0:00:00.2 Louie Marvin: Welcome to Resource On the Go, a podcast from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center on understanding responding to and preventing sexual abuse and assault. My name is Louie Marvin, and I am the training specialist at the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. This podcast is part of our male survivor series. Today, Vanessa Sapien joins me to talk about using an empowerment model in working with male survivors in detention, Vanessa is the mental health program director at Just Detention International, also known as JDI.

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0:00:48.1 LM: Vanessa. Thanks for being on the podcast.

0:00:50.5 Vanessa Sapien: Thank you so much for having me [laughter]

0:00:53.5 LM: Could you introduce yourself? And a little bit about your work with JDI.

0:00:58.8 VS: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, so as you said, I am JDI's mental health program director, and I've been working there for going on four years now, but prior to joining JDI, I spent 15 years working in The Rape Crisis DV movement. And so I had worked with Rape Crisis Centers for about 15 years, and I started out first as an advocate, so doing all the things that advocates do in terms of hospital accompaniments, accompaniments to law enforcement, and then transitioned to then working for the Rape Crisis Center as a clinician, once I finished my graduate studies. And then what led me to JDI was actually... Like I said, I had done this for about 10 to 15 years and really was kind of feeling like... What else is there to know? I've done this for a long time. I've been serving survivors for 15 years, and what was interesting, was when I graduated from grad school, I was thinking about what I wanted to do and what population I wanted to work with, and oddly enough DV and SA were kind of not really on my radar because I had been doing it for so long already, but then I got a call from my former supervisor who said, You know...

0:02:14.0 VS: "I know you just graduated, and I know that you're kind of thinking through your options," and intuitively she said, "This may not be something that you wanna do, but hear me out first," and she... Then she mentioned PREA and so that was the first time I had ever actually heard of the Prison Rape Elimination Act, and she went on to just explain kind of in more detail what it was and how long it had been around, and that was the part that really kind of hit me in the gut that it had been around the entire time I had been an advocate, here I was 15 years later hearing about it for the very first time. And so then that kind of set me on this trajectory of realizing that if I, as this sort of seasoned advocate, I'm hearing about PREA and what it means to serve incarcerated survivors for the first time that I probably am not alone, and so then that's what kind of led me to my work at JDI to then focus specifically and exclusively on supporting incarcerated survivors, and so as a mental health professional, I have worked with individual survivors in detention, as well as in various types of group capacities, facilitating art workshops or sort of community engagement events through our Wellness series, to then supporting...

0:03:24.5 VS: PREA peer educators on the inside, who are actually delivering PREA education to their peers, and so yeah, I've been able to really support people in a variety of different ways, and indirectly sort of in a remote capacity, I also help provide supervision and oversight for our support line for incarcerated survivors out of state that JDI runs and oversees, so it's a lot of really great work and I absolutely love doing it.

0:03:53.6 LM: That's great, yes. Thank you for sharing about your background and JDI's work, I know JDI does just really great stuff, and I've certainly looked to JDI's resources in providing technical assistance in my own work, and what I love about the conversation that we are having today is that you were so excited about talking about an empowerment model, and I think that that is a word that when I hear empowerment, obviously, I feel like, yeah, that's a great word. Let's do empowerment, but it also strikes me as just really at odds with a detention setting perhaps. So yeah, I think that's really great that you have some key elements to review with our listeners about an empowerment model, and hopefully they can take a lot of what you're sharing and put it into place to reach male survivors in detention in their own communities. So I know that you really wanted to talk about healing from trauma and the different elements of it that need to be in place in order for there to be this empowerment model to reach male survivors in the detention setting. So what are some of those elements Vanessa? 

0:05:21.5 VS: So this is a really important topic to me. Probably one of the most important things that I could be talking about, and I think when it comes to empowerment and the different empowerment models that are out that are out there, this is one that was introduced to me about 10 years ago, and it really just sort of rang true with me and resonated with me, and so I think that whenever we are in process of sort of developing a new direct service program, or even in our pre-existing work, the work that we're doing now, this is sort of how we... Measure everything and making sure that these components exist in everything that we do, and I think if any of these components are missing, then we need to reassess and take a look and making sure that we are delivering something as effectively and inclusively as possible.

