From the WNIN Tristate Public Media Center in downtown Evansville.

I'm David James.

And this is Two Main Street.

Well, you may have heard this name before.

Albion Fellows Bacon, the namesake of the Evansville shelter for domestic and sexual violence victims.

After her death in 1933, she was called the city's best known and most loved woman.

Now we're going to learn more about her legacy and the shelter and programs that bear her name.

The Albion Fellows Bacon Center is celebrating its 40th anniversary.

Not only serving the local community, but families in 11 southwestern Indiana counties.

The shelter story goes back to the 1970s and a group called the Evansville Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

Over the years, the center grew from a small house purchased for, I think, about $33,000 to larger buildings, paid staff and crisis services, including prevention, outreach, education and much more.

And here to start us off is Julia Kathary, interim executive director of the Albion Fellows Bacon Center.

And later, we'll hear from a local survivor who sought and received help from Albion.

Julia, welcome two to Main Street.

And now before we celebrate this 40th anniversary and hear about the future of Albion, let's go back in time.

Introduce us to Albion Fellows Bacon.

Quite a lady.

Oh, my goodness.

Albion Fellows Bacon is a trailblazer.

As an Evansville native, we should just be so excited and honored to speak of her 100 years almost after her death, even before she even had the right to vote.

Albion Fellows Bacon was really a volunteer unpaid lobbyist.

She, for three full years would travel to the state legislature and sit in session.

She never missed a day for three full sessions.

This was before she could even vote as a woman, and she was as an unpaid lobbyist, volunteer lobbyist fighting for legislation here in Indiana to improve the housing conditions of the common person.

So Albion herself was from a moderate.

Well-off means her.

She married young, but in her early twenties she married a mercantile here in Evansville.

And so she had four children.

She was, you know, considered middle to upper class, if you will, here in Evansville back in the early 1900s.

But she was very engaged in the community and very moved by that.

Not not all humans had the same safe, sanitary living conditions and housing in back in in the day in the early 1900s.

There was no real legislation on the books back then across the United States.

And so Albion was a real trailblazer.

She was fighting for better housing conditions and so forth for three full year.

She was at the General Assembly, you know, talking with the legislators, which were basically all older white men.

They couldn't ignore.

Her.

They could not ignore her.

She was there every day.

And she, of course, was also a published author.

So she was very, very well spoken.

And she just continued to make her case until some housing legislation was passed.

And that was even before the women before women had the right to vote in 1919.

She was born in 1865 and died in 1933, described as a municipal housekeeper, cleaning up slums and improving living living conditions.

Like you said, also a prolific author.

Yes.

She wrote devotional books, children's books and poetry, of course, the Albion Fellows Bacon Center celebrating its 40th anniversary.

It's a safe haven for survivors of abuse.

What kind of safety measures are in place there, Julia?

Well, you know, much like Albion Fellows, Bacon herself was fighting for the leave in living conditions of those less fortunate.

That's really what we want to proliferate and to be her legacy here in Evansville, as the Albion Fellows Bacon Center, we focus on working with survivors of domestic violence, sexual violence, human trafficking, stalking.

And our safety measures include everything from a crisis line 24 hour crisis line that's operated every day of the year, around the clock to crisis response out in the community where we will send an advocate to a safe and neutral location.

It might be the hospital, it could be the jail, even the police department, the sheriff's department.

We want to meet survivors where they're at as close to the crisis as possible.

And so we'll send out our team of advocates to meet a survivor in a safe location.

We also have the emergency shelter where if someone doesn't have a safe place to flee or escape, then we will shelter them for a period of time.

And then we're working with that family, not only the the parent, the adult head of household, but also the children to really help them with trauma informed care services to.

Help them heal and begin their journey to recovery.

Now, let's bring Sarah Nernberger in here now.

She's one of the survivors who helped helped an Albion Fells Beacon Center.

And Sarah, the safety aspect of it that had to be very important to know that you were safe and secure at Albion.

Yes.

When I got linked up with them, it's just a way of feeling like you have that aided support and safety measure.

I had my abuser in jail during the initial time period that I was involved with Albion, but we didn't know how the trial would pan out over the course of that year.

So there was always that thought in the back of my head if he got out and the safety components that these ladies at Albion just made you feel at home and safe.

I know I've made some donations at the center and it's difficult to find, which is probably a good thing.

But when you get there, you have to go through some security procedures a protocol, a ring, a buzzer and everything.

They check it out.

And and I think you may have to make an appointment to to donate things.

Yes.

You know, we are very public.

We want to be friendly to the public, certainly.

