Finding the Right Information for Survivors of Domestic Violence
/0 Comments/in Guest Author /by Chris McMurryAbout 18 months ago I stumbled upon an opportunity.
I had been thinking about the future of Theresa’s Fund, a private foundation my father had set up 23 years ago to help prevent domestic violence. Theresa’s Fund had done a lot of incredible work, primarily in Arizona and through my father’s efforts, raising millions, growing awareness and helping domestic violence programs improve.
So, when it was finally my turn to step up, I did like so many others these days, and I took to the Internet. I searched all sorts of words related to domestic violence, learned a lot and realized that there was tons of information out there on domestic violence. That wasn’t a problem.
What was a challenge, though, was trying to find the right help quickly and easily. My search results – like anyone else’s would – produced listings of attorneys, help blogs, questionable ad-driven sites, and state and national organizations. Occasionally, at the bottom of the first page or on the next pages, I would find a nearby domestic violence program.
This struck me as a problem. A real problem. I imagined most people looking for help would want to find a local program to escape to quickly, to recover in and to plan for the future… and they might need that information fast and without having to wade through endless search results.
It turns out that what I unearthed was an even larger problem than I first thought. According to Google, there are 36 million searches conducted in the U.S. for information related to domestic violence, and most often those searches are related to seeking help.
That night, I realized that what was needed was what has since become known as domesticshelters.org, the first online searchable database of 3,200+ domestic violence programs in the U.S. People can now find the help they need faster and easier; with two clicks, in fact.
The site offers up to 156 easy-to-compare data points on thousands of domestic violence programs in all 50 states. We soon will be adding Canada to the mix. Visitors simply enter their zip code, and the site returns a list of programs ordered within a visitor-defined radius. Visitors can further refine the list they receive based on their language and service preferences.
Along the way, and before we launched the site in August of 2014, word spread of our ambition and we connected with the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, a pioneer in the space that has proven to be an invaluable resource, guide and partner on the project.
There are many great services in the domestic violence help ecosystem. For instance, there is the National Domestic Violence Hotline that gives survivors a single place to call, and among other things, get referrals to local resources. Where domesticshelters.org fits in is that it is the first to provide comprehensive help in the place that people, nowadays, most commonly seek it: online.
I’ve seen statistics that say 75% of people’s decisions first involve an Internet search. If you’re like me, you know that when you wonder about something, anything, you search. And when you do, for topics related to domestic violence, hopefully domesticshelters.org is now there for you.
In five short months of life, the domesticshelters.org has helped 70,000 people. The traffic is growing at a startling rate that looks to make the site one of the most visited – if not the most in the most visited – in the U.S. in this particular field within a year or two.
I’m not sure we would have predicted these results for simply moving the exploration of the domestic violence programs to the forefront of Internet search results, and presenting visitors this information with standardized data that allows for easy comparisons and educated, fast decisions. But, as they say, sometimes the best solutions are the simplest ones.
About the blogger:
Chris has been involved in the prevention of domestic violence for 20+ years through his family’s private foundation Theresa’s Fund, which was established by his father in 1992 and has helped raise over $40 million for Arizona programs. He founded domesticshelters.org in 2014 which is the country’s first online and mobile searchable database of domestic violence programs. Domesticshelters.org is operated in partnership with National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. During the last 25 years, Chris has founded and/or led multiple companies through growth and transition, including the country’s largest content marketing company now called McMurry/TMG and technology companies such as The Amazing Flameless Candle, NJOY and NameSilo.
About NCADV:
The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV) has worked since 1978 to make every home a safe home. NCADV works to raise awareness about domestic violence; to educate and create programming and technical assistance, to assist the public in addressing the issue and to support those impacted by domestic violence.
About Theresa’s Fund:
Theresa’s Fund is a private foundation started in 1992 by Preston V. McMurry, Jr. that has helped to change the landscape of domestic violence services in Arizona through grant making, board development and fundraising that has helped to generate many millions in donations for Arizona-based organizations such as East Valley Child Crisis Center, Sojourner Center, Florence Crittenden, Emerge, UMOM, and West Valley Child Crisis Center. It developed the domesticshelters.org concept as a way to expand its reach to people across the U.S.
Together for Girls: Clearing Land Mines
/0 Comments/in Guest Author /by Gary CohenMany years ago, global leaders and the UN mobilized to address the problem of land mines left over from past conflicts. The picture here is simple and visceral—an innocent person, maybe a child, steps on a land mine, and their life is blown away.
Losing a child to a land mine is shameful. Even more shameful is the far larger number of children who are afflicted by metaphorical land mines. These are the estimated one billion children who experience some form of violence each year.
