 And welcome to Finding Respect in the Chaos on Think Tecawaii. I'm Cynthia Sinclair and I'm here with Erica Antalan and Sydney Proctor from the Domestic Violence Action Center. We're going to be calling it DVAC for short for the rest of this show. You know I'm always looking for respect that we can find somewhere out there in the chaos and this is where I have found very, very amazing respect and all kinds of opportunities for people that are out there that are in a situation where they need help and they're not sure where to go. You can call DVAC. And so, Erica why don't we start with you, okay? And you are the LGBTQ specialist at DVAC, right? Or advocate? Yes, advocate. Okay, I'm sorry. Quite say it the right way, but okay. And so you can see on screen right now there's all kinds of numbers that are there for you to call. Write them down. Make sure if you're going to make that call that you do it when you're safe and make sure that your abuser is not around because that could, if they found out, could come back on you, right? So you want to make sure you're in a safe place when you reach out and call. And Erica is the LGBT advocate and then Sydney is our helpline specialist. And so, okay, once again, Erica why don't we start with you and why don't you tell us a little bit about exactly what you do, what kind of programs you guys have and maybe even give us a little overview of DVAC to start for those of us, for those of them out there that haven't heard about it yet. Yeah, well first of all, thank you Think Tech and Cynthia. It's been nearly almost two years since you were on the floor. Probably when the LGBTQ plus specialized advocacy services first started but yeah DVAC is a nonprofit organization that has been around for almost next year, like been corrected, for almost 30 years here in Oahu. That's awesome. Yeah, wonderful. And we have legal team on board with the DVAC and advocates. We provide legal and advocacy services. And then part of what I do is specifically I work with clients who identify as LGBTQ plus. The program initially started nearly almost two years ago and so we still continue to provide services, advocacy and legal services for this community. Did you have some kind of statistics or I know we have a graphic that kind of helps to show a little bit about the, it's called the power and control wheel or something like that if you could bring that up. Could you explain this just a little bit for us? Yeah, in general there is this power and control wheel out there that folks can see but it's basically where the abusive partner will use this power and control to keep their partners, the victims, in a relationship. And specifically for the LGBTQ plus community, there are definitely tactics that are done upon the victim. What kind of tactics? What do they do? Form of abuse. Yeah, I won't go over all of them but definitely the first one I would like to share is the outing where the abusive partner will out their partner and there's a difference between coming out if you identify as LGBTQ plus versus outing. Outing is when someone is outing you that you are a lesbian or a gay or... When nobody else knows, you may are the ones who say it when you're not even maybe ready to share that yet. Correct. And then coming out would be, for example, I came out in my youth years but I was ready to share with my loved ones. So the outing one. The second one they like to do, the abusive partners would like to do on their victims is isolate them from the chosen family, right? The chosen families could not be not only the immediate but relationship develop while they were going through their times and still questioning if they identify or not. And that's like a classic thing that all sort of abusive narcissistic people do is to separate the person they're with from their support system. Exactly, thank you for that. And then the third one definitely is attacking their identity. Everyone has an identity, right? It molds over time, right? And that's how you become yourself. But being in an abusive relationship specifically with an intimate partner of the same sex or other, it kind of diminishes your identity, right? It gets squashed, it gets suppressed, right? If you're shy or outgoing, they're going to shame you about being shy or shame you about being outgoing, is that what you're saying? Correct. Not only the identity, but if you identify as a lesbian, so I'm definitely okay to present myself like that and then share that however with the abuser, the abusive partner, they would attack that. Or if I was going through transitioning and I was a trans man and they would use verbal abuse and say, you will never be a real man, that's just an example. Right. And all of this is just used to exact control over someone else and chip away at their sense of self so they don't feel like they are able to leave if they need to. I think that's the biggest one and that's across the board as an abusive survivor myself in my first marriage, that's where I was. I looked in the mirror, I saw fat and ugly because that's what he called me and told me for so many years and I never thought I would have the strength and I didn't actually have the strength to do it for me. I did it for my kids and that's why I always say to people, I don't care what it takes when people say, well you've got to wait until you do it for you, I don't know if you do. Do it for your kids, do it for your mom, do it for your brother, do it for whoever gets you out and gets you safe, right? That's what I always think. Right. You've got another slide, I know you bring up slide two for us and let's talk a little bit about sort of the statistics that you guys deal with, right? Since the program began, we've been providing services to our LGBTQ plus clients. This data is collected from the program but we've reported to the victims of crime assistance grant program, one of our federal funders at the