 Lakeland Currents, your public affairs program for North Central Minnesota, produced by Lakeland PBS with host Ray Gildow. Production funding for Lakeland Currents is made possible by Bemidji Regional Airport, serving the region with daily flights to Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, for information available at BemidjiAirport.org. Closed captioning for Lakeland Currents is sponsored by Niswa Tax Service, tax preparation for businesses and individuals, online at NiswaTax.com. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to Lakeland Currents. Some interesting statistics to share with you tonight. The number of American troops killed in Afghanistan and Iraq between 2001 and 2012 was 6,488. The number of American women killed during that same time period by ex-male partners was 11,766. Nearly double the amount of casualties lost during that war. 18,000 women have been killed by men in domestic violence since 2003, and one in four, the number of women who will be victims of severe violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime. I don't mean to suggest it's just women who are suffering domestic violence. It can be same-sex partners. It can be men. It can be children. But the number of women who have been killed in this country is staggering. And tonight we're gonna visit with three women who are doing something about it. We're trying to help the situation. The women are from the Mid-Minnesota Women's Center here in Brainerd, and to my right, I would like to introduce these ladies who are sitting here wondering what I'm gonna ask them. Shannon Wussall is the executive director, and next to her is Vicki Floer, who is the shelter, I'm sorry, Linnea. Linnea Ames, who is the child safety center manager. And then next to her is Vicki Floer, who is the shelter manager. Let's just start out talking a little bit about your backgrounds and how you got into this particular line of work. I went to school for criminal justice. It's always just been a personal interest of mine. And prior to starting as the executive director at Mid-Minnesota Women's Center almost two years ago, I was working as a probation officer, supervising the medium and high-risk domestic violence caseload. So it kind of seemed like a natural progression. So you've been on your position now for about two years? Yes. Yeah. And how about you, Linnea? Well, I've always had a passion for working with people. Every career I've ever been in has been working with people at some capacity. So I worked at the shelter for a few years, and I was a correctional officer for a few years, and so always working with people in some form. So you have seen a little bit of a law background yourself. And how about you, Vicki? So I went to school for business management the first time. The second time I went to school, I went to school to work with disabled people. And then I decided that I became a mom, and then I decided that I needed to be more in our community. And after learning of more things that were going on in our community, it disturbed me. And so I got involved with the Women's Shelter as an advocate in 2010. And so I've been there since then. So where are you located? We're in Brainerd at 1414 Maple Street. Our shelter is. And the way, are there, is there more than one building, more than one facility? Our program, we operate two programs. We have the Alex and Brandon Child Safety Center, which is at 2602 Oak Street. And then what Vicki was talking about is the 24-hour domestic violence shelter, which is at 1414 Maple Street. So you do have two different facilities. And how big of a service area do you consider yourself serving? We have served families all the way from the Canada border, all the way up to Kansas. No, you mean down to Kansas. Down to Kansas, yeah. Sorry about that. Really? Yes. So is this unique in Minnesota or are there other centers? I would guess that in the metro area, there's centers. There are other centers. Unfortunately, due to cuts in money and stuff, a lot of them places are closing. So we get, like, ache and close theirs. And so now we're picking up the load from that center that people would have been going there. And what's your capacity? Well, we have three rooms inside the safety center where we can supervise visits. And then we also have three playgrounds outside. So at any given point, we can have three operating at once. Three different individuals? Three different families. Three different families, okay. And what happens if you've got more demand than you can meet? What do you do? Well, that often happens. And what our focus is at the safety center is what's in the best interest of the children. So we do our best as far as scheduling and availability to make sure that whatever is best for the kids that are coming for the visits or exchanges, that we can facilitate that. So do you have people who usually come for a period of time, get the help and then they're able to go off on their own or do you get people who have to keep coming back? We have both. The goal is that they come to us and then they see a reduction in services where then they would have to maybe come for exchanges only and then they don't need our services anymore. That's our hope. So give us kind of a typical example of how a client would come to you. What are the