1 LIGHTLY EDITED FILE Domestic Violence and Disabilities National Indigenous Women's Resource Center Remote CART September 16, 2020 2:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. CDT * * * * * This text is being provided in a lightly edited draft format, and is the work product of the CART captioner. Any reproduction, publication, or other use of this CART file without the express written consent of the captioner is strictly prohibited. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility, and this lightly edited CART file may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. Due to the live nature of the event, some names and/or terms may be misspelled. This text may also contain phonetic attempts at sounds and words that were spoken and environmental sounds that occurred during the event. * * * * * CART Provided by Jayne Carriker, RPR, CRR, CRC Paradigm Reporting & Captioning, a Veritext Company 612.339.0545 captioning-paradigm@veritext.com 2 >> Hello, everyone. My name is Gwendolyn Packard, Ihanktonwan Dakota, training and technical assistance specialist with the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center. NIWRC upholds grassroots advocacy and promotes social change to address violence against native women and children. NIWRC is dedicated to strengthening the sovereignty of Indian nations, Alaska native villages, native Hawaiians and tribal communities by increasing their capacity to respond to domestic violence and enhancing safety for Indian women and children. This webinar was made possible by a grant from the administration on children, youth and families, Family and Youth Services Bureau, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The views expressed herein are solely the responsibility of the panel and do not necessarily represent the official views of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I want to point out that during this webinar we are closed captioning, and I'd like to introduce Zena Carroll, our techspert to explain how to access the closed captioning before we begin. She will also explain how to use the control panel and 3 how you can ask questions during the webinar. Following this presentation there may be time for additional questions or comments. Please know that all questions will be responded to either during this webinar or as a follow-up by e-mail. This webinar is being recorded and can be accessed on our website at a later date. Zena. >> Thank you, Gwen. Good morning or good afternoon everyone. My name is Zena and I'm the IT support assistant and for those of you who haven't attended one of our webinars in the past I'm going to highlight a few features of the system. On the right-hand side of the screen you will find the Go-To-Webinar control panel. Within that control panel are a few connection withes that I'm going to highlight. So the first section is the audio section. If at any time today during the webinar you experience any audio issues, you can go ahead and open up the audio section and switch over audio connections. If you're attending by computer you can switch to a phone call and back to your computer audio. Hopefully that will address any audio issues. 4 If the issues persist you can switch over to a phone call and you'll be presented with a phone number and a pin to enter and you can join over a regular phone line. The next section I'd like to highlight is the handout section. Within this section you can acquire a PDF of today's slides and a number of resources that Tara will go over at the end of the presentation. Feel free to click on the link there and it will download to your computer. You can download this while the session is still going and it will not interrupt. And finally theories a questions section so if at any time today during the webinar you have any questions, you can just type those in there. Those will come back to us and as Gwen mentioned we'll make sure to answer all the questions that are asked. Feel free to also use this to add any commentary. I hope you enjoy today's presentation. Thank you. >> Thank you, Zena. Finally your feedback is important to us. Please take a few minutes to fill out the evaluation form following this webinar presentation. Today's webinar presentation is on domestic violence and 5 disabilities. We know that American Indian, Alaska native women experience some of the highest rates for domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, sex trafficking, homicide at the hands of an intimate partner and missing and murdered. Women with disabilities are at double risk for rye lens and abuse. This webinar will provide a brief overview on disabilities and the ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act along with facts about people with disabilities and domestic violence. We will hear from C.J. Doxater who works with end abuse Wisconsin and has developed programming and work groups to address violence against people with disabilities across the country and throughout many communities. Finally Tara Azure, our NIWRC resource specialist, will describe the resources that are available as part of this webinar. Our goal is to address issues of equal access, fair accommodations, and an opportunity to make significant useful doable contradictions to provide safety, access and effective services to individuals with disabilities and deaf, hard-of-hearing individuals who are victim survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, dating 6 violence, trafficking, and stalking across all our communities and programs. I just put this up, and I thought it was just something for us to reflect on as we go through this webinar today on equality versus equity. Before we get started, I just want to mention that we had planned this webinar, the date and time for this webinar almost a year ago before many of us knew or even heard of COVID-19. Providing safety for domestic violence survivors in the time of a pandemic has been challenging for all of us. We know that all forms of violence have escalated during this time especially domestic violence. Stay-at-home orders, social distancing, wearing a mask and other necessary steps intended to offer protection from COVID-19 often escalate the danger to victims of domestic violence and create barriers to safety. This is particularly true for people with disabilities. There's been a lot of couldn't verse see and misinformation about wearing masks and disabilities. It's important to note that the ADA does not provide a blanket exemption to people with disabilities from complying with legitimate safety requirements necessary for safe operations. Are there people who really can't wear face masks 7 because of their disabilities? The answer is yes. For many individuals with different types of disabilities, the effects of wearing a mask are far more severe than just being slightly uncomfortable or inconvenienced. Wearing a face mask can have a significant impact on their health, well being and ability to function such as people with respiratory disabilities such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD. Wearing a mask may because difficulty with breathing. People with anxiety disorders and post traumatic stress disorder, people who have experienced domestic or sexual violence may develop severe anxiety when wearing a mask and people who have sensory issues may find that having a mask on their face is very difficult to tolerate. We know that face masks are necessary to slow or stop the spread of COVID-19 in public places. Public health guidelines regarding the coronavirus pandemic may change over time and business policy should reflect those changes. The ADA does not issue face mask exemptions. Individuals can ask for an exemptions in places they have to go for essential goods and services, and those businesses do not have to approve the exemption. 