half (54%) experience some form of intimate partner violence, including acts involving coercive control and physical harm (USTS, 2016).

Fact 3 - Women with disabilities are more likely to be abused by an intimate partner then able-bodied woman. People with disabilities are more vulnerable to violence and coercion due in part to isolation and denial of human rights (Nosek et al., 2001).

Fact 4 - “Domestic violence is inextricably linked to all forms of violence, and to end domestic violence, we must dismantle anti-Blackness, other types of racism, discrimination, and structures that perpetuate oppression."                 – Farzana Safiullah & Dr. Johnny Rice II.

Fact 5 - Victim-blaming attitudes can marginalize a survivor, making it harder to seek services and heal. When engaging in victim-blaming attitudes, society allows people causing harm to commit relationship abuse while avoiding
accountability for those actions. Intimate partner homicide is one of the homicide subtypes where there are red flags of potential danger prior to the lethal event, and because of that, there is a great opportunity for prevention…there
are avenues that we can use to intervene to prevent the occurrence of the lethal event in intimate partner homicides. Victim-blaming attitudes prevent society from acknowledging and changing toxic masculinity and rape culture. – The Center for Relationship Abuse Awareness.

Fact 6 - While the deadly intersection of guns and intimate partner violence affects all women, it has a disproportionate impact on Black, American Indian/Alaska Native, and Hispanic women. In addition, people in the LGBTQ community and people with disabilities are highly vulnerable to severe forms of relationship abuse, but there is alarmingly little data on the intersection of firearms and intimate partner violence among these populations.

Fact 7 - “Funding is critical in sustaining and hiring staff, purchasing new technologies, identifying safe housing alternatives, and modifying programs to ensure social distancing and adequate sanitation.” While this is true always it is even more so now during the Covid-19 pandemic. Support from the community is critical for Spirit of Hope Foundation's domestic violence programs to continue supporting survivors seeking safety and healing.

Fact 8 - We care about the emotional and mental well being of survivors. Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) survivors may be reluctant to seek traditional mental health services due to distrust in health systems resulting from discrimination and mistreatment of BIPOC communities. BIPOC mental health is impacted by
historical trauma and systemic racism, such as police violence, employment and housing discrimination, mass incarceration, and poverty. This means BIPOC domestic violence survivors experience additional layers of trauma specific to their experiences as BIPOC individuals, and services must account for the harm of systemic oppression. 

Fact 9 - American Indian and Alaskan Native women have the highest rates of physical and sexual violence in the nation. “For generations, American Indians and Alaskan Natives have struggled against and from under the effects
of colonization, inadequate resources, marginalization, termination and assimilation, and a lack of acknowledgment of the role that history has played in our continued hurt. Today’s high prevalence of violence in Native communities is a modern manifestation of historical trauma". - Lori Jump

Fact 10 - All Domestic Abuse is not inflicted upon adults. Children suffer just as much as the parent or guardian taking the physical or mental abuse. Highlighting and nurturing protective and resiliency factors is pivotal in mending and
transforming adverse experiences and providing children the tools necessary to heal from experiencing violence in their homes. Helping youth heal from exposure to domestic violence is vital to mitigate the many harmful effects
of their exposure. All advocates, educators, and health care providers to help improve their response to children who have experienced violence or trauma. Engaging youth in preventative efforts is a key part to ending domestic violence. Giving them an opportunity to be a co-creator of the effort as opposed to a passive participant, reinforces the importance of their voice and their experiences when it comes to a community free of violence. “Rest and self-care are so important. When you take time to replenish your spirit, it allows you to serve others from the overflow. You cannot serve from an empty vessel.” - Eleanor Brown

Fact 11 - Healing and stopping Domestic Violence is not a straight line or an exact science. Experts realize that there are various factors that play a part in the actions victims experience. “The healing process is best described as a spiral. Survivors go through the stages once, sometimes many times; sometimes in one order, sometimes in another. Each time they hit a stage again, they move up the spiral: they can integrate new information and a broader range of feelings, utilize more resources, take better care of themselves, and make deeper changes.” - Laura Hough

Fact 12 - Spirit of Hope Foundation wants to help create safe spaces for survivors to address the grief and trauma
caused by failures of punitive justice systems and to take vital steps towards embracing other forms of justice. Many sufferers have been so isolated and despondent that the only support they got was from their pets. “I was isolated for such a long time that my dog was my only companion for a while. When I felt like there was no hope, he gave me a reason to live. Just having my dogs around me now provides comfort when I'm having anxiety, upset or feeling stressed. They're so intuitive and so loving!” – Survivor

Fact 13 - “Rethinking our approach to intimate partner violence (IPV) through a public health framework, replacing the
dominant criminalization strategy, the urgency of violence prevention is elevated, and we can intervene before harm occurs, rather than reacting and incarcerating. A public health approach, compels us to closely examine the social
determinants of health that drive violence such as poverty and adverse childhood experiences. It urges us to reconsider the cycles of violence many are trapped in, to address the unequal conditions that foster violence, and to revisit, how, if at all, we foster healing from the trauma violence imprints on our minds and bodies”. – Alliance
for Boys and Men of Color

Fact 14 - Justice can exist outside of state sanctioned legal systems. An example of this is transformative justice. Transformative justice is a process where all individuals affected by an injustice are given the opportunity to address and repair the harm. Those affected consider and recount how an act has affected them and what can be done to repair the harm. The harm doer is then held accountable to the individual by way of restitution. Responding to and preventing violence outside legal-based systems requires reflection and conversations within our communities.

Fact 15 - Communities whose members experience greater prevalence of domestic violence face barriers to participating in prevention and intervention programs and services, including low-income communities, communities of color, immigrant communities, Native American communities, LGBTQ communities, the Deaf and Hard of Hearing
community, and communities of people with disabilities. Communities interested in working towards preventing
domestic violence and interested in pursuing transformative justice, must address cultural differences to provide culturally relevant services for survivors of domestic violence.

“True accountability is not only apologizing, understanding the impacts your actions have caused on yourself and others, making amends or reparations to the harmed parties; but most importantly, true accountability is changing your behavior so that the harm, violence, abuse does not happen again.” -Mia Mingus - Transformative & Disability Justice
Organizer