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Sep 08
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Core Strategies to Reduce Systemic Inequities for All Survivors in Rural Communities

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Coordinated community responses (CCRs) to domestic violence have been successful over the past forty years in leveraging the criminal legal system to hold abusers accountable and send messages of help to survivors. Although some survivors have found safety, many others have, in fact, been negatively impacted by systemic intervention. In rural communities, such inequities can result when law enforcement is ill-equipped to meet the communication needs of Deaf survivors or when shelters are unprepared to meet the needs of survivors with mental illnesses. Rural CCRs need practical, concrete tools and strategies to identify and reduce systemic inequities so that ALL survivors in their communities experience increased safety, help, and support.

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Sep 08
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Confidentiality & Priveledge: Putting the Pieces Together to Protect Survivor Privacy

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Understanding how to support survivor’s privacy, privilege, and confidentiality rights is critical to support safety and choice. This webinar, presented by the Texas Council on Family Violence and the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault, will provide an overview of both federal confidentiality laws and state statutes that offer protections to survivors, including the new privilege statute just passed for survivors of sexual assault. The presenters will also discuss exceptions to the law, and the important pieces of a properly executed a release of information to ensure survivors are informed and their privilege is protected.

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Feb 22
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Police response to violence against women

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The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) provides a resource library for police response to violence against women, which includes tools, policies, and resources to assist law enforcement in responding effectively to human trafficking, sexual assault, domestic and sexual violence by police officers, stalking, strangulation, domestic violence, and other crimes of intimate partner violence (2019).

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Feb 21
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Episode 8: Rape culture in the time of #MeToo

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Amy Jones is a Licensed Professional Counselor Supervisor and the CEO of the Dallas Area Rape Crisis Center- an organization that provides counseling, crisis intervention and advocacy for those whose lives have been affected by sexual violence. Our conversation today focuses on Rape Culture, a concept that first surfaced in the 1970s, notably in the publication of the work “Rape: The First Sourcebook for Women,” put forth by the New York Radical Feminists Collective in 1974, and then further explored in depth in the 1975 documentary Rape Culture. The term Rape Culture remains popular still, and recent films like Duma (doo-muh) have explored the impact of rape culture around the world. Today, Rape Culture is broadly defined as sexual violence being treated as the norm, wherein victims are blamed for their own sexual assaults. Over the past several decades the discussion of rape culture has endured and become more organized and may have finally found a collective, universal voice within the #MeToo movement which is becoming an effective catalyst for changing how we as a society think about rape and women’s rights (2020).

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Feb 21
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Episode 7: The intersection of guns & domestic violence

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Research shows that abusers with a gun in the home are five times more likely to kill their partners than abusers who don’t have that same access to a gun, yet Federal law prohibits convicted domestic violence abusers, as well as those subject to certain protective orders, from possessing guns. Our guest today is United States Attorney Erin Nealy Cox. Sworn into office in November 2017, Ms. Nealy Cox is the chief federal law enforcement officer in the Northern District of Texas, which covers 100 counties, more than 96,000 square miles, and a population of approximately 8 million people. Appointed by the President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, she is responsible for bringing to justice anyone who violates federal law in her district and chairs the recently formed Domestic Violence Working Group. The working group, comprised of nine U.S. attorneys from across the country, including officials from Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio, and California, shares best practices for prosecuting domestic abusers, gun crimes, and provides guidance on how to work with local law enforcement agencies and nonprofits with the ultimate goal of reducing incidences of domestic violence. Content warnings for this episode include: physical violence and abuse (2020).

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Feb 21
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Episode 6: Embracing technology in a COVID-19 world

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With the advent of a COVID-19 pandemic, the gap between technology and humanity has narrowed further as we now find technology to be one of our few lifelines to the world outside of our own homes. We are quickly learning that, while technology can provide immediate access to lifesaving information and opportunities of all kinds, it can also confuse, confound, and concern. Today’s episode focuses on safely integrating technology into our lives as we simultaneously navigate the trauma of living through a pandemic. Our guests are Myra and Russell Strand, co-founders of Strand Squared, a training and consulting agency with the mission to “dramatically shift the cultural paradigm in order to improve society’s response to individuals who have experienced trauma, victimization, and other complex experiences.” Myra Strand has been working with survivors of complex trauma with a special emphasis on professional health as it relates to organizational trauma for 30 years. She was previously a faculty member at Northern Arizona University and Coconino Community College where she taught issues of violence, sexuality, and applied intersectionality for over a decade. Russell Strand is a retired Senior Special Agent (SSA) in the United States Army Criminal Investigations Command as well as retired Chief of the U.S. Army Military Police Behavioral Sciences Education & Training Division and the founder and owner of Russell Strand Consulting, LLC. He was selected by the Secretary of Defense to serve on the Congressionally-mandated Response Systems to Adult Sexual Assault Committee as a member of the Comparative Systems Subcommittee (2020).

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Feb 21
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Episode 3: Why strangulation matters

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Kelsey McKay is a nationally recognized expert on strangulation who developed a critical protocol for strangulation and domestic violence response and treatment. A former prosecutor from Travis County Texas, McKay founded McKay Training & Consulting to collaborate with leaders in fields of law enforcement in order to strengthen how communities collaborate, investigate, treat and prosecute strangulation and intimate partner cases. Her protocol – The Asphyxiation Assessment – is transforming the role of first responders in cases of crimes against women. This episode tackles the subject of strangulation – what it is, what it is not, and best practices in the fields of response, investigation, and prosecution. Content warnings for this episode include: abuse, physical and sexual violence (2020).

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Feb 21
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Episode 14: Navigating justice for women in Indian Country

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It is well-documented that women in tribal communities experience a significantly higher rate of domestic violence and human trafficking throughout the United States. To confront that reality, tribal communities have established organizations dedicated to understanding and implementing the law to better protect women and prevent these criminal acts. Another approach to supporting and empowering tribal women is through advocacy organizations like the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition- a statewide tribal coalition and a national tribal technical assistance provider, providing support, advocacy, and activities that utilize traditional teaching and other cultural strengths to encourage healing, build resilience, and counter the normalization of violence against tribal women. Joining the conversation is Nicole Matthews. Nicole is Anishinabe from the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, and is the Executive Director for the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition, where she has been employed since 2002. MIWSAC is a statewide Tribal Coalition and a national Tribal Technical Assistance Provider (2020).

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