But we also want to be mindful that families who are in acute crisis are actually living in our facility and it's their home.

And much like none of us would want someone necessarily to drop by unannounced, particularly someone we may not know very well, and particularly if we're in a situation where we may be being stalked or followed or in danger.

And so that's all we just ask the public to just to be mindful of that.

So if they stop by unannounced, they may be asked to make an appointment and come back.

But we do want to be welcoming.

We wouldn't be here 40 years later without the support of the community.

And so we're not necessarily hiding.

We there's no stigma that goes along with someone who is needing our services at all.

Domestic and sexual violence can certainly happen to any of us, and it does happen to any of us.

So we're not trying to imply that survivors ought to have to hide or be tucked away from the community's view or anything like that.

We're just being mindful that our location is a is a residential facility and families live there.

We're going to hear Sarah's story here in a little bit.

But let's go back to the facility itself.

Now, we talked about that first small building and then it expanded.

Now the current facility.

Can you give us a tour?

How many rooms?

Beds, staff at Children's Playground?

Absolutely.

Well, we recently expanded also with the help of the community.

So we've added some office space.

Now, all of our our entire team is in one location.

We were we were kind of scattered here and around because we'd run out of room.

And we still do have an advocate located at Holly's house, and we have an advocate up in Gibson County.

But the rest of our team is located in one location now, and we've added three family rooms.

So we now have 12.

We can house 12 families at a time.

On occasion, we may ask families to double up, but, you know, and it's been 18 months now since the pandemic.

So we've kept families in their own rooms, and that has limited the number of people we can serve on any given night.

But we're making do.

We're also putting people in the community out in stable housing as quick as possible where we're building out our services.

But we went from nine bedrooms, you know, for our first 38 years to, well, 39, almost 40 years.

And now we're just now opening out three more family rooms in our facility.

Now, you mentioned Holly's house.

There's also the Lampson Center and the YWCA.

Now, all these agencies work together.

We do.

It's so important for survivors to have a collaborative community working together, because survivors, you know, really and I always say this and a place to go to get immediate safety like an emergency shelter or to have a crisis advocate available, you know, to respond when someone is an immediate crisis is really important.

But those types of services, the legal advocacy, the support group, those kinds of things are children's services that we provide.

They're necessary, but they're not sufficient in a journey, the full journey of a survivor.

So it's really important for programs and organizations to work together and collaborate so that a whole continuum can be built to strengthen a community and to give a warm handoff to that survivor.

When that person has journey through acute crisis intervention services and is ready for the next step.

And so it's so important our partnerships that we have with Olympian and Holly's house and the YWCA, because it really takes all of us to lock arms and to wrap around the survivor and their family during this time.

Now, Sarah, I'm curious, how long did you stay at the shelter there in Albion?

And so I was fortunate enough that I had a support system.

That I was able to stay with people for my own safety.

So I didn't have to stay at the emergency shelter.

But I was very linked up with the group therapy and legal advocacy portion of their services.

Mm hmm.

Now, how long a person usually stay at the emergency shelters there?

We typically have a 45 to 90 day stay, but we've been really creative, you know, because the truth of the matter is, it's like survivors are going to exit somewhere from this emergency situation.

They're going to leave and go back home.

Oftentimes they're going to leave and maybe stay with a family member or relocate.

Or the ideal situation would that be would be that they would exit to a permanent and safe housing solution on their own an apartment, a home.

But we all know that in every community across the country right now, being able to afford housing is a serious issue.

There's just not enough housing that people can afford, particularly on one income.

And so when you're in an acute crisis where you've left a relationship, where you've left potentially another income in your family and you're trying to start over, you're trying to get back on your feet, it can take somebody a long time to do that, particularly if you have children.

We all you know, we've been hearing this community conversation about living wage and what is a living wage.

What is what does it take for one adult, you know, to be able to survive and to afford ranch or to afford a mortgage payment?

You can imagine it takes 2 to 3 times that for a parent with one or more children.

And so what we're looking at is a 45 day, even a 90 day stay in an emergency shelter is inadequate for most survivors, particularly those who are coming in with really strapped resources and who have not been allowed to work.

So we're looking at actually shifting our model to either go for longer term housing, stays there at Albion and but really focusing our services on helping people exit successfully to safe, sustainable housing of their choosing.

Julia Kathary is the interim executive director of the Albion Fellows Bacon Center, named after a social reformer who dedicated her life to improving working and living conditions for women in Indiana.

Joining Julia is a survivor who sought and received help from the Albion Center.

Sarah Nernberger, so let's start with you, Sarah.

