Live captioning by Ai-Media PAULA JULIAN: We will get started in just a few minutes. And if you would like to introduce yourself in the chat, please let us know where you are calling from and we will again get started in a few minutes. And thank you. Participants are coming into the room. We will get started for a few more minutes. Folks are introducing themselves in the Zoom chat. Thank you again for joining and welcome. (Multiple speakers) PAULA JULIAN: Look at all of the folks calling in from Alaska, Nevada, Wisconsin. Arizona. Wow. Is your volume turned up all the way? WENDY SCHLATER: Yeah. It is, but I can barely hear. I have some counsel in the room with me, so they are watching it on the big screen. I think maybe it is the audio that is stuck. PAULA JULIAN: Okay. WENDY SCHLATER: Will figure it out. PAULA JULIAN: Good morning La Jolla tribal Council. Good morning Larry N. Morning Dave! SPEAKER: Hi, you guys. PAULA JULIAN: Good morning. CONNIE BRUSHBREAKER: (Indiscernible) just walked in. Come see before we get started. PAULA JULIAN: (Indiscernible) is in there? CONNIE BRUSHBREAKER: You are shy in the baby (Unknown name). PAULA JULIAN: Good morning. Good morning, baby. Good morning shy. CONNIE BRUSHBREAKER: It is afternoon here, remember? PAULA JULIAN: Sorry. It is officially 12 noon hereto. It's not morning anymore. With that, we will go ahead and get started. My name is Paula Julian. I am a Senior Policy Specialist with the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center. Again, thank you so much for joining us today, Monday, October 2. Celebrating and honoring our dear sister, mother, friend Tillie Black Bear. For today's webinar entitled Reclaiming the Sacredness of Tribal Women. Honoring the Words of -- Connie, I Need to Practicing It to Lease Lakota Name. (Pronouncing in Lakota) Tillie Black Bear. I want to thank our wonderful beautiful presenters calling in. They will be introducing themselves here in a minute. We've got Carmen O'Leary with the Native Women's Society of the Great Plains, who was our first Tillie Black Bear women are sacred award recipient. Actually our second. Colleen Clark was our first. But we have Carmen, and we have Tillie's daughter Connie Brushbreaker. It we've got sister friend Wendy Schlater from the La Jolla band of Luiseno Indians. Thank you to the three of you for joining us today. Before we have you all introduce yourselves a little bit more, I'm going to have Tang do our housekeeping with Zoom. SPEAKER: Thank you, Paula. Afternoon everybody. Welcome to today's webinar. For those of you who may not have attended one of our webinars in the past, I'm going to walk through some of our housekeeping. For those unfamiliar with Zoom, you should have a toolbar down at the bottom. Within that toolbar, I'd like to highlight a few sections. On the farthest left, is the audio section. There is a little arrow that is pointing -- I gassed up just a little bit slightly to the right of the microphone. When you click on that, you should be able to select a speaker. Use this in the event that audio is not functioning or is kind of jittery. And we are all sounding like robots. Click on that. You should be able to select different audio features. On a Mac, it will say same as the system, or MacBook Pro speakers, or leave computer audio. You should switch over to clean -- Levon computer audio and switch to phone audio and then switch back stop within just a couple of seconds. What that will do is it will request a new audio connection from the Zoom app. Should that not fix your audio issues, there are instructions there to be able to switch audio completely over to the phone. The other sections I like to highlight -- there is a chat feature there. Many of you are already using that. Thank you for participating in that chat feature. During today's webinar, should you have or request or needed the closed captioning, we have a lab closed captioning taking place. Down at the bottom, if you do not see a Button button, --caption button click on the three horizontal dots where it says More. And you should be able to select captions. Today's presentation is also being provided ASL interpretation is being provided by wonderful Connie who is on-screen. We are hoping that will be helpful for everyone in our audience. It occasionally, you may see where the visuals were the video feed will disappear. There is a View icon to the upper right. You can click on that View icon to get the speakers as well as the video and screen sharing in View. Click on that View icon and then collect -- click side-by-side gallery. That should restore everyone's images alongside the shared screen. Other than that, I hope you enjoy today's presentation. Back to you, Paula. PAULA JULIAN: Thank you so much, Tang. And again, thank you to our wonderful speakers, sisters. I am going to go ahead and -- do you all want to introduce yourself before Carmen begins? Okay. We will do Carmen, Connie and then Wendy introductions. And then Carmen will go ahead and have you start. WENDY SCHLATER: (Music plays) CARMEN O'LEARY: That was quite an introduction. (Laughter) CARMEN O'LEARY: I don't know if that music was for me, but I don't think it was. My name is Carmen O'Leary. I am a citizen of the Cheyenne River CU tribe which is composed of (indiscernible). I live out in the boonies, in the suburb of green grass, South Dakota. I work for native women's