0:06:13.6 VS: So it all starts with, first and foremost, is it self-directed? And so what that means are all actions driven by the stated needs of survivors and not what they think they need? And so some examples of that include in reporting, in disclosures, resources and next steps, as well as of developing a plan for advocacy, so on and so forth. And so this is a really kind of key one for me, because I think when we're working with survivors, and I think especially for those of us that are advocates that are really seasoned and have been doing this for a really long time, I think we can sort of fall into this habit of, "Okay, I've been working with survivors for X amount of years, I've seen it all, I've heard it all, and so I know what a survivor might need, or I have an idea of what a survivor might benefit from."

0:07:10.1 VS: And I think when we think about empowerment, this is a really great way to hold ourselves accountable as advocates as well, to make sure that we're constantly staying keyed into what the survivor is saying that they need. And I think this is especially important when we're working on the inside and we're working in a detention setting, because we're talking about a community and an environment that we tend to know very, very little about. And even for myself, you know somebody who does spend a lot of time inside of facilities and in detention centers, even myself having the humility of knowing that even though I've spent time in a facility before, that doesn't mean that I understand at all what the culture and the community of another facility is like in a different state or even in the same state.

0:07:57.5 VS: So always really making sure that we're paying attention to the stated needs of the survivor and not what we think they need, I think that's really, really important in detention. And so the second one is around hope, and so offering honest and truthful hope that's rooted in reality, and not what we would like to see happen. And so that's really key and a really difficult one to kind of navigate because I feel like when we're talking to survivors, and I think especially survivors in detention, it can really not even feel, but be a really kind of hopeless, sad, depressive oppressive environment.

0:08:41.7 VS: And of course, our natural inclination is gonna wanna be to offer hope, but we wanna make sure that we're not offering false hope, and that we're offering hope that's rooted in the facts that are presented to us. And so an example of that could be something around saying, well, if you go and you talk to this officer, or if you go and talk to mental health, I think you'll feel a lot better. Go to mental health, go and speak to them, set up an appointment, and making all of those referrals that we're trained to make is like, of course I'm gonna wanna send this person to mental health, of course, I'm gonna wanna send this person to speak to a counselor, but that looks really different in detention, so when we're talking about mental health on the inside, what we could be referring somebody to is a 15-minute assessment appointment, and that's it, because mental health services on the inside look very different than they do on the outside.

0:09:35.3 VS: So as much as we are wanting to be hopeful and helpful, we also want to be very realistic in our referrals, in the way that we're offering support to focus on the inside, and so where an adjustment could be made, could be in saying something like, "Look, I think that you can go and talk to a mental health professional, and you know just as well as I do, that when you go and see them. These might be some of the questions that you're gonna be asked. They may not be directly related to what it is that you wanna go in there and talk to this person about, but what are some ways that we can communicate our needs to that person given the limited amount of time that we have?" So talking them through and coaching them through what to expect is kind of a way to sort of pivot and be hopeful, but sometimes that means having to put some of the responsibility in their hands and empower them and be hopeful in how they're able to deliver that, so it can feel... Not so great to have to put so much responsibility on a survivor, but I think if you can empower them and offer them hope in their own internal abilities to do that, that you're really better serving them than offering a false sense of hope.

0:10:54.4 VS: I think some other things around hope is that the primary goal, and this is another one that can be really difficult to wrestle with, is I think the primary goal is never to make someone "feel better," especially if it is more self-serving than it is helpful. I think male survivors prefer attainability and realism rather than feeling better. And so I think what we hear a lot of the times when we're working with male survivors is like, "That all sounds good and great and everything, but that doesn't do me any good. Those just sound like really happy, positive words, but that doesn't do anything for me right now." And that's a fair point. I think so. I think a lot of us maybe have fallbacks or go-to phrases that we use that sound really nice and maybe tend to work and do have a high degree of success. But I think, again, really wanting to be rooted in the reality and understanding the culture and the community of the folks that you're serving that are on the inside and making sure that hope is realistic and rooted in reality and what's true and not what we would like to be true, because as much as we are hopeful that the environment will change, or that the detention setting will change, a lot of other things have to happen, but before that becomes a reality.