Was Albion a life saver?

And yes, very much so.

You know, in some of the speeches I've gave, I've actually referred to them as like my lighthouse.

So that's interesting that you said the lifesaver analogy there.

And I kind of you know, while it seems corny, there are ray of light from like a lighthouse.

It's like they're standing there with that light, but you have to kind of just want to reach out and grab it.

And their light saved me.

Honestly, they really did.

Well, obviously, you've talked publicly about your your problems.

And can you kind of give us a summary of what happened in your life.

And growing up or.

Well, the events that sent you to Albion.

Let's talk about that.

Yes, but the other things.

Yes.

So in 2018, I was in an intimate relationship with my abuser for about a year until early 2019 when I got linked up with Albion.

And of course, the relationship doesn't always start out terrible.

You'll hear that at Albion as well.

They kind of honeymoon you in at the beginning.

I didn't see a lot of the signs of it at first.

Then several months in, it would start off with small things like shoving and jealousy.

And then as the year transpired, it became more aggressive in nature.

And that all led up to the events that pretty much transpired in January of 2019 that sent him to jail.

So were you physically abused?

Yes, throughout the year.

And again, it started off with the shoving and the pushing that he would kind of downplay as not abuse and then slapping and those sorts of things got involved.

But in January of 2019, I was assaulted, beaten, strangled and confined.

Did you receive hospital treatment?

I did not.

Following the incident, when I was able to escape and leave, I went immediately to my sister's.

I had been kind of in denial for a few months over it, and I was getting to that point in my recovery of realizing that, wow, I really am in a domestic violence situation.

I remember pulling away to go to my sister's.

I looked in my rearview mirror and saw my big black eye.

That was one of the most.

Severe times that I had been assaulted by him.

And it kind of sunk in.

I was still processing it for a long time, but it sunk in that I've got to do something.

This is different.

So I went to my sister's for a while.

He was making threats to my family that he was going to go hurt them.

So it was a thing where hospital, although that sounds terrible treatment to put on the back burner.

Those first several hours were crucial as to me figuring out safety where I can go to be safe with who, how do I report this so that he won't come after my family and my loved ones?

It was the safety component for me.

So I didn't go to a hospital?

No.

Did he express any remorse for his actions?

No, honestly.

Still to this day, he has never shown remorse in court.

He led on to believe that he was remorseful.

But I've known him off and on since college.

And many of these abusers are narcissists, you know, and they're very manipulative.

And he was very manipulative in the relationship throughout the court trial, and he appeared to be remorseful.

But I don't know how to say this for lack of doubt.

Not very sympathetic to him, obviously, but it seemed very put on him.

So did he plead not guilty to go to trial?

He did.

He was acknowledging that he hit me, but there were certain charges that he felt that he didn't do.

They actually offered him a plea deal at one time that he was going to be given the bare minimum.

And actually, if that had happened, he would be out on the streets right now.

So the way it transpired was just meant to be, honestly.

But Judge, the judge that I had, the female judge that I had, she I felt like she was backing the story of the situation while she was taking everything into consideration at his plea deal hearing, she actually didn't find a factual basis for what he was saying and trying to agree to what he thought happened.

And she said, no, this is going to trial.

Well, I'm curious, when you decided to press charges.

What was that process like?

Do you feel like you were treated fairly by the by law enforcement and the prosecutor's office?

Absolutely.

You know, people have mixed feelings sometimes about those things and the reporting process.

But for me, I had a very positive experience with both with Albion, with EPD, with the prosecutor's office, who worked with me very closely, as well as Albion.

It was all an experience for me that, as I told Julia last week, really that whole journey is how I transitioned from victim to Survivor and the officer that came to get the report from me when I turned him in.

Honestly, there was many things that saved my life.

But that was the first lifeline, the first lifesaver that you referred to that kind of got thrown to me, that clicked in my head like, I'm going to do this, this, this needs to make it.

There's something needs to be done.

It's not okay.

Now, Julia, this I mean, every story you hear probably is heartbreaking, and I'm sure hers is typical.

Can you share any more stories that that you can let our audience know about the people that you serve?

Yeah.

You know, I think when I when I heard Sara story the first time last week, she'd been working for Out with Albion for many years, but she and I and you know, just learned of each other and met last week.

And I want to thank her for coming with me today.

There's you're right.

There's so many stories like Sara's, but they're each individual and unique and yet have this very common thread that runs through them and that harm doers or abusers are manipulators.

And they they can be very charming, very charismatic as a as a weapon against the person they're doing harm.