society. Been in this business since about 1988. Next. WENDY SCHLATER: That is you, Connie. You are on mute. (Laughs) CONNIE BRUSHBREAKER: Okay. All right, so I am Connie black brush breaker. I am to Lee's second daughter, the youngest. I am the baby. And I am just excited to be here and to share mom's life with everybody. So, thank you for the honor to be on this call with everybody, and for everybody that is joining in, welcome. Okay, Wendy. WENDY SCHLATER: All right. (Language unknown to captioner) hello everyone and good afternoon. My name is Wendy Schlater. I am from the La Jolla band of Luiseno Indians. I'm currently our tribal chairwoman. Also the program director for the at the lack of program that services our community in addressing to end violence against native women. -- Avellaka Program. Thank you for joining us today. CARMEN O'LEARY: Paula, were you going to introduce yourself? PAULA JULIAN: I think I totally forgot that. Thank you so much Carmen. Again, I am Paula Julian, Senior Policy Specialist at NIWRC. I am Filipino, and I live and work on the traditional homelands of the (Unknown name). I am just honored to be here with my sister is to take the time -- October 1 is actually Tillie Black Bear day. It was on a Sunday, so we decided to have our event today, Monday, October 2. But we wanted to -- it is important for us to always pause. We get so busy doing the work that we do to advocate for restoring it tribal sovereignty and increasing native women's safety, that sometimes we forget to remember where we have come from and how that sets the foundation for where we go. And so, just taking a moment today to remember everything that Tillie did in her life, and she did in sisterhood with so many women. Some who have already passed, and some who are still today. And some who continue in terms of the future generations. We want to take a moment and just remember some of those teachings, and think about how we can grow and expand those teachings to continue to increase native women's safety. With that, I will turn this back over to Carmen and Connie and Wendy. Thank you. CARMEN O'LEARY: Hi, Carmen again. The slideshow that is going here in the background, that was provided by Tillie's family.. I believe it was a memorial. You can kind of see her life from when she was little, on through her professional life. In her family. By the time I came along in this work, and I came from social work, child protection services, behavioral health, I had a lot to learn about advocacy. Tillie had been doing this work for over 10 years by the time I met her. I remember one of our first meetings, we were in a room with a lot of (indiscernible)... And she was talking to them about revoking the medals of honor for the soldiers who had massacred Lakota women and children and elderly at Wounded Knee. I'm sure a lot of you don't maybe know about that massacre. But it is kind of a heartbreaking story. And the men who were in the Calvary at the time were given these medals of honor. And I want to highlight that story just to show you that Tillie's work was just really about stopping the abuse and raising the status of native people in not allowing that. But, she was able to really -- I just thought, "Oh my God, she's going to talk to these non-it Indian women and they are going to get up and leave." That can happen, because Tillie was able to articulate the story, and was able to do in a reasonable and logical manner. Very nonoffensive. And it was very amazing. You know, she had just a quiet kind of charisma that would pull people in. But I wasn't really honored to be there. I was just proud to be part of the group that was with her. -- Was -- because of the way that she was able to present that argument. That fight is still not over all these years later. There has been congressional legislation introduced, I think it started in 2019, and there was a bill in 2023. It's past the house several times but has not gone all the way through. It's called the Remove the Stain Act. It's been a lot of proponents of that build, but Tillie was the first one I was able to hear about that. And what that meant to Lakota people. We have to remember that one of the things that she talked about was how the genocide of native people really started with the target on their women. That target is there today, and we can see that and all the violence, whether in our own communities or urban settings, the high rates of violence towards Native women. Every time that we can verbalize and find places to be able to have people listen to different stories, whatever the exploitation is, whether it is the Remove the Stain Act, economic situations, injustices, crime, all of that is necessary to help elevate native women, and prevent the violence against women. I really consider myself so lucky that Tillie saw something in me that she was willing to give me time to explain a lot of the things, to sit with her. I really was able to learn a lot from her. And she wasn't above, like, kind of scolding me at times if I wasn't willing to get up in front of the room or something. She would talk about that it really isn't about me. It was about the work that we do when we needed to use our voices to help stop violence against Indigenous women and their children. And to continue in our work. Those are the kinds of lessons that I hope, throughout this month, or anytime that you are listening to her