As Kara Carlson experienced sexual assault in her teens She described it as an emotional experience, but not shocking “I was the only one of my friends to suffer physical violence in a sexual way,” she said. “We are living in a time where we have to prepare women to face trauma.”
She is now the director of the women’s emergency shelter Interior Alaska Center for Non-Violent Living in which she has been working for more than two years. She has witnessed the effects of sexual and domestic violence on Generations of Alaskans in Fairbanks.
“I’ve been here for long enough that I’ve witnessed mothers come in, and I’ve watched their children arrive. I’ve watched their children at CourtView, as victims. We’ve treated their children as victimized,” She said saying that she’s witnessed up to three generations go through the doors of IAC. “The cycle repeats because nothing has changed.”
Without preventive services, Carlson explained that the shelter is not able to decrease the violence “We are going to continue operating this manner for the rest of our lives without a change in the number of people who use it, since the shelter is a band-aid is where individuals go after something occurred.”
Despite the many millions that in the amount that Alaska invests in programs to prevent domestic violence, families are still afflicted with one of the highest levels of domestic violence across the country. Advocates, experts and specialists agree that major increase in prevention efforts and support for communities are required to decrease the pace for domestic violence.
Research studies have shown that children subjected to violent situations are much more likely engage in it. They also are more likely to have academic difficulties or adverse physical and mental health effects.
Interior Alaska Center for Non-Violent Living provides prevention services, which include an education program for rehabilitation that provides perpetrators with alternatives to violence. However, Carlson has said that if she can’t come up with more funds to run the program the center may need stop it – even though she’s aware it is effective.
“That’s the place where we’ve really not done enough to stop domestic violence”
Diane Casto, former director of the state’s Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse She said that the government’s funding is used to fuel the agencies and nonprofits that deal with abuse, just change in the social sphere can eradicate it. From where she is the best way to achieve social change is through community-based prevention efforts.
Prevention, within the context of domestic violence is generally a form of education on healthy relationships. It may be directed at young people, at people who are already who are in relationships, or those who have been the cause of harm.
“My main goal from the moment I came this job in the year 2017 was to increase prevention and provide services to those who hurt to themselves,” the woman said. Prevention funding has increased somewhat since she began but, ultimately, Casto said it is the area where the state has fallen short in fighting domestic violence.
“We have lots of grant funds,” Casto said. Every year, the council gives out over $20 million worth of grants throughout the state.
However, she noted that there is an imbalance that hinders their final objective of reducing violence “Ninety percentage of the grant money goes to services for victims 88% of them go to prevention programs, and the remaining 2% goes to programs for batterers,” she said.
That is, the majority of the investment made by the state in domestic violence is spent aiding victims after the violence occurs. Casto stated that in order to stop domestic violence, it is necessary for prevention to be financed at the same level in the same way as services for victims. But she added it’s a difficult task because prevention is time-consuming and is difficult to show success.
“Prevention requires years- generations to alter behavior, attitudes, and beliefs. If you don’t allow enough time to the process and effort, you won’t observe any changes. This is where I believe we’ve really failed in the fight against domestic violence,”” the actress said. “Funding is looking for the results and outcomes right in the near future.”
Casto said that every year, she requests the state Legislature to increase funding since the need for services for victims is so urgent. She would like to fund prevention in order that, in the future, the budget that is needed to help those in need will decrease.
“The truth is that if we continue to turn our heads in the direction of not taking the responsibility, then it’s not going to be over,” she said.
The Alaskan prevention movement
There was an era when the state poured more in prevention and awareness of domestic violence according to Brenda Stanfill, who runs the state’s largest coalition of shelters for domestic violence, known as”the Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault.
Stanfill stated that former governor. Sean Parnell’s Choose Respect campaign and his investments in prevention of domestic violence programs sparked the movement raise awareness and decrease domestic violence.
“In the period from 2010 to 2015 between 2010 and 2015, we tried a variety of things. We started discussing the subject in a very public manner,” she said. “Prevention began in the five years prior to that. It was when that we began to implement prevention activities — awareness of violence prevention and prevention programs in the communities and villages, as well as urban centers.”
They did projects at school in which they were taught about healthy conflict resolutionand then brought the newly learned skills home with their families. The observations of children can be a wake-up call for those who don’t realize their own harmful behavior “If there are children who talk about what constitutes respect and how we treat each other, and perhaps pointing out at home that it’s not what they learned in school’ sort of thing — it can be effective. This puts pressure on people,” she said.
This was also the beginning of what’s known as ” batterer intervention programs,” a name Stanfill has admitted to regretting because of the way in which it is used to define those who perpetrate violence. These programs are designed for those who have been victims of domestic violence, and aim to teach the non-violent ways to resolve conflicts.
Stanfill as well as other specialists have confirmed that the programs are effective if the person who is in trouble is willing to change and she’s seen the ways in which these classes are efficient. She was able to recall one lesson that had men being asked about their home conflicts as they grew up. One person said that his family was not able to have this experience. If his mother got angry and his father would hit her and the fight would be resolved. “He was not sarcastic. To him it was not a issue,” she said. “There’s there’s no dispute in his head and he doesn’t have any other talents. All he’s got is his mind.” The program offered him non-violent options.
in 2009 Parnell made a promise to stop domestic violence within the state within the next ten years. The attorney general of the state, who is now U.S. senator. Dan Sullivan, vowed to boost the number of prosecutions for criminals. In the Alaska Victimization Survey showed that between the years the years 2010 between 2010 and 2015 there was an decline of domestic violence. The most recent survey, which covers 2015 through 2020, shows that the rate has risen up, and is much higher than it was in the last 10 years.
Stanfill said that the prevention movement was crucial because it sparked discussion about an issue which was previously taboo. In the present, she says nonviolence advocates must make the next step.
“I believe we haven’t given an answer to what we’re now required in order to take action,” she said. “When it concerns family violence in the home, I believe that we’re still trying determine exactly what kind of call to action we making? That’s something we as a country must consider for a while.”
The article was written as part of a project for the HTML2 project of theUSC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism 2023 Domestic Violence Impact Fund.
A complete catalog of Alaska shelters and victim’s service providers is available here. .