And when you think about power and control, people use all kinds of tactics.

But the purpose is to get power and to keep control.

So they may use things like emotional manipulation and jealousy, name calling that could escalate into physical abuse, such as what Sara suffered, financial abuse, sexual abuse.

And then once the survivor leaves, they may turn into stalking type behavior to get that person to come back or to keep them under their power and control.

But over the the almost 30 years that I've done this work, there's been thousands of survivors.

You know, innumerable really at this point that I have worked with.

I used to do the the the crisis response here in Evansville, where I would go to hospitals, go to the police state.

And meet with Survivor, a victim at that point.

That's a really good point at that time.

They may not feel like a survivor, he adds.

Sarah has a wonderful point about how she can recognize the moment that she wrote that she stepped from being a victim into her survivor journey.

Let's talk about that that moment when you realize that, okay, I've got to take control of this.

Hmm.

Well, kind of.

As she said, it really is a process.

It's not an overnight thing by any means.

At the beginning of it, even turning him in, I was still very much a little bit in denial as to I'm a victim of domestic violence.

You know, growing up with, I've had a fairly decent, normal upbringing where you don't think growing up I'm going to be in a situation like this.

I never saw myself in a situation as this.

And as Julia said, it can it can and does happen to everyone.

It doesn't discriminate.

So laying there on the floor that day after he had assaulted me, it kind of sunk in.

Wow.

I'm a victim of domestic violence.

Like that day it sunk in.

And within weeks of that, I was still processing that through the group therapy.

There I was still processing.

I'm a victim of this.

But throughout the process and I don't now that I feel my self as a survivor, I kind of when I think of the term victim, like she said, we almost like to use the term survivor.

But there is a process of when you get to that point through various things.

For me, it was that whole legal journey of that year and having the support of Albion along the way, going to group therapy consistently, going to the legal proceedings with my advocates from Albion.

And then when I took the stand while that was one of the most terrifying moments of my life that and the victim impact statement that I gave at his sentencing.

Those were the days that I felt like I'm a survivor.

I'm not a victim anymore.

Now, when you were in the in the courtroom, was the suspect in the courtroom when you were telling the story?

Yes, he was.

Yep.

Was that intimidating to you or was that did you feel empowered to tell your story up there?

It was.

I know you're getting very emotional.

Yes.

No, I'm I'm fine.

Okay.

It was a little bit of both.

So a little bit about me, kind of with the background of this story.

The trial got reset three times.

There was multiple hearings that he was fighting things on.

And I showed up at every hearing, even the small little things.

I showed up at every hearing.

And that was part of my journey in my healing process of being present and taking a stand and making a point that I'm not backing down and it's not okay.

So it was terrifying.

I had never taken a stand.

You know, that's not a common thing that most people do.

I actually did reach out to Holly Dunn for advice.

When you take the stand, what's something you can do before you take the stand to kind of help?

You know, Holly Dunn, course, the survivor of the railway killer who was executed for all of his crimes, Holly Dunn, Pendleton.

And we've had her on our show.

She's written an incredible book called Survivor.

And I know she's an advocate for and she speaks all around the country.

She's the founder of Holly's house.

She is the.

That's right.

She's the namesake of Holly's house.

I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

And when you're talking about you talk to Holly.

Yes.

It's just resources in the community, because honestly, my family was a good support system for me.

But what Albion did for me is my family did not know and experienced domestic violence.

So while they could talk to me and try to help me, they didn't really know or understand what I was going through.

Those people in my group therapy from all walks of life like she was bringing up earlier.

We all had different backgrounds, but we all had experienced.

When you experience that kind of trauma, you have similar responses.

We're all different and how we manage it, but we felt the same.

We all could relate to that.

So the what the Albion advocates did for me was they made me feel comfortable and safe.

They almost felt like my sisters, you know, I have sisters, but they made me feel like sisters that understood what I was going through and they believed me.

Now, the importance, I guess, of of fellow survivors gathering together, telling their stories, that has to be very empowering.

It is so empowering.

I think that, you know, to Sarah's point, victimization is something that can happen to any of us.

And but it's not our identity.

And when we move into survivorship as a part of who we are and we're stepping into a place of taking control back in our lives, taking our self-efficacy back, our mastery , our self agency and the control back in our life.

And I think that that's why it's so notable to many people who've had something just terrible happen to them over a period of time, even some longer than others.

But when they begin to move into that place and that's what that's what places like.

Albion is Albion Fellows Bacon Center is focused on is giving people the space, the grace to move back into having control over their own life and making their own choices and having the self agency and the support those standing behind your back cheering you on.