story, that you see that it is about building relationships. It is about getting out in our own communities, as well as other spaces to build our work. And to change our systems so that they are more responsive and better able to protect the safety of Native women. We know today whether we are talking about a MMIW issue, sexual assault, sex trafficking, financial, have a long way to go in this movement and client systems change. I could talk more but I think I need to get other people in turn, is that correct? Is Connie? Connie, I think you are on mute. CONNIE BUSHBREAKER: My mom… When mom started this work, my sister and I did not know the difference with people and their lives, I guess. This was just part of what she did. We always had, growing up, we always had people, women and children in and out of our house. My grandmother's house used to be like that. It was a normal thing for us. We didn't really realize that we were considered a safe house, I guess. The woman and children. #4 woman and children. That was mom, before the movement started even she always put others first. We lived in Vermillion and she got the call about this issue, violence against women and children, it was a no-brainer for her. She put her stuff on hold and was working on her doctorate at the time. **Audio lost** ... I think one of the most memorable to times with her and all the work was being able to travel with her. You know, when she was with the national coalition against domestic violence, I think as the president or chairperson. Anyway, she was doing -- I don't think he would consider it on site visits. That's think what I would consider it now. She went around to different shelters and different places. I remember we counted it as our vacation at one point. We loaded up the car. She made a big bed for my sister and me in the back post we had a cooler of food. We always traveled at night so we weren't always, "Mom, can we stop here. When we gonna get there?" I remember being able to see the different places. Her sitting with a group of minute! Women going over things. (Indiscernible) being there and having our own little groups, you know? It was quite interesting at the time. We met a lot of different amazing people. But doing that, two weeks, going all the way up to Portland and down the coast was amazing. And now when I think about it, we hardly saw my mom during those times, because she was always off doing something else. Somebody was always entertaining me and my sister, which I'm thankful for. Because we did get to see a lot of things that week. Evening traveling out to DC with her, being able to go with her to the zoo in wintertime. DC was fun. Thinking about my mom and thinking about everything that she has done, when I tell myself I wasn't connected emotional. But, you know, my mom was amazing. And she was a big part of everybody's life. Not only in the movement, but just within our family. You know, she was the oldest girl of all of her siblings. And so many others -- she would live there really give you the shirt off her back if you needed it. -- Literally. You know, just seeing all of these videos -- I finally got my computer back up, or one of my black external book. Confronting all of these all the pictures of my mom and my sister. It was us three growing up, we were our own Three Musketeers, or she used to say three bears. I am the lone wolf now. Just kidding. I do miss her. I miss my sister. When I think about the work that still needs to be done, it is a lot of work that still needs to be done but I am so thankful that there are so many amazing people that continue to this -- do this for everyone. Wendy, do you want to go ahead before I start bawling? You are still muted. SPEAKER: You had your audio on earlier. Can you hear us? No, is she frozen? Oh, she can. WENDY SCHLATER: There you go. It was not allowing me to unmute myself. Now somebody let me unmute myself. Yes, Connie, I miss her too and I know a lot of us older people in the movement miss her as well. (Speaks Indigenous language) For sharing your mother with us. I know for a fact a lot of these programs and grant opportunities would have never come to Indian country. I think that's one of the most important things that we need to remember and share with the younger ones that are coming into the movement, and that is one of the other purposes, why we have this day of recognition, Tillie Black Bear day of recognition, because Tillie's activism in the early 70s, right here, where you see these women, these non-native women, these are some of the woman that she congregated with in Washington DC in the early 70s to advocate for programs to end violence against not only Native women but also non-native woman as well. In the early 70s, if you talked to anyone of these founders of the movement, you will hear that the response, the police response was… I will show up and if I have to return, what is going to go to jail. -- Someone is going to go to the jail. The woman was left with her abuser after law enforcement left, which was not good. It was a time in the early 70s that women were just tired of sheltering their sisters, that there had to be more of a law enforcement policy intervention to stop the abuse. Because the sheriff showing up and making a threat to arrest somebody if they have to come back was not good enough. I think through all of that advocacy, and everything, we saw the