0:12:12.0 LM: I think that's really great. And you... Yeah, you mentioned that sometimes it can feel bad to put responsibility on someone else, but in fact, responsibility is another one of the key elements of empowerment as you are offering it up, so talk a little bit about why even though it might feel negative or counter-intuitive. Why that's really important too.

0:12:37.8 VS: Absolutely, absolutely, and I think what this all boils down to is like as you said, it's responsibility, and so that is definitely a part of the empowerment model and, it's one of the most important aspects of it, which is that survivors should have ownership and take accountability for their own feeling as much as possible. Because having a sense of ownership in your healing is so important, I think what's worse is to constantly feel like life is happening to you and that there's nothing that you can do, and it's much more empowering to focus on what control you have, what choices and options you do have available to you, however small they may seem, that's always the place to start. The place to start is always in things that we can control, especially if you are a survivor of a situation in which you felt like you had very little control. And so that absolutely works in detention where it's an environment where you control almost nothing, you can't control what time you go to bed, you can't control what time you wake up, you can't control what time you have dinner, you can't control what time you shower or use the phone, or are able to go outside.

0:13:52.8 VS: There's so very little choice. And so I think to help someone in detention kind of navigate through the idea of choice and the concept of choice again, as someone on the inside is a really important conversation to have, but it can also be a really difficult one, but it's absolutely necessary. And I think control and responsibility, like you said, are just key concepts, especially with men, that really kind of resonate with male survivors is when you're able to have healthy conversations around control and responsibility.

0:14:33.4 LM: Great, so you've offered up self-directed as an important element, hope and responsibility. I know that we've talked about how respect is important for any survivor, but what can that... In what ways can that be specifically important to male survivors who are in a detention setting? 

0:14:56.6 VS: So in detention, I think respect becomes even more important because we're talking about an environment where earning someone's respect is key, and respect in general in detention is key, and it's one of the rules that you live by, that you all have to respect each other and respect each other's boundaries, and there are definitely hierarchies that can exist in detention, there are, of course, a lot of rules and regulations and things that need to be followed, and so you just see this idea and this concept of respect come up all the time. And I think also when we're talking about detention and disproportionate numbers of people of color in detention, I know from the environment that I grew up in versus the environment I went to school in that had a lot more resources and was much more affluent than where I grew up, and even still currently live the idea of respect in communities of color is really important and looks differently... And I think all of that is carried into detention as well, is showing respect for your elders, showing respect for people that you view as being leaders. And so with respect being so important for male survivors, giving and gaining respect and having a relationship based on reciprocity is also really important.

0:16:34.3 VS: And so you're gonna be... As an advocate, you may find yourself really being sort of tested by male survivors. You may be tested in your ability to be consistent, you may be tested in your ability to not make false promises, 'cause I think that's the other thing that goes back to that idea of hope is that sometimes we may find ourselves unintentionally making promises we didn't intend to make. And sometimes even phrasing things in a way that to someone on the inside may sound like a promise when that's not what you intended. So I think as much as possible, always saying things like, "We don't know what's gonna happen, I don't wanna tell you anything that isn't true, I don't wanna make any promises that I can't keep... But right now, this seems to be what we know, or this seems to be what the situation is." And so just being really mindful and careful of how you phrase things, and so I think respecting a survivor's choices as well as their decisions, because I think when you work with folks on the inside, and I think especially with male survivors, folks on the inside are gonna make choices and decisions that we don't always understand and that we don't always agree with for the sake of survival.

0:17:48.8 VS: And we have to make peace with the fact that we have to then respect those choices and the decisions that folks are making, and that they are doing what is right for them in the moment, and that is really, really key, and that we're not creating situations where we're gonna be in conflict with that because I think the second a survivor senses that you're creating a conflict with those choices and those decisions, you're then breaking off those lines of communication and shutting them out. So really just wanting to be open and non-judgmental and that meeting people where they're at, like you do with any survivors in the community or on the inside, we always wanna meet folks where they're at. And then just understanding what dynamics of respect are important to the survivor. So again, going back to those cultural considerations of men of color, what does respect mean to that person? So for one person, respect may look one way and for someone else, respect may look like something else. And so I think when you are working with folks on the inside, especially with men, and you find that you're not getting somewhere or that communication isn't as strong as you feel like it should be, or that you're just kind of not connecting to call that out and explore that a little bit more.

