FLORENCE ZHU WAS a freshman at UC Berkeley when she first heard about intimate associate violence (IPV) in her group. Solely a yr later, Zhu was working her personal nonprofit group, impressed by these tales, to fill the gaps in IPV prevention.
IPV is a type of home violence characterised as abuse between present or former romantic companions, whereas home violence can even contain household or different family members. In keeping with the California Division of Public Well being, round one in 5 ladies and one in seven males within the state have encountered bodily violence from an intimate associate.
“I had many experiences in my freshman year of college where my friends had dating violence encounters. I would hear stories of things that happened in relationships that were violent, physical or emotional,” Zhu mentioned in an interview. “That triggered a red flag in my head, this is a recurring issue that’s happening to so many people.”
Experiences of home violence and intimate associate violence amongst faculty college students in California stay excessive, with 1,339 offenses reported in 2022, in keeping with the U.S. Division of Training’s Campus Security and Safety web site.
There have been 1,339 reported Violence Towards Ladies Act circumstances in California on 2022, based mostly on the Campus Security and Safety survey by the Workplace of Postsecondary Training within the U.S. Division of Training. The desk breaks down the variety of circumstances by sort of crime based mostly on information from 648 faculty establishments throughout 982 campuses. (U.S. Division of Training through Bay Metropolis Information)
Within the rural space of Mendocino County, there’s additionally a excessive variety of IPV and home violence circumstances, with lots of of calls associated to associate abuse recorded by the native police division annually.
In keeping with Capt. Quincy Cromer, commander and public info officer of area providers on the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Workplace, the division’s dispatch workplace recorded 477 home violence-related telephone calls since final February. A few of these calls had been simply arguments between companions and weren’t filed as official circumstances, whereas others had been filed as “reports,” indicating that the victims had been in rapid hazard and wanted assist. When it comes to official experiences that required regulation enforcement to supply assist and go to a sufferer’s residence, there have been 276 circumstances within the final yr.
“When I came to Mendocino County and started working at Project Sanctuary as a teacher for kids, I started looking at the issues that were there,” mentioned Debra Ramirez, the Tribal Chairwoman for the Redwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians. Ramirez can also be the shelter director of the ladies’s secure home at Mission Sanctuary, a company in Ukiah that helps victims of IPV and different home violence circumstances.
Ramirez, who has labored at Mission Sanctuary for 31 years, has seen firsthand how home violence adversely impacts communities. She defined that Native American ladies additionally expertise this sort of abuse at a excessive price, however it’s typically underreported.
In keeping with a report revealed by the Judicial Council of California, IPV and home violence offenses are sometimes undisclosed in tribal communities attributable to a concern of interacting with the judicial system, stemming from historic discrimination in opposition to Native People. There are additionally fewer recorded circumstances due to the dearth of culturally applicable providers on reservations.
“I started getting more training on domestic violence and doing trainings for tribal communities that experience domestic violence,” Ramirez mentioned.
For Ramirez, the choice to turn out to be a champion for home violence survivors was a gradual and natural alternative — a journey she fell into and grew to like as she helped folks.
Beginnings of Safe Steps
Like Ramirez’s journey, Zhu felt she wanted to become involved and act. After listening to the harrowing tales from her group of mates, Zhu combed by social media and seen an alarming variety of home violence experiences on college confession pages. These pages enable college students to anonymously share complaints, struggles, and different experiences.
Sometimes created by a college pupil, confession pages supply an area the place college students can put up anonymously with out concern of repercussions from faculty directors or authority figures. Many college students use them to share private struggles they aren’t able to report back to a counselor or college well being providers. These pages are sometimes hosted on platforms like Reddit, Instagram, Twitter or Fb.
One of many boards, hosted on Instagram, known as Calfession and nonetheless operates to at the present time.
“I saw many posts about how this person was being assaulted or about how a boyfriend did something to the woman,” Zhu mentioned. “It’s insane how these things are being normalized to the point where individuals have to resort to this Instagram page to find some sort of relief within themselves.”
Baffled by the dearth of prevention providers on college campuses, Zhu started gathering sources for these impacted by IPV and home violence, which might embody emotional, bodily, verbal and monetary abuse.