first shelter dollars through (unknown term) come through. I think that is over 30 years old, where the violence against women act is younger as it was passed in 1994, 1994, Paula? Yes. 1994. I think it's important to realize your voice is powerful, your tribal leadership's consultations are powerful, if your tribal leader cannot make it to tribal consultation, advocate to your leadership to send you, with assigned testimony from them to attend these tribal consultations which are allowable through the grant funds that we've received to pay for your way, so it is no expense for the tribe as well. That is the only way we will be able to offer services beyond shelter doors. Kelly was also known to advocate for services beyond shelter doors. -- Tilley was also known to advocate for services beyond shelter doors. Whether it was finishing their education, going to rehab, offering child assistance while mom finishes her GED or goes to school, these are all services that are allowable under (unknown term) dollars, under the tribal OVW set-aside grant, and our set-aside, tribal set-aside OVC grade. These are unique funding opportunities that you can also expand, so don't think that DB and SA programs can only address shelter restraining orders, court services, forensic interviews, we can go beyond shelter doors and empower our sisters and brothers that are coming through our doors. Also, the grant funding also allows professional counseling services as well to be able to expand and help those that got abused earlier in life that may not find them -- may now find themselves in 60s and 70s needing healing to happen and these are programs that Tillie advocated for. This did not come from the goodness of the government or the system because when the original systems were being developed in this country, our grandmothers, our people were not at the table developing these policies. And these systems. Now we see a turn in federalism where we get the opportunity to be at the table. To utilize our voices, and Tillie was a great example in doing that for all of our people. I know when our program was getting established in 2009, we had a retreat in Santa Barbara and Tillie was one of the ones that helped to facilitate that. Just by her sharing of all of the other Native women's programs that were developed, and doing the work helped inspire our women locally at home to take charge. To use their voices, to use their influence as grandmothers in the community. To get the awareness out, to reconnect back to our tribal value systems and this is not how we treat each other as relatives. That was very powerful, because up until 2009, in our community, it was considered, that is what happens in their home. What happens in their home affects my home and my relatives homes and my other relatives homes, so what happens in that home is our business. So that is what being part of a tribe is, a village, we take care of one another. And everything. We do not micromanage each other, but we are supposed to take care of each other and be there. Not in a judgmental way, and Tillie was very good at teaching, you know, don't point fingers. Don't prevent the abusers from coming through your door for services either. Because our men are not throwaway men. That is very powerful. When you look at non-native domestic violence, sexual assault programs, the thing is, they divide the family up. Tillie's teachings were all about how do you keep the family together. If it is not lethal. If there is change that can happen. And it was recognizing what colonization and how it has impacted our tribal communities and how do we use our tribal value systems to get back to where we can support a whole family unit coming through? That is a very beautiful thing. That is, when you see the writing and read the legislation in VAWA, that is mostly silly advocating at the table for us. Educating and organizing other women, coalitions, other tribes domestic violence and sexual assault programs, and because we were able to educate and organize and inform our tribal leaderships, we have title IX inside of VAWA. And we were able to have these tribal specific grants available to us where we get to write the script and we get to develop our programs designed for and by Native people. So that they can match our community. I am just going to go ahead and start there. -- Stop. I will let Carmen chime in. Tillie is our icon for our movement. And rightfully so, because she was the first Native American woman to go back to DC to advocate for all of us. I know there is other Native women that were addressing these issues inside their tribes and villages, but Tillie was the one who actually went to Congress and did something about it, and pulled all of us along with her. And everything. So, anyways, I hope you read the VA W a book at that NIWRC has that talks about the movement and stories and different tribal communities. It is available on Amazon, and it is a great book to read if you want to know more about our movement. When I say our, I say all of us together. Apollo, can someone dropped the book in the chat? PAULA JULIAN: I'm trying to ask paying to do it, because I am (indiscernible) screen right now. SPEAKER: Carmen, did you want to add anything? You are on mute. You are on mute, Carmen. (Laughter) CARMEN O'LEARY: Anyway. I guess I am not in charge of that. Anyway, Wendy made a whole lot of good points