8 However, if a face mask exemption is denied, there's still an obligation under the ADA to determine if there are other modifications that could be provided to help people with disabilities access goods and services. Some examples include but are not limited to socially distanced mobile advocacy allowing someone to wear a full face shield instead of a face mask. Stars or looser coverings may also be appropriate. Full face shields and masks with clear see through areas around the mouth are great for lip reading and communication. This pandemic is real. This is not a hoax. The safety and well being of all our relatives is critical. I'm going to run through the slides fairly quickly because I really want to hear from C.J. and I want to let you know that there's a copy of these slides in the handout section. So to begin with, I just wanted to talk about the Americans with Disabilities Act and this act was passed in 1990 and passed July a couple months ago they celebrated the 30th anniversary of this landmark legislation. And I read a story about how people with disabilities, 9 you know, hail it as monumental and one of the greatest things ever, but people without disabilities seem to think it falls far short of its goals, and I have to admit I'm probably one of those people. My older procedure had -- was paraplegic and so I think as a person who doesn't have a disability but sees people with a disability struggling especially mobility issues, you know, I have kind of a different take on it I guess. So, you know, I just think that a lot of promises of the ADA have yet to be met. Although it has resulted in significant changes to the way we live from the cutouts and the curbs on sidewalks to ramps, to public transportation improvements. They've expanded physical accessibility in many, many ways, and it's all very, very positive. Changes in communication and technology have really been off the charts and have afforded so many people with disabilities abilities to function in this world we live in. Yet it is only modestly expanded employment opportunities. People with disabilities are 2.2, 25 times more likely to live in poverty, and three times more likely to be out of the labor force. 10 This picture is even more disturbing when we consider the intersection of race and disability. It is through understanding the intersectional implications of race, disability, gender and age across institutional systems that we must understand and embrace anti-oppression, antiracist frame works that focus on equity to move us closer to realizing the promise of the ADA for our most vulnerable relatives. So on this slide we have the definition of Americans with Disabilities Act, and I just want to point out here that, you know, it's important to note that domestic violence programs and shelters must be accessible for people with disabilities and we'll talk more about that in a few minutes. The definition of a disability is any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or to interact with the world around them. These conditions or impairments may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physical, sensory or a combination of multiple factors. And it's also important to note that these active -- you know, disability encompasses many forms and degrees of impairment. So it's not just the impairments, but it's also the degrees of those impairments. 11 And again, you know, the risk of violence victimization is even higher for people with disabilities especially women. So I want to just move -- again I want to move through these a little quickly because I want to make sure C.J. has the time to talk. People with disabilities are three times more likely to experience violent victimization. They're three times more likely to be sexually abused as children. They're more likely to experience abuse or neglect as children and they're more likely to experience repeated abuse or neglect as children. In terms of disabilities and violence, women with disabilities are vulnerable to all forms of violence including domestic violence. And it's important to note that men are equally vulnerable to all forms of violence, you know, and that they're just as likely to face those same victimization issues. Oftentimes there's a limited attention or focus on people with disabilities, and this is particularly true with those who are experiencing domestic violence. And I think the other thing to point out is that barriers to service and resources further compound this 12 issue and all of these things we'll be talking about as we go through this presentation. How does domestic violence intersect with disability? I think the really big one there is that domestic violence can cause temporary or permanent disability. Domestic violence can actually cause disability, and of course, as we've -- as we'll be saying over and over throughout this presentation is that people with disabilities experience higher rates of domestic violence, sexual assault and abuse. And I think another really big one there is that they have additional barriers when seeking help and again we'll be addressing some of that as we go through this presentation. Domestic violence and disabilities, I mean we look at some of the reasons that, you know, it happens more often is the vulnerability issue, being physically less capable of defending yourself. And we'll also go through some of the other red flags and some of the other areas about, you know, difficulty in reporting and accessing service, physical barriers, a lot of other things we'll go through in this presentation. Some of the ways that people with disabilities experience abuse is when their caregiver or intimate 13 partner removes or destroys their mobility devices such as wheelchairs, scooters or walkers. There's a really big around denying access to or taking their medication or forcing them to take medication against their will or overmedicating, preventing access to food or water, isolating from possible sources of help, inappropriate touching and denying them access to resources in the community that could help them -- that could support them in giving them a better life. Some of the red flags of -- okay. Went too far. Some of the red flags are for abuse are, you know, telling them that they're not allowed to have a pain flare-up, stealing or withholding social security disability checks, you know, gas lighting, playing with their -- you know, mind games, creating situations for them where they really don't trust their own instincts, shaming them or humiliating them, refusing to help them use the bathroom or complete necessary life tasks. Instigating sexual activity knowing that their partner is not capable of consenting. Withholding, damaging or breaking assistive devices, not allowing them to see a doctor or seek medical attention, threaten to out them. This is particularly true in cases of where someone may 14 be HIV positive or dealing with some other issues that they don't really want anyone to know. Threaten to harm them or their service animal. And using the disability as an excuse for the abuse, telling them that they deserve abuse because of their disability. Per the Americans with Disabilities Act, to be accessible to people with disabilities, shelters and programs are required to admit people into their shelter. And, you know, it's not permissible to deny that admit answer to anyone based on their disability and we went over that whole range of some of the disabilities that