time. This collects from December of 2017, initially when the program began, to April of 2019. This is just a demographics in Oahu that LGBTQ plus are victims of some type of crime and surprisingly there are four top cities or races that experience some type of crime and they include like 20% are Asians and the other top percentages would be white non-Tinos or Caucasians. And then if you see the two of the 17% there, there are populations from the native Hawaiians, other Pacific Islanders and multiple races. Right. Wow, that's a really amazing way they've got it all. Now this isn't just domestic violence. Is this any kind of crime or is this more specific to? While they're going through this whole process of being in an intimate partner relationship, these are other factors, layers of trauma happening to them at the same time. So in the past or some sort of possibly maybe when they control all the money, they can't, they don't have a way to get out, right, those sorts of things that are now considered a crime, right, aren't they? Yes, fraud as well, right, manipulate to use their social security numbers and you can easily get a credit card under their names. Right. Okay, so we can go to slide three because I think we've got more stuff here too. Yeah, just briefly if this one is that the gender population as you can see, 66% are females and they are lesbians or bisexual as well and then 20% are males and then our intersex and other would be 14%. That's a huge percentage for females to be the victims of crime like that. So overwhelmingly more than half, that's wild. But a lot of that also might be due to lack of reporting and men or people of other genders because they might not feel like they will be accepted or like they should even access services. Right, because there's so much extra shame for men involved, right, exactly, right. Okay, so our next slide, I love all these slides that you've used, they're so informative. Yeah, thank you for allowing us to share, you know, information that has been happening to this community. Right. And so this just captures the age groups, right. What you don't see is zero to 17 is because we have a service within DVAC Capital 8 that provides services for that age group with the program. What I'm under is we provide from 18 years to the elderly. And as you can see that 74% range, the age group range from 25 years to 59 years and that's, you know, the biggest population that there are experiencing. That's a lot of people. Okay, next slide. Awesome. Well, there's many lists of different types of victimization that our clients are experiencing. I highlighted four main things, as you can see there, that the one victimization type is adult physical assault and, you know, our clients are experiencing 79% of that. So what's the difference between aggravated assault and simple assault? It would be, I apologize. That's okay. Where someone is in the hospital, maybe, or something where a simple assault is where they're bruised or bloodied, maybe, but they're not, right, okay, I get it. Okay. And then moving on to like the bullying, all of our clients and victims have been bullied in a lifetime, right. And then they also experience domestic violence in their past history to current with their partners, right. And you can see that 91% of them are victims. Can you say family violence is it, does that mean that sometimes people when they come out to their family, they get victimized by their family after they've come out and told them that's something that is connected, definitely is connected to that. And in this family violence can be with, of course, family members, not intimate and then, of course, right, it depends on their belief system, the cultural values and so, and they'll definitely go through that type of violence. So you're from Guam, and is that something that maybe the people that's more looked down upon in Guam or, I mean, when you say cultural things, I know, maybe for Asian people, they look down on this more so than other cultures or am I wrong, I might be wrong, I don't know. Well, I've seen that living here and seeing the statistics and also the occurrences on Guam is they're kind of about the same of domestic violence and family violence as well. Oh, yeah. OK, so next, we've got another slide. Yeah, definitely like to share, you know, working with this community, right, it's it we can be an ally to them. We can, you know, help them seek services and so forth. And then if you go into the next slide here, you know, you can work around best practices and working and, you know, being an ally to LGBT plus and as simple as safety planning. Right. We do it all the time with our loved ones, right, when they go out places, take the time for this. So just letting them know if you are immediate harm, call 9-1-1. Sometimes the victims are so involved in their relationship, they need, you know, to hear this more often, right, so it can sink in on what to do. And then, you know, another best practice could be use respect pronouns, right, because some identity can use she and he, but we have our non-binary folks, right, that don't identify or fall under the spectrum of of using he and she. So we would resort to them theirs, for example. And then you can go online, pronouns are they have a whole chart of different types of pronouns and learn about read about and use and practice. And then another best practice when working with this community or, you know, is you can be the support system, your contact with them may be the only support system they may have when they confine in you, right. Share their story about what's been going on. So always want to make sure you believe the people when they talk to you. Always respect what they have to say, don't invalidate what even if it sounds outrageous and it just couldn't be true. It probably is true. And even if it's not, it's best to give them that respect of believing