on many of the things that Tillie was able to organize through the years. She was a great organizer, and great about sharing information. I think we sometimes are missing out on that. Is to have those interpreters for the people that are in the policy work, bringing it back down to the grassroots level. And that was really a strong point for Tillie. You know, a lot of the things that are happening in nowadays, were things that really had their roots into Lee's work. -- Tillie's probably everybody is sitting on this phone call got the job in (indiscernible) that you do now because of something that she did back then. It was these different streams of money. They talked about (Unknown name) and (Unknown name) was one of the funding streams that brought me into working in the shelter. I think that is what I was paid under first. Accursed VA W a, we are aware of the Violence Against Women Act and the reauthorization (indiscernible). One of the things about that registration, even tribal leaders couldn't believe happened in 1994, was VOWA didn't say just estate, it said estate/tribes. We were included in the funding from the get-go. That was landmark, because we couldn't be left out of that funding stream once it was written that way. We didn't get a lot of money to start, but we were in there. Remember that Grant was one of the first ones. I wrote on a laptop which didn't have any Internet connection or anything. I was able to do it at the kitchen table after but my kids to bed. We were all calling each other and talking about what we could do with it. And so, it was a very exciting time for everybody. But one of the things that we noticed was we were never in these other pots of money in any significant way. And it hasn't been until the last few years that we had the Focus of Tribal set-aside. We had the (Unknown name) set aside, and we've gotten an increase in that. It still is and at the level that would be equitable to address the problem as it is in other communities. Even the resource center, The National Indigenous Resource Center that came about through the work that Tillie did in developing allies. It was the non-Indian women and other allies in the LGBTQ+ community and other people of color resources that give up some of their funding (indiscernible) called Sacred Circle. A national resource Center for Indigenous women. That relationship making. It is never a waste of your time to talk to whatever leader, whether it is a tribal leader going to DC, about your issues. I do that often. Or talking to your senator or congressional person when they come to town. Those are the relationships we need to make to be able to educate them about the needs in your community. What would help you. It isn't even always about funding. It might be about how hard it is to initiate the special jurisdiction over non-Indians and what that need is. And what maybe that could look like. Maybe it is your US attorneys not following through with all of the mandates that they've had it since 2010. I just recently heard of one US attorney saying, "The tribes are not doing what they need to do to build this relationship." You know what? Since 2010 in the Tribal Law and Order Act, and Tillie was still here then, the mandate has been on the US attorneys to reach out to tribes to make a lot of this stuff work. There isn't a single mandate (indiscernible) reach out to the tribal attorneys. You might want to tell your tribal leadership that little tidbit. We are not lobbying anybody. Let's make sure we don't cross that line was not we are always educating, as Tillie would say stop because when you are looking under federal dollars, you never lobby, you always educate. I have to put in a plug here with White Buffalo Calf Woman Society, one of the oldest shelters in the needed speculation in Indian country. That was really a lot of heart and soul that Tillie put into that. I remember going to the 20 anniversary and the 25th anniversary. We thought that was so amazing. Her legacy really lives on this last summer. A little over a month ago, I got to go to the 45th anniversary of White Buffalo Calf Woman Society. So, that was really outstanding to realize all of the women who also worked under Tillie, but carrying out her vision and her philosophy. You know, the people that come there are not called clients. They are called relatives. Relative terms are used. That was Tillie. You know, Lakota culture has a story about the White Buffalo calf women who brought all of the wisdom and at the ceremonies and values to the Lakota people. And she was met by two men. One had bad thoughts, and he was turned to bone. Turned into a stock of bones. But you know, Tillie was always pushing that story forward. Even in thought, women should be respected. Almost every one of our cultures has some sort of value that violence against women is not acceptable. It is not as something that is life-giving or life nurturing. Those are the kinds of things that I learned from Tillie. We are not just anti-violence. We are pro-life. And pro-life, not around the abortion issue. But things that are life-sustaining. Things that help our lifeways live on. And violence never works in that circle. Them are a lot of the kinds of teachings that I got from her in the that. I think when you really talk about dedication and commitment, and the role that Tillie was able to play in that, later on in her years, she