0:19:06.0 VS: And I've certainly been in that situation or in that position where I feel like I am giving absolutely everything I can, I'm using all the tools in my tool kit, I'm throwing everything out of survivor and it's just not landing, and so then to just have the humility and say, "Look, this feels like it's not working, can you help me understand what's going on? I don't know, and I'm having a hard time understanding what it is that you're needing right now." And sometimes they may not even know, but that's the place to start is, I don't know, and sometimes you just build from nothing and that's okay, and that's a perfectly good place to start. And so I think the more that you can have humility and admit when you don't know something is really, really important, because I think... Again, when you're talking to somebody on the inside, they're not expecting you to know, they're not expecting you to understand, and so the more that you can just admit to that and not pretend and not feel like you have to over-compensate the better it'll be for everyone. So yeah, I think that respect is huge for many, many reasons.

0:20:17.7 LM: Thanks Vanessa. I know that there is this aspect of peer support that's really important when we're talking about an empowerment model, so what does peer support look like for male survivors who are incarcerated? 

0:20:34.1 VS: Yeah, so I think with men, what we see a lot is that men typically will follow suit with what others are doing around them, so again, just sort of looking for... Being really observant of the modeling that's going on around them, and so... Who are the men in this facility that are surviving and thriving and know what to do to be like that and behave like that. And so again, it's not to say that that women don't do that as well, but I think we just see that present more in men's facilities of just mimicking behaviors and maybe even performing masculinity at times, and what that looks like in that particular facility or means to them. And so the greatest network of support a survivor has is peer support, and so I think what we've seen and what we've strived to create is this idea of this mentorship mentality, and so I think everybody is looking for opportunities to be of service including folks on the inside, and so if we're talking about sexual abuse in detention as being a national problem, no one is more aware of that than folks on the inside who are experiencing and witnessing it first hand. And no one knows better how to address it and how to support people than folks that are actually living in that environment, so as much as we are able to help as outsiders, and we certainly do play a pivotal role and can do a lot of great work, no one can do greater work than folks on the inside who can help each other.

0:22:11.2 VS: And so I think really helping people explore ways in which they can be mentors to each other, create a sense of brotherhood, which is already really strong in detention to begin with, so why not capitalize on that concept and turn it on its head and do something positive with it, and also just the sense of loyalty, which is also really strong in prison. So we see a lot of men who can be almost kind of loyal to a fault, but if we can start to plant seeds of how to use those norms and create something positive out of it, I think all the better, and we've seen a lot of success with that, where folks will call in to our hotline or we'll be speaking to folks on the inside who say, "Hey, you know, I've experienced this, but I also know 15 other guys who've experienced it too, and no one wants to come forward, no one wants to talk about it. So not only do I need help for myself, but then how do I help my guys? How do I help the fellas also who are just not willing to come forward and talk about it, What could I do? 'Cause they're my brothers, they're my family, and I care about them."

0:23:16.5 VS: And so to be ready to then help and support that survivor and helping their community at large, and then we see over time that those guys that he helped call our hotline or those guys that he spoke to, then wanna participate in programs. And that's how you create greater ripples of change that are much more sustainable and then are helpful to us as advocates who wanna go in and do other types of work. Those are the guys that... Or the people that you wanna stay connected to, and eventually those are gonna be your program participants.

0:23:49.0 LM: Yeah, I love the way that you are saying that, observing the value of loyalty through a lens of how that can be empowering for a survivor and the community of survivors around him in this case. So yeah, I really appreciate that, and it strikes me that what you're doing when you're articulating that is viewing loyalty in a strengths-based way, which is another characteristic of an empowerment model program. So talk more about... You just showed us an example of being strengths-based in how you were thinking about loyalty, but what is so important about a strengths-based approach to this model? 

0:24:39.5 VS: Yeah, so I think when you're thinking about how to be strengths... I always struggle with saying that and you said it well, strengths-based, what resources and experiences does a person have that they can draw from? And so I think this becomes really important when we're talking about self-care and coping skill strategies, is to make them as strengths-based as possible. So I think, again, as advocates, I'm sure all of us out there have tools that we draw from, and have go-to strategies that we impart on survivors, and what we've noticed a lot of the time is that a lot of our self-care strategies and coping skills that we're offering up to survivors in the free world, meaning folks that are not on the inside don't necessarily work for folks in detention, so a really good example of that is taking a therapeutic walk, you may not be able to do that in detention. Finding a quiet place to reflect or do whatever, you may not be able to do that in detention.