circumstances? Kind of an average. I know they're all different, but just how does it work? Some of our families come through the courts. Their court ordered, the children have been removed. They've been placed in foster care. And so the court has ordered that they have visits and so they come to us through a referral through the counties. Right now we currently are working with like seven different counties in CHIPS cases, kids that have been removed from the families. They come through family court. You might be going through a divorce and then the divorce, it's ordered that until the divorce's final visitation will take place at our center. Might be voluntary. You don't get along. There's always confrontation. And one of the parents have decided that our center would be the best place to come so that they don't have to see each other and communicate. I know domestic violence is one of the most dangerous environments for police officers. Is it typical that if they get called to a home and there's domestic violence that they would remove the woman from that environment and bring them to you? Or do they remove them and take them to another step first? So occasionally they do contact the shelter to remove a woman who might need safety. And so while the officers on the scene, they contact the shelter. If the woman is choosing to come to the shelter then we take her. So you work closely with police officers? We do. We have a really good working relationship with the local law enforcement in the area. And when you say local here, how big an area? Are you talking Aiken County and Morrison County or just Crow Wing County? Well, we receive funding for Region Five Plus which is Stearns, or I'm sorry, Crow Wing, Cass, Morrison, Todd, Wadena counties and then the plus is Aiken. So we work closely with them but primarily we have most of our referrals come within Crow Wing County. So it's the law enforcement agencies within the county that we work the closest with and most often with. And are most of these situations with children or is it a mixture of everything? I would say most of them are with children but that's not a requirement to receive services from us to have children. It's just always amazed me and I've visited with lawyers in my career when I'm out on the lakes guiding and I've had lawyers from California in different places and I've had them who are specialists with this kind of in-violence in families and I always ask them, why do the women always go back to these guys? What's your experience has been about that? I mean, I know I'm being pretty general here. Oh, no, yeah. We get that question all the time, right? That's not a, oh my, what's that? What do we say? You know, a lot of women return for different reasons. It may be that I think personally the largest one is that as humans, we have hope, we have hope that people are going to change and that this time is going to be the time that their partner is going to make that change when they realize the damage that has been done. Unfortunately, we know that that's not realistic. Sometimes people return home because financially the husband or the partner is the breadwinner and so they don't even know, they don't have skills to get a job. They might not have an education to get a job. They might not know how to go about doing the financial piece of it because he was the one in charge of all of the money. Sometimes it's transportation. He's in charge of the vehicle so they don't have a way to get out. Sometimes they think that they need to stay for the children. They want their children to have that happy family, not realizing that it's more damaging to stay in an unhealthy relationship and your children are teaching and learning from what they're seeing, which is abusive situations. So there's a lot of different reasons that people don't leave. It's not just as easy as saying, you should just get up and go. And there is a large number of them who don't know how to survive outside of that relationship because they know that when the cupboard doors get slammed, they know what's coming next. So the fear of leaving is very real for a lot of them because once they leave, they don't know how he's going to respond. And so that fear of the unknown is very driving of keeping people right where they shouldn't be because of that. I think it's important to note too that in those situations, there's that imbalance of power and control in the relationship. Just because there's a domestic balance relationship doesn't necessarily mean that there's physical violence. So oftentimes there are things that have been set into place long before somebody attempts to leave. So there's been years or months worth of isolation, controlling self-esteem issues, those sort of things that are put into place. So if someone's been told something or whatever the case may be over an extended period of time, it's easy to fall into believing that or questioning if you do have the resources available or the ability to leave or if there's going to be support out there once you do leave. And I think too, Shannon, totally because one of the other examples would be people using their children saying, well, no, you have a mental health issue and they're going to say you're crazy. I'm going to say you're crazy. So they're going to keep the kids