people may have, and when we look at our programs, we think about how are we preventing people with disabilities from utilizing our program and the services we provide. Providing reasonable accommodations, you know, sometimes this means altering our policies and practices to be more inclusive of people with disabilities. And the example, of course, with a no-pet policy but if a person has a service dog, we would need to alter that to allow them to be able to have their service dog with them while they're in shelter or while they're attending support group or participating in programs and services 15 that we offer. And I think the other big one is eliminating structural barriers to access and, you know, we -- let's see, go to the next slide because I think it helps a little bit. Some of the basics of -- maybe that is the slide. You know, some of the barriers to service for tribal domestic programs and shelters might be building and modification costs, limited program funding. Some of these activities such as building and modification costs are unallowable under a lot of federal funding and also limited awareness of the universal design feasibility. And here's some of the basics, the five basic -- the five basic things with universal design is provide one no-step entrance with a bevelled threshold and this could be at the front door, the side door, the back of the office or, you know, any kind of entrance into your office or facility that they could, you know, roll a wheelchair over or walk through with assistive devices such as walkers or canes those kind of things. Making doorways throughout the home at least 32 inches wide and hallways at least 36 inches clear to accommodate wheelchairs and other devices. Reinforcing walls around the toilet, bathtub and shower stalls so that grab bars may be added later if needed. 16 Installing light switches and electrical controls no higher than 48 inches and electrical plugs no lower than 15 inches above the floor. Install lever handles on exterior and -- interior doors and on sinks so it's easy for them to turn things off and on. So in terms of American Indians and disabilities, I thought these were really high percentages. 19 to 20% of all Americans have some type of disability, and when it comes to American Indians, Alaska natives, we see that that number is significantly higher. It's 24 to 26%. And for Native Americans, more than 94,000 have a mobility or a self-care limitation. So I just wanted to present that data, and then I want to go right into introducing C.J. Doxater, but before we do that, we'd like to ask a question or a poll question and Zena will help us with that is is your workplace ADA compliant. Please select one of the following, yes, no, or NA. So if you all will take a few minutes to respond, we'll... Okay. Just a few more seconds here. Okay. 17 We'll close the poll now. 72% of you voted, and I think she'll put the -- yeah, Zena will put the results up. So 73% question. 11% no, and 16% NA. Thank you, Zena. Please welcome me in joining Cleveland J. Doxater or C.J. C.J. is from the Oneida tribe and works with end abuse Wisconsin as a tribal and aging outreach director. C.J. has worked in the domestic violence and elder abuse field for over 40 years. Yesterday was his birthday so today he begins his new journey around the sun. He is an outstanding advocate and has done and continues to do amazing work in creating safety for survivors of domestic violence. C.J. is -- he picks up the snow adopted by the Wolf Clan, born to the bear clan, Oneida Nation of the Iroquois Confederacy and Hunka of the Cante Ohitaka Tiospaye. So at this point I'll turn it over to C.J. >> Thank you. Next slide. >> Yeah. 18 It's a little bit slow. It always lags behind just a little bit. There we go. >> There it is. Next slide. Just do the opening and then go to the next slide. Sheku. [Speaking Native American] Apologize for speaking before my elders and for those who are more experienced. I come to bring you -- share what I have, my knowledge and experience and hopefully it will inspire and it may challenge and hope to bring you information that we can all grow together. Next slide. Yes, disabilities, again is to match the slide that was there before, it's really an overreaching term. There's a lot of confusion around what disabilities entail and what it means. The last census declared approximately 25% of native people had a disability of some sort. And the World Health Organization identified a disability as impairment, activity limits, participation restrictions, which makes disabilities more than a health problem, that it's really more of a phenomenon, a 19 complex phenomenon between a person and the society that we live in. I think there's mainstream identification of what disabilities are that's really confusing and challenging, that hasn't come to any definition, any defining terms yet. It's still pretty nebulous. Next slide, please. This -- I want to share with you the abuse power wheel for disabilities. A little bit more -- I'm sure many of you are aware of the power and control wheel that's developed up in Duluth and was used pretty well to identify some of the abuses to help women to understand how the abuse worked, and this is a wheel that was developed specifically for some of the experiences for people identified with disabilities. Again, the coercion and threats, a lot of it looks similar, but they are more specific. For example, coerce and threats is pressuring the person to engage in fraud and other crimes. That's not unusual for an abuser to do as a technique, but for people with disabilities, it takes on a whole other light. That sense of caregiver privilege. 20 There was a study done around caregiver stress. It was decided that a lot of abuse of people with disabilities came from caregiver stress was what they were trying to claim, that it was all the stress of taking care and the duties that went along with it and the ability not to take care of themselves that caregivers were more vulnerable. However, a number of tests out of Baltimore and out of the East came out in just -- and proved just the opposite. It's not caregiver stress. The abuse that caregiver levels against people with disabilities is intentional many times. And this caregiver privilege gets into some of that. The economic abuse, again, all the dependencies, and I use that word kind of hesitantly. It's those special -- what we would see as special needs to a person with disabilities may not be the same. Withholding or misusing daily needed support. Those things that I use an alarm clock to wake me up in the morning to get me up. Maybe a person with a disabilities might need something more. And I would include it might be medication or appointments to help them walk and be more accessible. 