“I did more research on available support systems at different schools. I realized that a lot of schools did have a response team but there’s hardly anything on the prevention end,” Zhu mentioned. “In a sense there’s not much education on what IPV is. I decided to do something in relation to prevention, that’s how Secure Steps was created.”
The Safe Steps web site is a nonprofit group created by Florence Zhu to assist faculty college students discover sources to finish abusive relationships and obtain authorized help. (Screenshot through securestepsfoundation.org)
Safe Steps, Zhu’s nonprofit that she launched in June of 2024, goals to assist faculty college students discover sources to finish abusive relationships and discover authorized help. The nonprofit has partnered with organizations such because the Nationwide District Attorneys Affiliation, the Nationwide Crime Sufferer Regulation Institute, and Regulation Assist CA to supply faculty campuses throughout the U.S. with free workshops on prevention. These organizations have offered entry to cost-free audio system for the occasions.
Elevating consciousness in opposition to IPV, home violence
Zhu emphasised that to cut back the variety of IPV and home violence incidents faculty campuses must have a heightened deal with prevention, slightly than simply responding to people who find themselves already in abusive relationships.
“Our primary goal has always been to raise awareness and like prevention,” Zhu mentioned. “We want everyone to have a safe space, no matter where you go, what campus you’re on, or where you are in the U.S.”
Safe Steps and its associate organizations have labored with 25 colleges throughout the nation, together with California colleges akin to UC Berkeley and UC San Diego, to current workshops on IPV and home violence prevention. The academic marketing campaign, which Zhu mentioned is essential for making a community of assist for faculty college students, brings a speaker occasion to campuses the place the presenter, normally a authorized advocate for victims or a professor specializing in social welfare, speaks to college students concerning the indicators of IPV and shares their very own story of how they grew to become concerned in prevention.
Moreover, Safe Steps creates one-page useful resource guides to distribute after every occasion, itemizing native clinics, sources, and web sites that college students can use if they’re in an abusive scenario.
“We verify the information with the National District Attorneys Association, and we have the schools distribute the guides across campus, so they are getting the word out there and the students can know where they can go for help,” Zhu said. “There is a lack of awareness of what the options are when you are in a situation, and our goal is to get that information out there.”
Safe Steps has additionally launched a podcast for these eager to be taught extra about these types of abuse, referred to as “Steps Towards Safety,” which options nonprofit administrators, professors, and survivors of IPV or home violence. The podcast options specialists from throughout the nation and may be heard on platforms like Spotify.
Whereas Zhu hopes to increase the academic occasions to extra native faculties, she mentioned that California is just not her major concern in the case of offering prevention sources.
“The landscape of different schools in the Southwest or the Southeast is a little rockier and those are the schools that we’re trying to target in terms of getting prevention out there,” she mentioned. However she did word that there are federal legal guidelines in place, like Title IX, that require faculties to have some sexual violence sources. “The main issue just comes down to how much funding schools have, so even if sexual violence is a low-priority issue for them, they must allocate funding.”
“There is a lack of awareness of what the options are when you are in a situation, and our goal is to get that information out there.”
Florence Zhu, Safe Steps founder
Title IX, a landmark civil rights regulation that prohibits sex-based discrimination in training, is one motive that universities normally have sexual violence prevention applications. Nonetheless, some colleges have much less funding for prevention applications as a result of personal faculties and smaller colleges don’t obtain as a lot federal funding as bigger public universities. The price range priorities of state and native governments can even influence how a lot is spent on sexual violence prevention applications at universities.
In keeping with Zhu, her campus of UC Berkeley has an in depth listing of prevention sources for college students experiencing IPV and home violence. The Path to Care Middle and the Workplace for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination each present counseling and authorized help to college students in want of assist. These workplaces additionally have their very own workshops on stopping sexual violence.
For Zhu, the main target of Safe Steps is to carry sources to as many faculties as attainable throughout the nation, particularly campuses that have restricted providers for individuals who are struggling in abusive relationships.
“In about five years, I would love to see secure steps developed into a nonprofit where individuals from any state, even if your school has barely any resources, can utilize Secure Steps as a resource,” she exclaimed. “I would be happy to see it spread in as many places as possible to raise awareness. I also want it to be a place where individuals can get involved in the IPV fight.”
This story initially appeared in The Mendocino Voice.