from you because you're not fit to be a mom because you're crazy. You have a mental health breakdown and they're not going to let you have your kids back or I'm going to make sure that they don't let you have the kids back or even drugs. She may not be a drug user, but he may force her to carry a backpack that has the drugs in it or drive a vehicle that has drugs in it so that if they get pulled over, she's technically the one who's going to be violated or she's the one that's going to be charged with a drug because it's on her possession. So I mean, there's just so many different ways that people don't even, I think that a lot of people are instant to judge instead of thinking like, okay, maybe there is a lot of different reasons why people can't get out or don't necessarily leave when we say, no, you need to leave there. They're the experts on their life and they know kind of the ins and outs and what's going to keep them alive. Right. In your situation, do you see much domestic violence towards men? We see approximately 25% of the clients that come to us for services are males. Which is kind of what the national statistics show. Yeah, and last quarter at our shelter, we provided services to 1,013 individuals. Wow, last quarter? Last quarter. Isn't that a sad thing? It is. It's a very sad thing. And unfortunately that's rising every quarter as well. So the quarter before, we provided services to approximately 900 individuals. How about same sex partnerships? Do you see that too? Absolutely. The domestic violence issues and relationships, it's a relationship issue. It is not gender specific or... Financial. Financial or I mean, it's across the board. I think it's important too to bring up that there's elder abuse too. We've got children beating their own parents or I mean, we've done visits for ordered by the court for a mother so that she wasn't persuaded to sign documents by her kids. In a nursing home? Yeah. And that she wasn't being... In the nursing home itself. Yeah, wasn't being abused by any of the family members or her husband, so. Taking advantage of. Yeah. And our oldest individual that we have sheltered, she was 87. Yeah, wow. And our youngest individual, I was brand new. They came home from the hospital, they were with us. You know, mom was with us when she was pregnant and she delivered the baby and came back to us that, you know, they don't keep you long. So 24 hours later, the baby was right back with us. And so, and our oldest male was 87 as well. It's just hard to imagine that people can be as violent as they can. I think a couple of days ago on the national news, a babysitter took a little infant's hands and put them in boiling water. Yep. And you wonder, what are people thinking? How can this be so... Well, I think the important thing for us to do as a community is to take a step back and then ask ourselves not why is that happening but what happened to you? That you think that that behavior is okay because these are learned behaviors. Oftentimes, adults that abuse are children that were abused or children that witnessed abuse in their parents' relationship or that sort of thing. So that's where it's important that we're out there meeting with people like you, having these conversations, raising awareness, educating the community and doing what we can to be proactive instead of reactive. And making sure that our community, the people who are choosing to make the wrong choices are held accountable for their behaviors. Well, they're held accountable and receive programming to try to change that behavior in the future as well. Yeah. And even as us, that we hold each other accountable, that we're not anyone that we're making sure that we hold each other accountable for our group of friends if they're making fun of somebody, that we're saying, hey, or if we're hanging out and or you're hanging out with a bunch of guys and you guys start talking about something that's not appropriate that you stand up and say, hey, you guys, let's change the subject. Like there's no need for us to be talking about this. It's super important that we all stand up and do that amongst our own circles in order to kind of keep going at it. How many employees do you have in your organization? We have 25 employees between the two programs, six full-time and 19 part-time. So are some of those counselors or counselor types? No, we do not have a licensed therapist on staff but we do work with community members who come and provide those services on a pro bono basis and work with the residents at the shelter. So if you have, let's just say you have a mother who comes to your shelter overnight with two children. What, so how do you help her? How do you start out with her? What's the kind of the steps that you go through? So the very first thing we do is let her know we're grateful that she's there. We recognize and acknowledge that that took a lot for her to even walk through our front door because it's embarrassing. It's, you know, it's- It's scary. It's the unknown, you know, it's really hard. It's difficult. She's meeting, they're all meeting a bunch of strangers. And so we really just try to make them feel comfortable and kind of get them settled in to start with and then start working on what goals it is that she wants. And sometimes those goals are to return home