21 There's certain minimizing, justifying and blaming that goes along, blaming the person with the disability for the abuse. Excusing the abuse as a behavior management. For example, at one time the tribe -- the tribe still does but the tribe had these buses that would take people with -- elder people and people with disabilities to events, and there were assigned caregivers who were assigned to help them on the bus and help them off the bus. But one of the things that we caught on, and it doesn't happen now but this is an event that happened a while back, that one of the caregivers had a habit of when he was trying to get someone especially if they were kind of large and there was difficult -- mobility was more difficult, they had put their hands in back of them and punch and as they punch them the person would move a little faster and that was their way of getting them on the bus a little faster and that pinch was abusive and to them at that moment they didn't think it was but we did some education to make them realize. The isolation, controlling who you can see, who you can't, family members, grandchildren, and including not taking -- or not allow a person access to ceremony. If there might be ceremony that the caregiver doesn't 22 feel like they want to be burdened or something they will leave them home not realizing that that is a vital need. The emotional abuse, ridiculing a person for their disability, the teasing that -- without realizing how that negative reinforcement affects their own -- affects a person's self-esteem is just -- so -- and as you go around the wheel, I really hope that, you know, if you haven't already copied this wheel off and pay particular attention and if you're working with someone, it's real effective to set with the wheel and share with them and go through the different techniques and see where they identify that this might have happened to them and if they're at a place where they can share it with you, it kind of helps to identify their needs. Next slide, please. Now, this is of particularly domestic violence with women with disabilities. A little bit more about perpetrators. Perpetrators may include their partners, family members and oftentimes we find that there's a longer duration of the abuse. It goes on for a longer bit of time. Most likely because the victim of the abuse feels like they have no choice, they feel rather powerless in the 23 face of it, they just have to put up with it and this is something that many abusers will take care of, keep it unknown or just it doesn't seem to resonate with the community. This kind of abuse is more likely to be -- there's more experience from attendants from health care providers and strangers who become abusers. Because of the implied vulnerability, my suspicion is because of the implied vulnerability of a person with disability that they feel like the victimization is easier. Plus that and the experiences tend to be more intense. It might be a number of -- in the abuse wheel it outlines a number of abuse. But the abuses might be a combination as your experience with this or as you learn more about it, you'll see a lot of times it's not just -- there's a whole constellation of abuses that a person may suffer. And not only that but the abusers might be multiple perpetrators in a single event. For example, if it happens within a family it may be more than just one family member who is doing the abuse. Next slide, please. Now, abusers, I've worked with a lot of abusive men, men and women in my experience, and the power and control 24 wheel really outlines so much of their motivation, and many times many who are in relationships don't come together with the intent of violence or abuse, but as their relationship goes on, the power and control dynamics to express themselves. However, with people with disabilities, there's a vulnerability there that the vulnerability, the implied vulnerability again becomes more a target so that their abusers become more intentional we find, and, for example, someone who wants to might start a relationship and to build that trust with the knowledge that they're going to be abusing this person in some manner, financially or physically or sexually. So there's an intent going into it. They tend to hold their victims captive, and it's a little bit -- again, my removing the assistive equipment or adaptive equipment keeping them independent and that may include medication. A lot of times caregivers might have access to the medication. If it's pain medication or narcotics, they may take that, they may take it or water it down and only give part of it to the victim. And they may withhold it as a threat to get the victim to do what they want, maybe sign away some -- a check or 25 sign over property. They tend to exploit the fact that law enforcement and social workers may not believe a person with disabilities, whether it be in a report or in court. Unfortunately, a person with disabilities is always seen as a little bit less reliable, and perpetrators understand that and use that. We've also seen where a perpetrator will also communicate different stories with, say, the doctor, the social worker, and the courts, so -- and oftentimes they don't -- unless these agencies connect, which they tend to do only peripherally, they really don't get the while story and the perpetrator can use that as a way to continue abuse. As I said before controlling access to her medications becomes a technique. Next slide, please. Now, I've been involved with the Disability Rights of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault, End Abuse, which is the domestic violence coalition in Wisconsin. We had a VAWA project, 11-year project working with the Vera Institute on Justice. They were the TA providers, and in this we as we covered the whole state including the tribes. 26 And a few of the things we worked on as a unit, it really required all these different agencies to come together and to make commitments to the work, to the need, to survivors with disabilities, to understand all the different varied dynamics. It included those who -- whose physical and emotional and mental impairments were really obvious, and including blind and deaf, but at the same time recognizing their autonomy in that a lot of times they -- they may not see their impairments as impairments. And a good example would be the hard of hearing or the Deaf community will see their deafness as a cultural norm. They have a language. They have everything that culture needs, and they just -- they act as a culture, and so they don't see the deafness as a disability. And so as they come together to work with the required -- the provider to understand and learn from them in partnership, it can be a wonderful experience. One of the things, the first one of the things that we did when we -- one of the first things we did when we worked in the community was develop a needs assessment and it was a very thorough needs assessment which we 27 processed over like nine months, and we went over and really partnered with the community that we were working with whether it be urban or tribal, rural, and looked at what were the services out there, what was going on and what needed to be made. And we looked at the service providers, we gathered all the service providers that were in a certain area and pulled them together, which again was not an easy task. Our service providers that really felt like they were doing their job and didn't need another meeting or as long as they did their job, they didn't feel like they needed to know about any of the other agencies out there. But we worked really hard at pulling them together to know what they did and how they did it and to share information that we could every they could share and to relate. We talked about for example transfers, instead of just going on a phone and making a recommendation for a person with a disability to go see somebody and then giving them a phone number or creating an appointment for them, we literally taught the service providers to get in the car and travel with that person to the different agency and meet the other service provider and in that -- and then with the person that they were 28 working with to all come in there to have a working relationship so that they could all share information, all know each other. It becomes real effective in getting beyond some of the imagined boundaries that people think they have to live with. We started -- we're supporting -- and that encouraged our team commitments. We