was sick a lot of times. But she was still coming to me. She was still traveling. She was still talking about her work. And that commitment to the work is a legacy that I hope to role model and carry out and pass on to other people that, like she says, it's really not about you. It is about (indiscernible) have happened. I know there is a lot of self-care stuff and things like that out there. But a commitment. What does that mean? What are we going to do? I know Connie made that possible, because Connie was always at her side when she was traveling and keeping her going. And so, I would always feel appreciated that that could happen. But them are just a few of the thoughts that come to mind when thinking of Tillie. I'm hoping that as you read about her and see the other work of the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center and she again had stepped up and made this happen, she was the one that asked me to be on the board when she was stepping off. And again, that was really an honor for me. But all of the things that she did was relate to this work. And we still have violence against women? Yeah. We do. There is a whole lot more things happening. Even after we had shelters with when I came to work at the shelter, women got 30 days and had to get out. That was it. We didn't do production work or anything. Even since then, all of the things that are in place to stop now National Indigenous Women's Resource Center has housing initiative, you know, where making housing available for victims, so they are not homeless. Not having to stay in places where there is violence. You know, this is the policy stuff that is going into action. It is part of theVO law from 2023. --VOWA That was probably one of the biggest excitements. I know I don't have a life is that this is probably my life is that some of the things I'm really excited for this year. We are going to put that into action without learning how to build the house ourselves. But we have two -- do you have some more things to say, Connie? CONNIE BRUSHBREAKER: Thank you Carmen. We have some questions, at least one question from a participant as well. And I know this has come up at other times as well. I don't know -- anyways, the question is -- PAULA JULIAN: But if we can't trust our tribal leaders with sensitive information because of gossip in the community, where our business getting out, and that brings shame into the families involved? What is our next step? Who do you go to if we don't trust our tribal leaders? CARMEN O'LEARY: One time I called Tillie, we had this thing going on in our community where the tribal leadership was trying to get the records. And not (indiscernible) reason. The tribal advocates I was working for at that program at the time, they actually just barricaded themselves in the office and were on the radio. I went over and I asked Tillie to come, and I asked (Unknown name) to come. People outside of our community so they were other eyes on this situation. And not in a bad way, but to educate them about their funding and about what confidentiality means. It turned out really well. There was a couple of Suquamish Tribal Council, probably four or five of them out of 15 that were Lakota speakers. They understood it so much better when Tillie talked about it, because you have to understand that when women come to us and they trust us were men with this kind of information, that they are really honoring us. Every one of our funding forces, if we cannot go back on any of those, (indiscernible) only get this information if you are -- only getting this funding if you are keeping the information confidential. That was some of the places to start. October is domestic violence month, one of the things that I get every month when (indiscernible) in my community was students (indiscernible) in October and April and talk to our tribal leadership about what we had done. Give them our annual report and or statistics. And thank them for our support. Try to get them to them before there was a problem. There were a couple of things I think you could look at as bringing in outsiders. Pointing out your funding source requires a confidentiality. And making relationships before you have (indiscernible) I think are some of the best prevention things on that kind of stuff. It is always going to be a problem in our small communities. But them are a couple of days was not maybe Wendy has amorphous -- Some more. WENDY SCHLATER: Thank you, but before that I think Carmen asked Connie if she wanted to share anything else, were you going to share something? CONNIE BUSHBREAKER: On the same topic, I remember how mom made sure that the shelter was kept completely separate from any tribal politics. She did not accept anything that involved the tribe in the beginning. I remember when she made that stance, she made… Somebody told her that she made her own death sentence at the time. She was not giving information to any of the tribal Council people or giving into any political anything. I remember, me and my sister being scared, we were a lot younger than, but she always told us that no matter what we would be safe. Nobody would ever do anything to harm us. She also wanted to make sure that no other women or children were harmed. Even today, there is always tribal politics that get into everything. She was threatened with tribal Council so many times, it got to kind of be funny. She would