and we're not there to tell them- You're not there to judge. Right, we are not. We're not there to tell them what they can or can't do but if, you know, that individual came to us and that was what they wanted to do was return, we're going to have the conversation of, you know, what's your safety plan? We need to make sure that she has a safety plan so that when it happens again, cause we know what's gonna happen again, that she knows who her outreach is, who is her support team, you know, who can she call, when can she call, what documents should she have with her to make sure that she takes when she leaves. So we'll work on a safety plan if returning home is something that she wants to do. If finding her own housing is what she wants, then we work on, you know, what kind of background housing do you have? You know, do you have any eviction? Do you have a felony? Do you have those kinds of things and see which housing is most appropriate to try and apply for? It gets difficult with housing because our area is the lack of safe, affordable housing right now. And so sometimes we can have people that are with us for six months. Even though we're a 30 day crisis facility, we don't kick them out and say, oh, where your 30 days are up, you gotta get out, right? We don't do that. And so it's really just a matter of what the client, I guess, is the resident, is what do they want to work on? And so sometimes that's going back to school, sometimes that is getting daycare for the kids, sometimes it's getting a job, doing a resume, getting court clothes, just those different, it's literally whatever they want to work on is what we try and work on. Sometimes it's getting into treatment. Sometimes it's us connecting with Linnea to try and get visits set up so that her children can still be seen. They're seeing their dad or vice versa, whoever it is that we're working with at the time. What if you get a knock on your door and it's a person that's been battered? Then we take them in. Are you obligated to report that to the police then? No, we're not. You're not? But we do take them in. We take them in immediately, even if our, so we have six bedrooms, we have 26 beds. And even if all of our beds are full, if someone came to our door and they were in immediate need, we will find a cot, a couch, we will put them so that they're safe until the next day when we can find somewhere else for them to go that is a safe place for them to be. So we don't ever say no, sorry, you can't come. I don't want you to give away secrets that you might not want to share, but how do you provide the safety? Do you have security? How do you do that? Well, one way is because we want to make sure that everybody knows where we are. The more eyes that we have on the building, the safer it is for everybody. Law enforcement will routinely drive past our buildings to check on us and make sure that we're doing all right. And we've got security systems at both of the buildings and that sort of thing too. Okay. Yeah. And I think again, the biggest thing is making sure that everybody does know where we are. And we do have such a great relationship with our local law enforcement that we're never, I don't ever feel that even if something does go disray at the shelter that I'm ever in a place where law enforcement isn't going to come immediately. So I don't fear for my own safety because I know that law enforcement's gonna be there and do what they need to do to make sure that staff and the residents are safe. And so I don't ever fear, I don't have that fear. Yeah, we are very lucky because they respond very quickly to our calls. Yeah. And they check on us. Drive by, like Shannon said. Do you feel like you're making progress? I mean, that's a larger question than in the Women's Center. I don't suggest that this is your problem. I think you feel like you're making progress, but then the numbers grow and you're like, am I making progress? You know what I mean? Or do you know what you mean? Well, I think overall, I think deep down we all feel like we're making progress, otherwise we wouldn't be able to keep coming to work every day. So we do. I mean, whether that progress is one person, you know, that's still progress. If that one person is safe, that one person receives the services that they need, that's progress to us and that's important. Yes, you see the numbers increase, but that could also be because there's a rise in the awareness of it as well. So even though there's an increase in the number of people that are coming to us for services, we're happy to know that more people are aware of where we are and what we do and that there's a place to go when they do need that help. So it's interesting. You mentioned that they don't always come to you because they've been beaten, but maybe they've just been harassed in other ways. And I would guess that you try to help them cope with that and learn, do they learn some coping skills with this? If, especially if they're deciding that we're gonna go back in that environment. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's more rather than coping skills, it's more safety skills. How do I stay alive is really kind of more of the things that we help them with because their safety is number one. Well, we offer the support group. Yeah, we do a Tuesday night support group from six to eight every Tuesday. And then we also go into the jail every Friday from one to three. Into the Corwin County jail. Into the Corwin County jail. Yeah, we go and see some of the residents that are in the jail because they're there. So the same thing, we do a support group, talk with the women who have been abused. They're probably, sometimes they're in there for exactly what I was talking about earlier. They got caught carrying the drugs or they had went and stole something because he had forced her to those kind of things. And sometimes women do choose to self-medicate. And so they become addicts of alcohol or drugs because they don't know any other coping skills to deal with their life of what's going on. And so they self-medicate. Or they decided to fight back and that, the partner called them in that time and now they're sitting there for domestic abuse charges. So are there usually women that you see in the jail or do you see both? I think, well, when we're referring to women or her or him, we do that because 75% of our clients are females, not because only females can be victims. So just to make sure that that's out there. Just because of the racial that you're dealing with for the most part. Wow. How about the kids? I mean, you said you see kids from a couple of days old to I would guess teenagers. That is probably how you can maybe make the changes, isn't it, if you can get these kids to realize life doesn't have to be that way. We have a lot of volunteers that come in and try and spend some time with. I was going to ask you about that. Yeah, so try and spend some time with our little people so that they can see that there is kind people out there. People don't call you nasty names every time you turn around or you spill a glass of milk. Somebody's not going to scream and throw a fit because that happened. We're just going to simply say, oh, accidents happened. Let's get a rag and clean it up. And it's not made out to be like it's a bad, shame on you, accidents happen. Or that we have some, a grandma who comes in and she reads to the kids and that alone is amazing at how many kids and it doesn't matter what age. They want to be sitting by somebody and just hearing the book being read or somebody just wanting to talk to them and hang out with them and say kind things and not be mean or say, oh, you're dumb. No, you're smart, this is great. And really do those positive communications. You get many former clients that come back as volunteers? We do. We do. We really try to encourage them not to come in and volunteer until they're about two years out of the shelter just because we really want to make sure that their sound on their feet and they're doing well, that kind of thing. So that they've focused on themselves first and that they've gotten themselves to a place where they're healthy and they can do that because it can be very triggering if you come back to the shelter and there's something that you would hear, see, witness if it happened to you. And we don't want to put somebody in a situation where that would cause more harm than good for them. I know I've seen employees come to work pretty swollen and I think it's very difficult for some people to say they got a problem. If it's a person just who has never experienced working with someone like you folks, how do they break the ice? Who do they talk to when they call your organization? If they're really reluctant to come forward but they make that first step. I think the first thing that that person should do is talk to that co-worker that they just saw and let them know that they do recognize it and that they're there for support if they need it. The second thing would be to let them know what the resource is in the community doc and where they are and who's available to be able to have. The professionals in the area that can provide the best service as possible for that person they might not know that something even exists. How about the person that's being abused? Who's reluctant to come forward? But do they make the call? They do. Is that how they start? Do they call? Yeah, they can call and the other benefit to it is that it's confidential. So anything that we say we don't turn around and tell anybody else. And they can also call and be not, they don't have to give their name. So they don't have to tell us who they are in order to talk to someone and say, this is my frustration, like this is what's going on. Or sometimes they call and just say, can you just listen? And then can you tell me am I being abused? Because they don't even know what that looks like or what that means. And so they don't have to tell us their name. So they do call, law enforcement brings them, the emergency rooms have contacted us. So there's lots of different ways, different organizations in the community have called us and have just referred people to us. Shannon, what's your website? I'm running out of time. Oh, sure. www.womencenter.org. It's unfortunate that we need organizations like yours, but it's fortunate that we have you. Thank you. Thank you for being on the show. We really appreciate your jumping on board with us. Well, thanks for having us. You've been watching Lakeland Currents. Well, we're talking about what you're talking about. I'm Ray Gildhouse, so long until next time.