also looked at supporting community projects, and the things that were already going, bringing in, not only, for example, in one of the reservations they had an annual walk that they would walk across the reservation, and they would -- for people with disabilities, they would -- they were in wheelchairs or whatever assistive devices, they would bring them along or put them in cars or find a way to encourage them. We worked with the tribe and worked with the nearby -- they had a local -- a town, a small town that was close by who had their own DV program, a shelter, but they never worked together, so we worked with them and convinced them to -- the shelter, made some connections with the tribal domestic violence programs and together it became a project that they walked not only through the reservation but right into the next town, that town where everybody came and there were a lot of -- from the 29 local donations from local businesses donated things like a furniture store donated an assistive chair that a person could get in and out of and other donations like that, food donations that could be shared with people with disabilities. It was a really good event. And we -- so we worked with tribal projects and one of the other things that we were really -- was really popular is that we worked with tribal and non-tribal shelters. We developed accessibility reviews and each one of the -- the member of the teams, domestic violence, the disability rights, end abuse, the sexual assault coalition, we all came together and there were maybe teams of four or five of us would come into a shelter when the shelter asked for it and they would request it and we would come in. We would come in and bring in cameras. We would bring in patterns that we could put out on the floor to look at, for example, in bathrooms, was there enough room for a person to come into the bathroom in a wheelchair and maneuver around to use the toilet, or were there grab bars where they were accessible and were they the right kind of grab bars. Were there emergency lights that could be added where if 30 a person fell or needed that they could let someone know. So all of these things. And we would take photographs. We would -- was there a ramp, for example, and we would or was it an old ramp. We would take photographs. We would put -- we would take notes, and after our visit, then we would get together and put together a report using photographs and all the notes into a binder, a small binder and send it back to the shelter so that they could use that binder to really illustrate the need for -- say they wanted to apply for grants to get the financial help they needed to in-still some of these changes. And we also had -- were able to -- through VAWA through the grant itself had a small amount of money we could share for say building a ramp, but one of the things we found especially working with the tribes is that the tribes were pretty -- especially the elder programs with the tribes were pretty willing to donate that especially a ramp or were willing to come in and put a ramp in if it was a tribal shelter and make any other changes that would be needed. They were really committed to that change. 31 Sometimes we would run into difficulty with HUD around some of these changes, but with the reports and with all that support, it didn't -- any kind of conflict was pretty quickly adjusted. So the accessibility became a real popular tool. One of the other things that we were -- one of the members of our team was a doctor, psychologist who specialized in working with children with disabilities, and he developed training for parents. We discovered there was a need out there for parenting, even though the parents may not have disabilities and their children did, and we really looked at how the difficulty with parenting children with disabilities was, and so the parenting really became really popular, and it really opened up a lot of people's eyes, and it also evolved into having people -- people who had disabilities parent and keeping them informed and showing how that they could parent what might normally be a difficult or unknown to them, show them new ways to do it or more effective ways to do the parenting working with the children. This too was one of the more popular services that we were able to train in. Next slide, please. One of the things that we worked with the mental health, 32 domestic violence, and trauma center out of Chicago. Like we were headed by Dr. Carol Warshaw and she came in and we were able to work with them to develop trauma-informed care specific training for providers, and this was really effective with -- in shelters for advocates and for other health care providers who other -- health care providers that might be working in group homes for people with disabilities. It gave them a whole new way of looking at it, and it humanized the people that they were working with in a lot of ways, the whole perspective. And it was challenging as to the very -- for many of them. In fact when we originally brought it out, there were providers who would say that they would have to retire because it was a little too personal for them. They felt like it was too personal, and that -- because it made -- it felt so part of trauma-informed care is the sharing, and so they didn't want to do it. But those that were able to go beyond that really realized that it's a shared trauma-informed care was a technique that could help in more effective ways. We were able to put together a number of -- I believe at least two manuals, teaching manuals for health care providers using trauma-informed care techniques that the 33 Disability Rights of Wisconsin published. In fact if you go to the Disability Rights of Wisconsin website and go through the menu, I believe those publications are still downloadable, which, again, I recommend. One of the things we also did was we trained on the use and care of service animals, what could be -- some animals -- not all animals can be service animals. Theories a different between emotional support animals and real service animals and the care and needs and their access. We also put together a booklet to address this issue and that also would be on the disability of rights of Wisconsin's website. And then we looked at -- we also worked with peer support groups for people with disabilities who wanted to be very autonomous and wanted to -- who had that drive to grow and to take care of themselves. For example, they in Ashland it's called genesis. And they come together. They completely rely on the community for support and donations, and they feed. They share meals. They share resources. They share education. 