And you don't have to do a perfectly, you know, moving back into self-empowerment and taking ownership back over your life and taking the control back.

It can be messy for many people, you know, and they and everybody needs something a bit different.

And that's why we want to have a multitude of services and programs and personalities.

And none of our advocates are the same, but they all have this passion for the work and they all have this commitment and dedication to the work.

And I think it's just so important to meet people where they are.

And that's what Survivor Centeredness is all about, is really remembering that Sarah and other women and men are people, and this is something that's happened to them.

But they are survivors.

They are humans, like any of us who are just journeying back into taking control of their lives.

Julie I'm interested in how did you get involved in this field?

David This just answering an ad in the paper and the impact and the work.

The work fuels the passion.

So back in 1994, I was working at a local bank, you know, and fifth, third, you know, wonderful, wonderful.

So no event trigger.

You know, I have a very loving family and, you know, just good home life.

Growing up, we were we struggle, you know, making ends meet like most families do.

But the thing is, you know, I had an undergraduate degree in psychology.

I was new out of undergrad at IU, and there was an ad in the Evansville Courier for somebody to do dating violence presentations in high schools and middle schools.

And I had a minor in theater and drama, and I thought that would be fun.

That would be fun to go in and, you know, do these presentations.

And that is just that was the event.

And I think that that really is a message to the community.

Yes.

It's important for survivors who want to work in this field to find their empowerment in that as well.

And then there is a place for people who who can be fueled by the passion in the field itself.

Now, Sarah, you told me earlier that you really weren't a public speaker before this, and now you have a message to pass along to people.

Yes.

You know, growing up, I was the one in college who would always dodge the public speaking classes.

It was not my thing.

And it's interesting that through this journey now, I've kind of taught myself that it's okay to be vulnerable and reach out in public speak.

Because part of my healing process and what I want to do for other victims and survivors is realize it's okay and you shouldn't be ashamed to tell your story.

There's so many people out there that have gone through all walks of different kinds of violence and abuse, and they need to know that it's okay to talk about it.

You don't have to be scared.

You know you will be scared, but it's okay to talk about it.

There's people that care that there's people that believe you and that were the advocates at Albion.

Now, how long did you suffer this abuse?

Did you.

Was it a long period of time before you realized you had to get help?

And it was only about a year, which I say only that a year is still long enough.

But there is many people who go, I found through group therapy that there was many people going through it for years and years.

So as it was starting to get progressively worse is when I kind of was at my point of realizing that I wanted to make a change that day in January, as I laid there on the floor, on the floor, beaten pretty badly and it sunk in.

I was quiet, I was in freeze mode, but my mind was doing all kinds of things and telling me, This is not okay.

You need to get out.

You need to make a change.

Or this I'm curious, this this abuse was jealousy.

Was it just rage?

What was motivating this person?

And honestly, a lot of the the abusers, like I was saying, are typically narcissistic.

They have troubled pasts, mental illness, sometimes substance abuse.

There's many things involved.

But he was just not a well person.

He like she said, they kind of prey on you and very manipulative.

Everything is about power and control.

And they start off appearing to be what is a nice, normal person.

And it's crazy that a year later you can find yourself with a person that you thought you knew.

I had known him again as an acquaintance off and on for 20 years.

But as I lay there on the floor that day and looked at him and that look in his eyes, I had never seen anybody look at someone with just pure hatred, and it scared me.

Now, Julia, have you seen an increase in cases during COVID 19?

People together a lot.

That's exactly it.

People who are being harmed at home and within any kind of interpersonal relationship, I mean, there's certainly been a notable increase in what we are aware of as like human trafficking, sexual assault, domestic violence and an increase in the severity of injuries that are being suffered.

And and quite a lot of that is connected to people who are being victimized, isolated at home or in quarantine with the person causing them harm.

And then to Sara's point, oftentimes people who are people who are using power and control to do harm against someone else, they're going to do that regardless if they have a substance abuse issue or a mental health issue.

Those are those things are they do aggravate the situation.

And so if you have someone in your life who is very, you know, motivated to get power and control over you, but they also have a substance abuse issue or a mental health issue during the pandemic that probably really was exasperated quite a bit by maybe them not being able to get medications or the care that they needed or to make it to their own, maybe in a or AA group or, you know, something along those lines.

And so all kinds of all kinds of issues, I think became more prominent and more pronounced during the pandemic.

And this is certainly one of them we've had across the country, not just Albion, we've had a greater a much greater increase, particularly in crisis calls and the level of crisis call.