them, right. OK, well, we've got to take a break, but I just want everyone to know that this is important stuff, so I hope you will stay with us. We're going to be right back. This is final respect in the chaos, and I'm Cynthia Sinclair, see you in a minute. Hello, my name is Mark Schlaufe. I am the host of Think Tech, Hawaii's Law Across the Sea program. My program airs every other Monday at one o'clock on Think Tech, Hawaii. Most of my programs deal with my own life and law experience. Recently, I interviewed Alex Gempel, who I have known for over 30 years about his voyage across the sea as a lawyer from Tokyo to Hawaii. Those are the type of stories that I like to bring and like to talk about human stories about law and life. Aloha. Hello, and welcome back to finding respect in the chaos. I'm Cynthia Sinclair. I'm here with Erica Antalan and Sydney Proctor. I'm so bad at names. Did I get it right? Yeah, that's right. So glad they're from DVAC, which is an amazing, amazing nonprofit here that helps people that are in the midst of intimate partner violence. And so, Erica, we talked with you during the first half. Cindy, I'd like to hear a little bit from you now here in the second half. Tell us more about what you do. I know you're the specialist for the helpline. Yes. Right? So tell us a little bit about what that entails and what you do. So people who call the helpline usually have legal issues that they might want information about. We can give it legal information as opposed to legal advice because we're not attorneys and we also do domestic violence education and we refer to different resources in the community. But for victims of domestic violence, we do focus a lot on safety planning and giving resources within our own organization, whether that's advocacy or if they need to pursue any legal issues. So when you say safety planning, you mean you kind of go through with them step by step, make sure you're in a safe place when you call. Yeah, it might include an escape plan, packing a bag before you leave or just as simple as if you go to work, can you alert a security guard and show them a picture of your abuser? And you let your kids know that there's a code word if you do need to leave. So it's very multifaceted and it's very tailored to each individual person. Right. And I can see how that would be the case. So do you work just with the LGBTQ part? Or are you for the whole entirety back? We are on the helpline. You can call about any issue. So you don't have to be calling about intimate partner violence, necessarily. There could be a problem with like your auntie or uncle. Or if you have other family issues, then you can always call. And if you're in a crisis, you can definitely call just so that you can have someone. I know it makes all the difference in the world. And I know everybody out there that watches the show has probably already heard my stories. But it saved my life having that helpline to call. And this was way back in the 80s when there wasn't a lot of, you know, anything programs available. But the gal that I called really saved my life that time because I had been put down enough that I didn't, you know, believe that I was worth anything. And that call, just that one call made all the difference for me. And it really turned things around and started being on a different path. And it's nice to hear that nowadays there's a specific plan that you can go through with people. Back then it was just kind of random, oh, don't worry, you're fine. Kind of thing. At least you know you're not alone. But they didn't really give you the kind of safety, planning and specific things like they do it back. You said 30 years, you guys have been 30 years. You've got has been there. That is just I love that. That freedman. What's your first Nancy? Nancy freedman is the one who started it, right? She and a couple of her paralegal buddies started just on a lunch time, you know, having a phone for people and it has snowballed into all of this. Wow. How many different programs do you guys have at DVAC? Do you say five or six? I think in operation right now. So we have Pico, which is a children, the children based program that focuses on people who are suffering from domestic violence and their kids might or might not be involved. And an immigrant program, LGBTQ, our helpline. And then we have our legal team. That's amazing. Then we also have our CSAP, which stands for Campus Survival. The advocacy program. They are advocates who are on site on certain days and they're available for faculty, staff and especially students, college students, right? And then there's like three colleges now or something, right? Or four colleges now, I think they're accessible to even not the CC colleges as well. Yeah, if like you, for example, are not as well, if they need assistance, they can reach out. Yeah, they can. Is Chelsea Stewart still doing this? Yeah, I had her on the show. She was actually my very first person that ever came on my show. My first guest. Yeah. And then we have our Tapa 808. Right. And I did a show for those guys, two ones. And then we have our Expo Outreach, which are based in Kapolei Family Court and also Circuit Court Along Punch Hall. We have advocates, but if they need help with filing a TRO in that. So if someone were to just show up at court, there would be a representative there at court that day for them to be able to. They'll be an advocate. I know they have specific times where they go down on the filing window, definitely. Yes, definitely requesting. Doesn't hurt. And if they're know about our resources and asking to see if there's any other assistance besides filing at the window. So that's something if they had called first, you would be able to say, if they go, help, I'm going to court, I don't know what to do. Yes, I would let our staff know that they are coming. And so also it's already sort of set up even in everything. So they know