34 We would -- the project itself would -- we would take turns going up there doing presentations around violence, around different needs, around sexual assault to help them be more aware and take action and be more involved. There are a number of peer support groups. We even did some -- coupling it with leadership training to -- that they could help themselves and access some services that they needed to lead a full life without having that need of dependence to grow. We also looked at legal services, supplied legal services regarding accessibility. ADA is pretty specific in a number of the Disability Rights of Wisconsin has a whole cadre of lawyers who are ready to come in if there was something that needed to be addressed. And it was entertaining to me to work with these lawyers because we would travel together to these different sites, and they would normally go into, say, a McDonald's and they would go into the McDonald's, and they wouldn't order the food necessarily, but they would go into the bathrooms to be sure that the bathrooms were ADA proper and that there was accessibility. And during the wintertime they would walk along the streets to see that the streets were ADA compatible and 35 if they weren't, they did sue a number of cities and organizations to get those needs met. So it was really impressive to watch them work. Next slide, please. This was -- this whole experience was very for me enlightening in growth. One of the things, for example, around trauma-informed care that we did is we learned more about trauma-informed care ourselves. We learned -- we're learning about historical trauma around Marie yellow horse brave heart and her teachings and as we did we would start applying some of that stuff. But suddenly working with people with disabilities they start talking about their experiences and how they were experiencing historical trauma. And so we were able to do a whole presentation for the institute of justice around historical trauma experienced by people with disabilities. And one of the most notable things that came to me as I was watching this presentation by participating in it was that, for example, we hear about the Holocaust and the terrible things, the ovens and the terrible things that happened to the Jewish people. But one of the things we don't hear about is something 36 called the useless eaters, which was a factory that Hitler set up to dispose of people with disabilities. Any kind of disabilities. And they killed 40,000 people during this time. And that impacted the whole belief system of generations of people. The final -- my final piece I want to share with all of you is my auntie's story. I started working in this field working with abusive men, and before VAWA even came along and when VAWA came along then I became more involved. And during that period I also started working with our elders, with the elder program, and working with elder abuse. And during that time I did a lot of education with law enforcement. I developed a MOU and came in and did the power and control wheel, taught law enforcement officers how to use the power and control wheel when answering a call around domestic violence or even people with disabilities. And it became real effective, and I got -- one time I was off work and I got a call and it was from a law enforcement officer in my community, a community of mine. 37 He was a detective. He worked for a long time and he said he had a problem. So I asked him, what's the issue? And he said he went to my uncle. He got a call to go to my uncle's place and my uncle was a Korean war veteran. A deacon in the church had eight of my cousins, he was the father of eight of my cousins, and there was an issue there of violence and they said what happened was that my auntie and my uncle who were both older back then had -- went to bingo, and they were in bingo and my auntie suffered from diabetes. She worked for the tribe for years and suffered from diabetes, and diabetes had taken both her legs so she was in a wheelchair. My uncle was often seen pushing her in the wheelchair devoted to taking care of her. People admired that about him. He would take her to bingo and etc. On this occasion apparently he had set her up at the table and they had gotten their bingo sheets out and everything and he went to get some soda, and she was at the table, and they started bingo so they were calling numbers off and she was dabbing, and he came back and he looked at his cards and her cards and he noticed that 38 there were some of his numbers that didn't get marked, and he got very upset and he grabbed my auntie's arm and started shaking it and as he shook her arm he pulled her out of her wheelchair and held her. He was a big man. And he held her out of the wheelchair shaking her like that. And people around him were just flabbergasted. They had never seen this from my uncle. They just couldn't believe it. So they called the police. So my uncle came out there and as he came out, he talked, what should I do? And I instructed him that he had to follow the law. So which he did. And then part of my job was to go visit both of them. And in the interviewing my auntie never realizing that this was so close to home, she talked about how using the wheel around abuse for disabilities, I took that along and I went through it with her, and she talked about how he would -- my uncle would withhold medication, and he would -- she had prosthetic legs that she was supposed to get used to. But he would either -- in putting them on he would hurt her or he would refuse to put them on her, and if he was 39 really angry, he would take her because they had a small house next to a highway, he would put her in the wheelchair and drive her up to the edge of the highway and wait and when a semi came driving by, he would take that wheelchair and he would start tipping it over. He wouldn't tip it over all the way but he would shake it and tip it over as that truck was getting closer and closer. And finally he just would abandon her from time to time to go drinking. And this is something that was real hard to hear. As I said, because he took her to -- they went to church every Sunday. He was a deacon in the church, and he was -- he ran a softball team for teenagers a lot including the law officer that arrested him had a hard time because he was the coach of his -- when he was growing up, and even the coach from -- for his son on a ball team, and yet this was going on. My auntie during this time decided that she couldn't live like this anymore and so moved in with one of the children, her children, and as she did that, she went to support groups, and she went to counseling and divorced my uncle, and even though she was an elder herself, she became real more vital in the community. 40 She started showing up at different events and the assistive care became more and more easier for her to use. And she eventually passed away but she passed away happy and pleased, and she talked about getting to the point of being able to forgive my uncle. My uncle unfortunately -- I don't think he was able to ever forgive himself. Once it all came out, his -- in one of my last interviews with my uncle was what would he take -- what would it need for him to never do this ever again. And his only comment was that one of them would have to die first, and he eventually did. And through that tragedy it helped me to understand a bit more why this is so important in treating it. That's my presentation for the day. I really want to thank you for this time and for all that's been shared and hopefully this can bring some insight. Thank you very much and YawKo. And these are my contact information there. Feel free to use the contact information. If you have any questions or any follow-up that I can provide, right now as outreach direct or and for tribal and aging issues, I'm working around a lot with working 41 between getting tribal programs more connected to the non-tribal programs to work together to have an understanding to go beyond some of the restrictions that self-imposed type of things that we used to have. And as for aging, discovering that aging is also looked at differently between non- -- between mainstream and tribal cultures. Mainstream tends to see aging as eventually we all get old, so eventually we'll all be disabled. And it's not always seen that way in tribal communities. Elders tends to have more understanding that they carry wisdom and knowledge that needs to be accessed and that's a resource for the younger -- for the younger people and for tribal councils, and so the values are different sometimes. But all of these things are things