always say OK, when, let me know, I will be there. She was not scared to go in front of tribal Council because she knew what she needed to say and always knew how to say it. She was always graceful with her words, to get people to listen or be able to explain away that they would understand. -- In a way they would understand. That is the big thing. Knowing where you are coming from and knowing how to explain things to the tribal Council or let people know that it's about safety. If they are going to keep continue to ask for confidential information, they are not going to get it. It is scary. When you are talking about woman's safety. There has been several times where we were at the shelter and you would have irate partners or men coming and pounding on the door, wanting their woman back. But she would never let that happen. I encourage you to find those words, I think everybody has that little bit of mom side that can explain things. That is me. Go ahead, Wendy. WENDY SCHLATER: Thank you, Connie. I think, from my experience, it is really being knowledgeable of why you are an advocate. And what you are hoping to bring to the table for our tribes. In 2009, there was a very horrific rape on our reservation. It was traumatic. I will get to that right now, Monica, what is the most, less traumatic approach? Basically, I knew if I was going to address this issue in the tribal village, and I was not on the Council, I was just a community tribal member, and working in education at the time, but I got tired of hearing about these abuse cases popping up and nobody doing anything about them. And everything. Anyways, I worked with my coparent at the time and, which is Paula Julian, who is on the webinar with us, and just really, we wrote a grant and one of the things we did was organize our grandmothers in our community because we knew the grandmothers are the ones that tell the families to go to the general counsel meetings to vote on issues. If your grandmother gives you a call and tells you to show up and vote this way, (Laughs), You will show about the meeting and vote that way, right? -- Up at the meeting and vote that way, right? We knew we had to have our advisory committees consist of all of the grandmothers, and by the grandmother surrounding the development of the program it gave us a political shield. Not only was tribal Council going to mess with us, they would mess with the grandmothers in our community. That was not going to happen. The second thing we did was organized our women and also invited our men as well. In the beginning, the men were not very receptive of it and everything, they were calling us a lot of different names, it hurts because all we were trying to do was make our community safer and happier and more peaceful. But they were part of the problem so we knew that they had to be part of the solution. Then the advisory committee opened up to our men as well to join us at the table. There were a few men that did join us. Then we brought in trainings on confidentiality from our TA providers, that service and support our grants and everything. So we had community trainings on confidentiality and why that was important and how you can jeopardize somebody's safety by disclosing information and we make sure that our counsel was invited and also scheduled those trainings around the open scheduling of the tribal Council. So they did not have an excuse not to attend. Once our counsel learned about HIPAA and how there has to be a separation of authority and powers, they did not question our victim logs, they did not ask to see the victim logs, the they did not call us and to ask why you are serving so-and-so or getting involved in this issue. They pretty much left us alone. That comes from a grounding of your advocacy, what you are therefore and how you represent that. So the jurisdictional issues are always an issue, especially if you are (unknown term) state, like in California. We have tribal, state and county jurisdictions here. So it gets confusing at times. And there is even forestry jurisdiction. That gets confusing. That does not allow us to divulge the nature of the abuse that our women, our men, are experiencing when they come through the doors and ask for assistance and everything. One of the things that I always use, when I have an ROI and have to go to counsel and advocate for this woman to get into tribal housing or get jumped up on the list and she has given me permission, to share and advocate on her behalf, or his behalf, and I always go back to, we would not be in this situation if the abuser did not try to take matters into their own hand. If the abuser did not treat their partner the way they did, we would not be in this issue. A lot of the time, our people do not understand violence or are afraid of it and try to re-victimize the person being in that situation, by why did you go back, why did you continue this, and there is 101 reasons why people stay in abusive relationships, but that is another webinar (Laughs) We will not go into that right now. Educating and organizing your community to stand up with you, educating domestic violence awareness walks and having a couple of trainings leading up to the walk to build the momentum. Sexual assault awareness walks, we are starting to see a lot of MMIW, MMIR, MMIP awareness activities. We cannot forget that MMIW happens on a spectrum of violence. It does not happen