So much more someone's life in in danger calling for help.

And that has not only put a stressor on the helping system, but all just but also the advocates and the direct service line, just much like health care workers, you know, with those acute crises coming all the time, the last 18 months, it's been nonstop for our health care workers in emergency departments and hospitals being overrun.

And we're seeing that in programs and services like Alby and that are doing crisis intervention work.

So we're having not only much more curl calls for service, calls for shelter, and certainly then having to keep people isolated within shelter.

We haven't been able to house as many families as one at one time.

So we've had to be more creative, you know, in how we use services out in the community, how do we house people temporarily out in the community in very quiet and private ways?

But then also the acute nature of the calls themselves, people who would maybe would have called when they kind of got that first inkling.

You know, we're early in the abuse.

We're now forced to wait until their lives are in danger and then making that that call.

And so we're being very mindful of the impact that it's had on the capacity to serve as far as our organizations.

But then also at the direct the direct line worker, you know, what impact is this having on that person who has had trauma coming at them now the past 18 years in a much more prominent manner ?

I'm curious to now be we're celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Albion Fellows Bacon Center before Albion.

What was the situation?

What was the fate of these victims?

What was their situation back then?

Well, goodness, really, the what was known as and I don't like this term, but what was known as the battered women's movement back in the sixties and seventies, that was really the the birthing moment for programs like Albion Fellows Bacon Center and the first emergency shelter here in the United States, I believe, was back and was established maybe back in the late seventies out in Pasadena, California.

Now, Albion was established here in 1981.

So Evansville wasn't that wasn't that, you know, far along in the game to get into the shelter, you know, programs to provide to survivors.

But back then, there just wasn't there were more animal shelters before then, you know, that were even available to humans and more laws on the books.

And I certainly think that animals should be protected.

So that's not me saying doing a comparative.

That's just me saying, my goodness, it's taken us a long time to to understand that there are humans being hurt by other humans and there are things that we can do about them.

And emergency shelter is not an end all.

And actually the movement is kind of moving away from emergency shelters as kind of the main program that organizations offer.

We're getting more in the field.

We're getting more into longer term like transitional housing as a solution to help somebody stabilize before they move on out into permanent housing they can sustain on their own or bypassing that altogether and working with folks in a mobile way, meeting survivors where they're at, if they're if they are or if they even choose to maintain that relationship.

Because we certainly don't want to tell someone that the only way to safety or well-being is to end their relationship.

That could maybe put them even in more danger.

Of course, to get that through the problem prevention, we just don't want this to happen.

I know that's that's a major factor of of the Albion message.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

You know, preventing is one thing that, you know, there's eliminating and there's intervention and then there's prevention.

And so we have a whole prevention program that's designed toward working with folks, working with the community, particularly youth in educating training, but giving them options to doing harm against another human being.

And so our whole goal would be that harm doing would become rare in our society, in our culture, and that's our goal.

Now we have some troubling statistics to pass along.

One in three women and one in four men have experienced some form of physical violence by an intimate partner.

Does that surprise you?

Sarah No.

Now, I would say it doesn't come back.

Before that abuse happened.

I'm probably might have been a little shocked by that, but I also work in the social work field.

So now just hearing those stats, it is alarming, but I believe it because there's just so much going on that we don't even realize.

Some people don't believe it's abuse, are we?

It's not reported or we don't know what's going on, that it could be even different numbers than that.

Honestly.

The social work feel.

What do you do?

I am a social worker for a pediatric clinic in town.

You're a social worker and you're involved in this violence, which is part of the your training, probably as a.

Yes.

Social worker.

Yep.

To be alert to that.

Yes.

We have various trainings actually on domestic violence.

We had one recently from Albion, so we are constantly getting those trainings to make sure we're looking for signs of abuse in children and with the families, the moms and dads.

So that is a component that we definitely are trained on and look for as well.

And you certainly have a story to underline all of this training.

Yes.

Personally, going through that experience helps you to be able to kind of pick up on some of those signs that you see and patients that you meet with.

So, yes, that has definitely aided with that process.

So do those numbers surprise you?

Julia?

Well, having worked now for excuse me, almost 30 years in the field of domestic and sexual violence intervention and prevention, no, they don't, because I think what is surprising and what can be disheartening is that the numbers haven't gotten better in the last 30 years.

They've all.

The reporting is probably.

Better.

That is true.

And so you have to look at it that way.

More people hopefully are reporting.

But to Sarah's point, there's still probably for every one person reporting, there's probably 10 to 20 who aren't.