where they're going when they get there. Yeah. So they don't have to be alone and go to court. Yeah. That's a big deal because I went to court by myself and it was terrifying because I've never been to court for anything. I never had gotten any trouble or anything. I had no idea. And the whole thing was so overwhelming and scary. But and then we have, sorry, our last program is our Oh, there's one more. Oh, sorry. All right, LKE program as well, right? Which one? LKE advocacy program. They it's just the same thing, long term advocacy, but it's more general, right? If these are, you know, possibly victims who don't have children. And even we accept the ones with children as well. So it depends. So if they call in our helpline, then whoever's listening to their call, we do an assessment over the phone. And then we would do a referral to one of the programs that did. And basically anyone can call and we'll have a program that they can. Right. It's like, hey, my auntie and my uncle are always whatever or my mom is or whatever. And the TAP 808 one is really great because that's for kids, right? Correct. Their prevention, education work. And they have an advocate as well, an advocate, right? They go into the schools, intermediate and high school. And yeah, educate about healthy relationships. I believe they'll be on on board February, I believe, next year. I think they're scheduled in for your someone. Oh, that's what they was informed. OK, so they'll be here. Oh, great. I'm glad they'll be here. I did it. Yeah, because I did a show with them also at one point. That was a while back. It was right around the time that it's hard to believe I've been doing this this long. I love it because it's just having a chance. It's such an honor to have a chance to to share this news with people so they know there's help out there for them. They're not alone. They don't have to suffer alone. There is help. And that's my dream is to show others that there's hope and healing on the other side of abuse. I could get out. Anyone could get out. So there's there's help out there to keep reaching out. So, OK, say I called you and I said that my brother just raped me last night. What do I do? So we would make sure that you're safe first and foremost. And then we would sort of walk you through the steps of whatever plan there may be. So in that situation, if you had wanted to call the police, if you wanted to file a police report or file a temporary restraining order, we could walk you through those steps and then just go over overall safety, emotional processing and make sure that you were OK and that if you needed to be connected to any outside organizations that we help you. So what if they're a minor? What if they're not 18 yet and you still help them or do you have to go through the parents? That's a great question. So we will definitely talk to anyone who is a minor or under 18. We are mandated reporters. So in certain situations, we will have to tell certain organizations if there has been a crime committed or someone has an intent to harm another person. And something like that would be considered that, right? The person is still at risk. They're in the house with their brother still. So they would need to have that intervention of being a mandated reporter. I was a United Methodist Minister for many years and I was a mandated reporter. And even if I wasn't, just am a mandated reporter because of my own you know, feelings of responsibility. And I wish everybody was a mandated reporter. And that means you'll get in trouble if you don't tell, right? You know of something that's happening. Reach out so that you can find out some steps to help that person. Right? Because you want to make sure you don't put them at more risk by doing the wrong thing. So it's always best to call and get some help, get some advice from DVAC because these people can really help you. I think it's amazing. So when they call in, the first thing you're going to do is sort of decide where it is that they should call and where they get referred or all of that. Just establish what situation they're in and see what their needs are and then go from there. So there are a lot of times where people might not necessarily need to be involved with advocacy. So we won't do what's called a full assessment of the power and control. But whatever resources they might need, whether that's a shelter or a food pantry or therapy, then we can connect people to that. Right. OK. And then I think in the just in the hypothetical anyway that I was using, you would have to refer them maybe to the Sex Abuse Treatment Center, right, involves rape or something like that. Yes. Yeah. And that's what you mean by the power and control assessment that you figure out exactly what that victim is dealing with at the time. Yeah, we would use the power and control wheel, the tool that we discussed beforehand to assess where the power and control is in their relationship and to see if they're. And to see what kind of risk factor they have in going forward. OK. Wow. I can't believe how fast this always goes. It's like there's so many more questions I have and so many more things that we need to talk about, but I can have you come back and you guys can tell us more about what's going on, the new programs. You guys have like 10 new programs from last time. I'm sorry. Eight or nine. I'd like you to eight or nine, not ten. Erica, thank you so much for coming. Sydney, thank you so much for having us. It was really great having you guys on the show. Thank you for having us. Well, you guys, this is Finding Respect in the Chaos. And I really hope that you will always know that you're not alone. There is help out there. Don't stay silent. Reach out and get the help that you need. I hope you found something useful in the show today. I'm Cynthia Sinclair. This is Finding Respect in the Chaos on Think Tech Hawaii. And I hope you'll join me next time.