overnight. MMIW starts from early on and escalates and escalates and escalates and escalates. At the end, you are either missing or murdered. That is the end of the game. So I think, I hope Monica, this helps you a little bit, if not, you are welcome to give me a call and I will put my contact information in here and everything. It is hard-working in your own tribal community, especially when you're from there, you don't get to go home from it. You live there, you read that, you see it and experience different things. The one thing we pride ourselves here is confidentiality. That is the only way our women are going to, and men, and children are going to continue to come and work with us in their healing and everything. I hope that helps. PAULA JULIAN: Before, and I know Carmen I think has something to add, the therapy, there's a question about the therapy provided, if it is culture based and I know there is a range of responses on that, but do you want to share? WENDY SCHLATER: Through our (unknown term) and OBC monies we are able to have on-site professional counseling come to the reservation on the evening times, two times per week and they do children therapy, family focused therapy and also individual therapy. We don't do couples counseling, because couples counseling does not really work in abusive situations, that has to be individualized. So we have that program going on and it is specific to us because we bet our therapists and also give them a cultural training before they start working with our community. Even though they are mandated reporters we have a protocol for them to not just pick up the phone after they leave the client or the client leaves. And call CPS on them. If there is something that triggers a report to CPS, they disclose it to the person there and then make that call together to CPS. They are not breaking the trust between the community and the therapy. That is important that that happens together. And you bet your therapist before they come onto the reservation. -- Vet your therapist before they come onto the reservation. There is a lot of non-native saviorism and you don't want that kind of therapist working with your community. Carmen? CARMEN O'LEARY: I was going to start a closing because I'm honored to be here and I wish I could've met everybody on the webinar. As far as your questions, they are valid questions, they need some answers, you may have a trouble coalition in your area and that would be a good place to look for answers and also if you need to know about that on the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center has a list of tribal coalitions. And also (unknown term) providers. I want to thank you all for being here and sharing this bit of space with us and honoring Tillie Black Bear. Thank you. PAULA JULIAN: Thank you Carmen. Thank you Wendy for sharing your contact information. Was there anything either of you wanted to say and closing? CONNIE BRUSHBREAKER: Just in the words of mom is, "Be a good relative. Be that good at relative that is there to help with everything and anything you can." So, thank you guys for listening. Thank you guys for honoring mom. But really grateful and thankful that the work continues. Hopefully one day, people will be healed from any of the trauma that they go through throughout life that has to deal with violence. (Language unknown to captioner) thank you, thank you. WENDY SCHLATER: Thank you, Connie. I would like to remind everybody to use your voice. You are not there by accident. Where you are in your position. You are thereby synchronicity of the universe. Use your voice, encourager tribal leadership to attend tribal consultations. Those are important. The think (indiscernible) and empower our communities to grow and develop. And you know, and just not have fun with it, but just appreciate the moment that we are in a space in our history that we can develop programs for and by Natives. Our tribal communities and everything. The creativity and programming is up to us. That is what I mean by having fun with it. Working with the little ones and the elders. And connecting the youth and the adults in your community. And just enjoy life and just take it moment by moment. Deep breaths and everything. You'll be all right. (Laughs) Thank you for being here. PAULA JULIAN: Thank you, Wendy. Thank you Connie and Carmen. Please go to our website for more information, including -- I think we've got a list of the tribal coalitions on our website. If not, we can refer you to the alliance of tribal coalitions to end violence. I will put their website in the chat. Okay, that was it. That didn't type in right. It is ATC EB.org. Thank you Tang. -- ATC EV.org. Again, once the webinar ends, you will get a chance to fill out a little survey, just letting us know what you thought of the webinar, if you have any follow-up questions left for any of our presenters or for NIWRC. Again, think about and honor Tillie, but anyone else in your life who represented what Tillie did too many of us. I could hear her so much through the three of you speaking in terms of her strength and her dedication and her passion and her love and her warmth and happiness. So, I wish you all a beautiful rest of your Monday. I'm happy Tillie Black Bear Women Are Sacred Day. -- Women are sacred day. We will see you at the rest of our events this year. Thank you everybody. Live captioning by Ai-Media