that we're working on right now. We're doing, like I said, the five webinars to bring tribal and non-tribal domestic violence programs together. Thank you for your time. Again. >> Thank you so much, C.J. That was really an incredible presentation. And we really wanted to do this webinar for some time 42 because it's really important that we understand, you know, some of the disabilities that are out there and how our programs can better accommodate and serve people with disabilities. It's not unusual to go to a program, a domestic violence program and see three or four steps required to get in, and so I know it's -- we're changing the face of all of that but it is taking time. It's been 30 years since the ADA. Anyway, Tara is with us, and she's going to go over some of the resources. So a lot of the information that was contained in the slides came from these resources and there's templates. There's model policies. There's all kinds of things in there to help you, you know, strengthen your program and strengthen your advocacy in your communities to address people with disabilities, so Tara, do you want to -- >> Sure. Thank you. Gwen. Thank you for the introduction. Good day, everybody. I don't want to take a lot of time because I know there were some questions as well that we're trying to get 43 through. I really just want to draw people's attention to the PDF that is named NIWRC DV and disabilities webinar resources. What this document does is lists all of the resources that have been put together in the PDF attachments underneath the handouts tab. Several of the resources we did group within each PDF file, so what that means is when you open that file, you can refer to this document to see that there was actually three one-page power and control wheel graphics in that PDF. Also we grouped together the safety planning for persons with disabilities and safety planning for domestic violence victims with disabilities. We also grouped together the fact sheets where several different resources came in from NCADV, YWCA, American Psychological Association, and the ADA small business and face mask policies fact sheets. Lots of statistics, and I did see that there were questions regarding statistics about this. Many of the statistics came from these resources, so I really recommend reading through and becoming familiar with them, so as you have these discussions amongst yourselves and staff that you have some updated 44 information for referral and discussion points. Lastly on here, we have the just ask, a toolkit to help advocates meet the needs of crime victims with disabilities center for reaching victims was the coauthor of that -- excuse me -- along with the national resource center for reaching victims cap 6. So this is an active link to the toolkit that is not in the PDF that you see by itself. It is only on this page of NIWRC DV and disabilities webinar resource page. It's an active link, and when you click into it, that link will open up your browser for your internet, and it will show you the toolkit itself, and this is a great resource as, again, you're going to be having these discussions hopefully, and approaches the advice in several different ways giving activities and simple steps for providing accommodations to survivors with disabilities including sample language. It also outlines what your agency may need to have in place for staff to be able to provide accommodations as soon as a survivor requests them. So again just some really great resources that will hopefully provide some information as you have these discussions amongst yourselves and with staff. And again, NIWRC is always available for any TA requests 45 should you have any additional questions or would like some technical assistance specific to the domestic violence and disabilities, we would be more than happy to answer any responses, and you can simply go to our website and click on our contact us link to e-mail us any time for any type of request like that. Gwen, did you want -- was there anything else you would like to say about the resources or would you like to just go right into questions? >> I think we'll go into the questions, and I just wanted to let people know that as part of the recording that will be archived on our website, all these resources will be there as well and if you ever any trouble opening any of them or anything like that, just contact us and we'll make sure you get a copy. >> Very good. >> We have a number of questions. We were going to do a couple more polls but I think we'll dive into the questions at this point because we are a little strapped for time. And we did attempt to cover a wide range of materials in a very short period of time. This probably should have been a day or two to really talk about domestic violence and disabilities, but we want to keep it on people's radar. 46 This is important. One of the first questions we have is I have been told that tribes do not have to be ADA compliant. Is this accurate? And I don't know if C.J., if you had a response to that. If not, I can take it. >> You might -- it might be helpful. As I recall, the first ADA, the first one that came out was -- wasn't -- tribes did not have to follow it. But the second, they reinforced it later on so tribes do now. You might have more information. >> Yeah, it's kind of a yes and no answer I think. Is that, you know, tribes do not have to, but, you know, if they get federal funds for programs and services and stuff like that, oftentimes that's a requirement within that -- in terms of accepting that funding. Also a lot of tribal buildings and facilities that are built with federal funds have to comply, so it's kind of yes or no. I mean, no, they don't have to comply but why would you not want to. Why would you not want to be accessible to the people in your community. The next one is how do you help a person with 47 disabilities when their rights are violated in the courts? And I know you had some legal experience with that, C.J. >> Yeah, that's a real difficult one. We did a number of training with tribal judges and -- tribal judges and lawyer associations around the ADA information. That was helpful. And the best answer I can give you, there is a comparative organization like Disability Rights of Wisconsin, an organization to access the organization because many times they are real key and they're very high profile and are willing to get in there and fight that fight. >> Okay. And I think almost every state probably has a disability rights organization of some type, and I think in some of the resources there's a state-by-state listing which the people may have changed, but those offices are still in every state I believe. When we suspect disability abuse, what is best in this situation? Do we contact law enforcement or adult protective services? C.J., your experience. 48 >> Depending on the severity of the abuse. If it's really a life and death issue, at that time law enforcement definitely needs to be called. If it's not a life and death but it's still serious, then it needs to be reported. One of the things that many times -- I don't know how it is in other states but in Wisconsin those reports are collected and addressed by social services, not necessarily law enforcement. And social work -- adult services tends to see the issues as there's a void, there's something that needs to be added in order to make a situation normal, so they will come in and offer services to help even it out. They don't often see the abuse or that there's a perpetrator of that abuse. A lot of perpetrators get away with it on that one. And finally, it may be necessary at some point to sit with the person with disabilities and talk about -- again, go through the wheel, get their story and get them hopefully they would be willing to share that story. I think one of the -- in the past what has been really detrimental is that those stories didn't get shared. People didn't know what somebody else was going through, and it's hard to understand. 