And so we just have to be aware of that, which is why getting the word out for services and for like talking about the dynamics of harm is really important so that people can identify it when they see it and can know where to go get help.

A lot of information on the Albion Fellows Bacon Center website.

And I think one of the paragraphs I got from there, domestic violence described as a pattern of behavior in a relationship that is repeated again and again to maintain power and control over an individual abuse can be physical, sexual, emotional, economic or psychological intended to frighten , intimidate, terrorize, harm, blame or humiliate someone.

That's a lot.

It is a lot.

It's a lot going on there.

Yeah, another shocker.

Every 92 seconds, another person experiences sexual assault.

And sexual violence is a non-legal term that may refer to sexual assault, rape, attempted rape, unwanted sexual touching and sexual abuse.

And often there are secondary survivors impacted by the abuse of a loved one.

Let's talk about these secondary survivors, the families who are drawn into this.

Absolutely.

The children.

The children.

And I think that's where my mind always goes.

First is the children in the home.

So the children in the home may not be experiencing firsthand being physically abused or even being the target of emotional abuse.

But just by witnessing the violence and the abuse and when I say violence, I mean the older.

Are all dynamics of of the abuse and the harm doing.

It's not just physical violence at all.

And so when you think about that, if you're a child and you're witnessing that, you are also experiencing that.

So whether you're the target of the power and control, you're still being impacted by it.

And it's so important to be able to provide interventions and support services to children who are witnessing abuse in the home and then the families.

I mean, to Sarah's point, where she went where she fled to was her family.

And that is common.

It's the most common thing in the world for us to go to our family, reach out to those closest to us for help and a hit and certainly solace and a place to find harbor.

And so that is where we're going to go and abusers know that.

And so that's why safety planning is so important, particularly for people who are leaving, exiting an abusive relationship.

Even if it's for a night, it can actually escalate the desire and the motivation on the abuser's part to get that power and control back.

So they may follow, they may stalk someone in the first place that they often look as a family's a close family member or close friend, a workplace, a church that they know that that their victim attends.

It's the it's where would I find this person?

And that's where they go first.

And so that's something to be mindful of.

If you know someone in your family, if you know a close friend, a coworker who is experiencing this, or you suspect it is a good idea for you to understand, like safety planning, it really is something all of us should understand and all businesses should should be mindful of.

Churches as well is saying what to do if someone that we care about is being harmed or potentially being harmed to be a safe ourself in this situation.

Now Sarah there were no children witnessed the abuse against you.

Know I do have a ten year old daughter but she was not present for the abuse.

But how has this affected her and your other family members?

My family, as Julia said, the abuser does a very good job of trying to cut ties from your family.

So during the year I dated him, he made it very difficult for me not only to be close with people in my family that I was I am very close with as in my mother and sisters.

But he made it very difficult and would even taunt and ridicule me with my own child.

You know, I kind of came to a point as a mother that I had to do what I had to do to make sure she wasn't present and keep her safe.

And that was one of the hardest parts of my journey was, you know, our first job as mothers is to keep our kids safe.

So that was difficult.

But he would.

Make sure I he would do everything possible to make sure I wasn't spending time with my kid.

And then when I would come back, he would say, I don't even think you want your kid.

He would say really awful things to basically make me feel like I was not a good mother and didn't want my kid around when in all actuality I was keeping my kids safe from what she was going to witness if he was present doing those things with her around.

Wow.

Very, very important information is on your Web site, what to do and what not to do if you suspect abuse.

So how do you start that conversation, Julia, with a loved one who may be an abuse victim?

I think the most important thing that somebody can do when they're reaching out to someone they care about who may be victimized by this type of harm is starting with.

I'm concerned.

I see you.

These are the things I'm noticing.

I believe you.

It's so important to take the stigma out and the judgment out of any kind of conversation.

The truth of the matter is, I think a lot of us would wouldn't want to say to ourselves, oh, if I was in that situation, this is what I would do.

But the truth of the matter is, unless you are in that particular situation, even if you've been victimized before, unless you know and you are experiencing firsthand all of the circumstances involved in this particular individual situation, you don't know what you'll do because you're not in that particular situation.

So removing the stigma, removing the judgment is so important.

None of us should feel stigmatized.

Sarah should not feel stigmatized because this happened to her.

Even even being a social worker and being well trained, she should not feel any stigma or judgment from us in in that, because this can happen to any of us.

It really can.

And so it's really important to treat this other human being like the human being they are.

Meet them exactly where they are.

Believe them.

They don't have to prove anything to us.

You know, if there's an investigation that needs to happen because criminal acts have occurred, then let's let law enforcement do that.

