What’s Next: How You Can Help End Violence

In response people have come forward asking what can we do, how can we help.

Next, we must organize. We must collectively determine what assets our community holds and what other assets are needed to change our culture of violence.

Before anyone says, “Oh, no, not another program. Not another feel good event that goes nowhere.”

What I am asking for, is for each of us to dig deep and determine what community assets we have within the school system,  churches, business, medical, law enforcement and social service communities.

If we are going to make lasting change we have to determine what works and what doesn’t work. We have to figure out who we are and where we are going.

We have to do an inventory of our assets.

I know there are some incredibly powerful programs already in place. But what else is out there? Who is in charge of those programs? What resources do they have? What other resources to they need to be successful?

It’s not enough to say, “This will never work. That child is just too damaged. The norm is just too intrenched. ” – That may be true, but if we don’t try, nothing will ever change.

If we are going to make lasting change we have to determine what works and what doesn’t work. We have to figure out who we are and where we are going.

A coworker of mine regularly goes to the Juvenile Detention Center (D-home) and works with the youth there to focus on how not to make a return trip to the D-home. That co-worker, Barb Nehring talked to me once about how initially when she would meet with the youth at the D-home the amount of foul language the youth used as part of their normal vocabulary was deplorable.

So, she instituted a policy that for every foul word the youth had to do a push up – right then and there. Over time, the number of foul words uttered began to reduce until today, foul language is not used at all, she said. For that group and that setting, the expectation has changed and so has the culture. That is what I am asking for in our community.

I truly believe the majority of people in Grant County want to do right and want to get involved. Sometimes good people just don’t know how or where to turn, so we who are leaders must give them the tools and show them how to use them.

As part of the Delta Focus project, at the state level, the Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence’s Empowerment Evaluator is doing extensive research around risk factors that contribute to domestic violence. These risk factors enhance the chances that domestic violence will occur in a particular relationship.

Among some of the key components the research has shown so far is the correlation between domestic violence and unskilled parenting, poverty, drug and alcohol abuse and strict gender roles.

If we as a community are going to work to reduce violent crimes such as the one committed recently involving three TEENS, I am asking that all segments of the community band together and perform a Community Mapping of Assets.

We can do this. We are a community that has persevered. Let’s band together and show others looking at Grant County that we are a community that learns from tragedy as we have in the past.

That is where I believe we need to start. Then once we have our assets inventoried. Then we can work to enhance those assets by involving others who might be on the fringe of our community, waiting for that opportunity to be called into action.

I was one of those waiting on the fringe – not sure what I could do or how I could get involved. As a police reporter 20 plus years ago, I spent much of my time reporting about crime and violence. It tugged at my heart, but as a journalist I had a code of ethics that kept me from getting too involved. It was my responsibility to report the story, not become the story.

So, when the opportunity arose and  the position of director of the local domestic violence program at Radiant Health, opened, I stepped into that role and have been working to change the culture ever since.

So, if you too have been waiting for that opportunity, I am telling you, it is now. Please help me by organizing and assisting me with this project of community mapping.

Over the course of the next several months, Christina Johnson, the Hands of Hope Delta Focus Coordinator and I will be putting together this Community Mapping project. We will be working with the Mayor’s Commission Against Domestic Violence and other already established groups to put a plan in place for how to move forward so that another tragedy like the one that occurred does not happen.

We can do this. We are a community that has persevered. Let’s band together and show others looking at Grant County that we are a community that learns from tragedy as we have in the past.

And, let’s go back to the mantra that seems be have faded a bit that remains on the signs as you enter Marion and let’s expand it to not only say, MAKE IT MARION!, but let’s be inclusive and say  MAKE IT GRANT COUNTY! – A COMMUNITY WHERE WE LIVE WITH REPSECT. STAND WITH RESPECT. SERVE WITH RESPECT.