49 It's important to keep privacy at the same time in order to grow. We need to share that to help each other. >> Okay. Somebody said we should do the poll. So let's do a poll. And the question is, does your safety planning with survivors include questions about disabilities? So we'll have Zena put that poll up and if you guys want to go ahead and enter your responses. We'll give it a minute here and then we'll close that and see what the temperature in the room is. Okay. I think it's slowing down here. We'll give it a couple more seconds. If you haven't entered your response, please do so. Okay. It looks like more than half the people have voted, so if we want to put that -- the response up for people to see, Zena. Okay. So 41%, so mostly -- mostly people are including questions about disabilities in their safety planning with survivors, so that's good. And hopeful for the others we have provided enough 50 information for you to think about how you can begin doing that. The last question we were going to ask in the poll and if you want to put that one up, Zena, that last question is, does your program or organization have policies that address disabilities? Again, select your answer and we'll give the results of that poll as well. A couple more seconds here and we'll close that one. So it looks like more than half have voted so we'll go ahead and close the poll and have Zena put up the results of that question. So again, that's great. 69% have policies that address disabilities. That's really good. Let's see what other questions we have here. Why do you label survivors as she and her? Do men not come forward? Know I mentioned it earlier in my slides where I said that men are counted in that number, and usually I apologize because I do, you know, come from a gender-based perspective when it comes to violence. That was kind of the work I started doing 20 some odd years ago, so it does kind of stick that way, so I apologize. 51 Men definitely do come forward, and C.J., you might want to comment on that too. You've done a lot of work in the communities. >> Yes, and it's true. Men can be abusers including men with disabilities. And they can be victims. I think one of the things I've seen is that men who show abusive tendencies many times it stems from a trauma. It's less than the power and control that we see a lot of violence against women come from, and it's more of a trauma response that they're expressing violence through. And the victimization is the same thing in relationship whether it be gender based or same sex. It's just -- in some ways it's even more detrimental because it's harder to talk about and even harder to share. And yet it's only through that sharing that they can get away from the abuse. >> Okay. We have another comment. Thanks so much for sharing all these resources as well as your powerful personal experiences. My question is when you -- when your experiences overlap with non-tribal services, did you find any groups or 52 organizations particularly helpful or difficult to work with? >> For me, I found a lot of the county agencies and some of the more private agencies that provide options for people with disabilities, first they want to -- they want to -- if it's a tribal person, they would say what does the tribe -- how is the tribe helping out? Can't the tribe pay for this? A lot of times that would be their first response. And many times the tribes already are contributing something or for whatever reason they're not. But it's to go beyond that and to get the needs met of that person. Sometimes it's especially if the person was, say, living in an urban situation away from the tribe, it was less likely that they would be willing to -- they wanted more of that and they knew that person had some tribal resources, that's what they would try to pursue. I hope that helps. We are able to many times as -- when we address those kind of situations, we acknowledge that, you know, 5-0 contradictions for a person's need but the person's need is most of all. >> Okay. A person wrote in that I reported a abuse by a mental 53 health provider to the state OIG office. The abuse occurred in Illinois and the OIG investigator scheduled an interview with the abusive party present. I reported my concern to her supervising official. I explained that even the police are trained to separate the individual from the abuser when gathering information. Basically there was a blanket policy in place that since the individuals resided in a supported housing with said -- I think it's with said mental, and I don't think I have the whole question here. But in those situations where the caregiver is the abuser, is that a place for a domestic violence programs or is that a referral? Or how do you think is best to handle that, C.J.? >> We do a training specifically looking at this issue, and encourage them, of all the service providers that come in to help a survivor or a victim, oftentimes domestic violence advocate is the one that's forgotten about or left out. And yet the advocate who are trained to really develop relationships with survivors may have insight or may be able to help survivor maneuver some of the systems, so having them involved I think is really important, and as we look at the definition of domestic violence, it 54 includes caregivers. >> Okay. I think we have one last question here before we close. C.J., how do you incorporate disability questions into safety planning? >> We let the person with the disability take the lead on that to share their disability. If it's real obvious that there's something else that they don't want to talk about, we try to approach it, but, again, using common form techniques of allowing that person to share at their pace but being ready to go into whatever they need and not -- sometimes it means being a bit fearless in approaching the subject and at the same time let them know that we're caring can open some doors. >> Yeah, that's absolutely true. That's right on. If they feel safe and supported, you know, it's much easier for people to talk about why they came in. So yeah, so true. Thank you, C.J. And I just want to extend a warm heart felt handshake to each and every one of you for taking the time out of your busy schedules and for the lifesaving work you do in restoring safety for survivors of domestic violence 55 in your communities. Thank you, C.J., Tara and Zena for making this happen. Please stay safe and love and care for one another. And now I'd like to turn it over to C.J. for any closing comments that he would like to leave with us today. >> Once more, and again, I want to thank all of you for the work you do. It is so vital and caring especially in these trying times, it's even more vital that we acknowledge each other in the help that we do and the work that we do to make it better. One of the resources that I want to add that I didn't get to add before is that there is a grant called abuse in later life that can provide around aging and disability issues to check it out because that's -- I know the people who ran it. I was part of the team that helped work with it, so it's a powerful resource. And once more, thank you for your time and for your sharing. >> Great. Thank you so much, C.J., and again thank you, everyone. 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