Think of a young girl, perhaps 12 or 13 years old, who is sexually abused by an older man, perhaps a trusted adult such as an uncle or a teacher. Life as she knew it is completely changed by this experience. If she lives in a country with a high prevalence of HIV & AIDS, she will have as much as four times higher probability of contracting this disease over her lifetime. She will also have about a 30 percent chance of having an unwanted pregnancy. If pregnant, she is then at five times a greater risk for dying in childbirth compared with a woman over 20 years old. And she is more likely to be afflicted with chronic health problems, such as depression, substance abuse as well as thoughts of and attempts at suicide. These conditions make her far more likely to drop out of school, fundamentally impairing her future potential, and that of the society she lives in. Her life is blown away.
In 2007, while working intensively on helping address the HIV & AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa, I came to observe and learn first-hand about sexual violence against girls and its impact on spreading disease. This was not an area I had any experience in or intended to work on, but when I learned that in many high HIV prevalence locations, 75 percent of infected youth were girls and young women, it was clear that something was wrong.
At the time, there was a huge focus on extending anti-retroviral treatment (ART) to people living with HIV & AIDS. But for every person put on ART, there were five to six new infections. It made me determined to understand and address the source of these new infections. This led me to focus on sexual violence against girls as an underlying cause of some of the world’s most intractable health problems.
What I learned was that few—if any—programs existed to address this problem. There were gender-based violence initiatives, but these mostly focused on women, not girls. Committed to addressing this issue, I reached out to the network I cultivated throughout my career. In doing so, I came across a methodology that had been implemented in Swaziland by UNICEF and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This approach, which involved doing house-to-house surveys with girls and young women to amass data on the extent of sexual violence against girls, became the basis for mobilizing a new partnership.
In September 2009 at the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting, President Clinton launched what is today known as Together for Girls, the first partnership specifically focused on ending violence against children, particularly sexual violence against girls. Our partnership includes five UN agencies (UNICEF, UNAIDS, UNFPA, UN Women and WHO); the U.S. government through CDC and PEPFAR; the Government of Canada; and several private sector partners, including the Nduna Foundation, Becton, Dickinson & Co. and GrupoABC.
Together for Girls and its partners collaborate on a three-part approach: 1) interviewing 13- to 24-year- olds (males and females), through national household surveys, on their experiences with childhood violence, 2) using the data to mobilize government-led, multi-sectoral, national actions to prevent violence and provide services to children who have experienced violence, 3) raising global awareness through advocacy programs. In just five years, Together for Girls has expanded these efforts to 17 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, where local leaders are spearheading this critical work.
The humanity of any society can be determined by how it treats its most vulnerable citizens. Violence against children, particularly sexual violence, is a fundamental violation of their human rights. It destroys their potential and undermines the development of their communities. There are far too many land mines that children may step on throughout their lives, through no fault of their own. Working with our partners, Together for Girls seeks to clear these land mines, so that children have the opportunity to grow up happy, healthy and safe and achieve their full human potential.
About the blogger:
Gary Cohen is executive vice president of BD (Becton, Dickinson & Co.), a global medical technology company with over $8 billion revenues and 30,000 employees in 50 countries. Gary founded Together for Girls, a public-private partnership focused on ending violence against children, particularly sexual violence against girls. He is also acting CEO of GBCHealth, former board chair of the CDC Foundation and a board director of the Perrigo Company, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF and the Accordia Global Health Foundation. Additionally, Gary serves as chair of the Corporate/CDC Roundtable on Global Health Threats and a vice chair of the UN Special Envoy’s Office for Financing the Health-Related MDGs. Gary is a member of the UN Secretary General’s Network of Men Leaders associated with UNiTE to End Violence Against Women campaign.
570 Arrested in Super Bowl Sting Operation
/1 Comment/in News /by Alejandra SacioWhat do law enforcement officials and New England Patriots fans have in common? They both proved victorious on Super Bowl Sunday when over 570 would-be sex buyers (or johns) and 23 sex traffickers were arrested. The arrests were carried out for “National Johns Day,” a nationwide prostitution sting led by Cook County Sheriff Thomas J. Dart that was featured in A Path Appears: Sex Trafficking in the USA.
“Sex trafficking continues to destroy countless lives, and this broad national movement should send a strong message to prospective johns that their ‘hobby’ is much more than a ‘victimless’ crime,” say Dart.
The 17-state campaign was the largest one since Dart launched “National Johns Day” four years ago (2,900 johns have been caught in total), and we are sure it will continue to grow. In the meantime, we can lend a helping hand to the survivors of sex trafficking by donating to organization that empower those at risk of sex trafficking and survivors.
Make a donation and make a difference to the women and girls at My Life My Choice and Thistle Farms.