Let's stay in our lane.

Right.

And individuals, when you're working with when you're approaching a family member, a friend, a coworker.

Remember that trying to investigate the name, prove this is not your job.

Your job is to is to be there offering support, offering connection to a place like Albion, to a place I call his house lamp in the Y, you know, some place where some somebody who's being victimized can reach out for services for that third objective party to, you know, talk to.

Chances are if you have a friend or family member who's going through this, you're not going to hear all the details.

They're going to want to protect you from having to hear the trauma that they're experiencing.

They also are probably going to minimize it because they do care and love for this other person.

And then, like Sarah said, they're kind of in denial a bit, you know, because, you know, after he treats me this way, he says he's sorry or she she makes amends and she promises she'll never do it again, you know?

And I want to believe them because I love them and care for them or I have children with them.

You know, it'll get better for a period of time and then it'll cycle back up again.

So the best thing we can do is believe and support, but no judgment.

So, Sarah, you've been there and you've done that.

Yes.

What is your advice to someone out there who's maybe young, don't know what to do next?

I would say the safety planning is crucial.

I actually didn't have a plan because by the time I was realizing it, it was unfolding.

But for people who have been in it for a while, that safety planning of how are you going to get out safely and then when you are ready?

I think the biggest thing is your friends or family or the advocates at Albion.

Anybody you reach out to is just that understanding and that belief that Julia was talking about is crucial.

Those people saying, we believe you and just being at arm's length or a phone call away, it takes 7 to 10 times for a victim or a survivor to leave a relationship.

So a lot of times those people in your family have seen you almost leave that person, almost leave that person.

And the time that they come to you, you know, help them go to their aid.

And like my sister that day, just listen to them and believe them.

The Albion Fellows Beacon Center has been providing safe haven and support for victims of domestic and sexual violence for 40 years.

So Julia, looking ahead, what are the future projects or plans at Albion?

Well, we need the community now more than ever, because to your point, the pandemic has had a real a real increased demand on our services.

And we have, while we've expanded our facility to house and serve more people here in the Evansville and surrounding area, that means we need more financial resources.

We need more donated resources to do those services.

We did have a gala that was supposed to take place in October, and we've postponed it to April two in light of just being mindful of, you know, inside gatherings, but because that's our largest fundraiser for the year.

And so we're a little concerned about ending out the year we were going to go out with, you know, hopefully a big, you know, TA-DA, with our.

40th anniversary celebration.

And we're pushing that to April.

We are doing a half pot raffle.

And so we hope people would would buy into the half pot raffle.

The winner last year won almost $15,000.

So we hope that people will do that.

But we definitely need the support of the community.

And as we evolve our programs and services to be even more trauma informed and even more survivor centered.

We'll have lots more volunteer opportunities and lots more opportunities to donate items and all kinds of things.

I think it's also important to note this is not just an Evansville based operation.

You reach out to a lot of counties.

We really do, really 11 counties across southern Indiana.

We're going into, you know, the schools and doing our prevention programs with the youth in those communities.

We also have advocates that go into those communities and we partner really, really strongly.

So there's a crisis connection in Jasper that we're good partners with and we kind of you know, we the Boys County is one of the counties we serve, but they're located in Jasper.

So we want to be you know, we try not to duplicate services.

So Albion and the Y are really the emergency shelter programs here in southern Indiana.

There's there's other types of nonresidential services.

And that's why that collaboration and partnership is so important.

If someone listening to this program needs help, what do they do?

They would they could call us, they could email us.

They could Facebook message us.

They can we're there 24 hours a day and really just reaching out to us.

Our Web site is Albion Fellows Bacon Center dot org.

And they could call our, you know, our hotline.

This is what I'm going to show my roots here.

I'm like, it's 812-422-5622.

I said that in a while.

Our business line is 812-422-9372.

But really, 24 hours a day we can be responsive, whether it's by the phone or text or email or however in person, even if that's necessary.

And Sarah, I'll give you the final word here.

How important is Albion Fellows Bacon Center to this community?

They are a crucial part to Evansville here and the surrounding counties.

It is an organization that literally saved my life and they helped so many people.

And I just want to say thank you to your organization for what they do, because that process, I may not even be sitting here today if it wasn't for that organization.

My guests have been Julia Kathary, interim executive director of the Albion Fellows Bacon Center, and Sarah Nernberger, a survivor who has bravely shared her story with us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm David James.

This is Two Main Street, presented by Jeffrey Burger, a burger wealth services at Baird Private Wealth Management.