0:25:49.3 VS: Taking time to eat foods that you enjoy, you may not be able to do that in detention, so a lot of of these basic strategies that we have are not available in detention, we're talking just very, very basic things, and so I think this is where we have to be collaborative in the way that we think about self-care and coping, and that it really does have to be a collaborative effort with the advocate as well as the survivor coming up with things together, and so one unique example around that is just something that is seemingly so simple as journaling, that's something that I encourage people to do all the time, but then you have to take that extra step of talking through, "Okay, is journaling safe for you? Is there someone in your cell who is gonna make you feel bad about that or is going to give you a hard time if they see journaling? Is there a safe place for you to keep your journal? Should you get rid of the pages, as soon as you write in them? Are these things that you should tear up and then throw in the trash can, because someone might come and search your room and find it, and are you gonna be okay with someone reading it?"

0:27:01.7 VS: So again, it's taking things to the next level, and I think any time you're prepared to offer up a self-care strategy or a coping skill to really think through, does this actually work for the survivor, because again, something that seemingly is typically very safe as journaling now has all these other layers to it and all these other considerations that we don't typically have to make with folks that are not on the inside. So that's what we mean by strengths-based. That's just a simple example. And I think even sometimes as simple as just not knowing... I think sometimes even just exploring, when we're talking about internal resources and wanting to get feelings focused with things, I think a lot of survivors on the inside have such a poor self-concept, feel really hopeless about their abilities to grow as a person and be the type of man or women that they wanna be, and I think in this case, the type of man that they wanna be and feeling really restricted by the environment that they're in, to really explore that, but I think sometimes just starting with what type of man do you not wanna be, even if that's all that you know. If all that you know is the type of man you don't wanna be, then you actually know more about the type of man you wanna be than you think you do.

0:28:31.3 VS: And I think for a lot of men that I speak to, and that JDI has interacted with, is they're coming from environments or situations where there wasn't a male in the home, or they didn't have a lot of positive role models around them, or that they were surrounded by males who, again, like we talked about before, around toxic masculinity or men that are having to do things out of survival that maybe... Or what landed them in detention in the first place, so all these different things. And so then you come into detention and you're faced with those same circumstances of not really having anyone to turn to who is a positive model for you on what it means to be a man. And so I think that can be one of the questions to throw out there is like, "Well, it sounds like you know what type of man you don't wanna be." And I think the final thing with being strengths-based is just this recognition of that folks have what they need to heal and to survive. And I think that's really key, I think, especially on the inside, when we're talking about incarcerated survivors, we're talking about people who have off the charts, elevated survival instincts and skills that we just don't have, and so to really kind of focus in on that as a strength and explore with incarcerated male survivors, what it means to survive and what skills they've developed over time, what strategies they've had to implore over time and working from there.

0:30:12.0 LM: Great. Vanessa, you're giving us so many different elements... Just to keep track we're at self-directed, an empowerment program is self-directed, it offers hope, it incorporates responsibility, respect, peer support, it's strengths-based. What are some of the final elements that you wanna share with advocates about an empowerment model and how it relates to working with male survivors who are incarcerated? 

0:30:42.6 VS: So I think the next one is that this is not linear, so healing doesn't exist in a straight line, and I think a lot of us know that, but also that men may respond better to steps. So step one, step two, after you do this, then this is to follow, but that doesn't always necessarily work in detention, and so I think when we... I'm thinking back to my advocacy days when I was an advocate at the Rape Crisis Center, and I would respond to a hospital, and I would review with the survivor, this is what's to follow, this is what you can expect after this, and then when this happens, then you can move forward with this step and you can call this person, and so I had my speech down, you know what I mean? I knew exactly what I was gonna tell every survivor because that typically didn't change. That's not true in detention. In detention processes and procedures can be all over the place, and so what you're told is supposed to happen, what you're told is gonna happen, in execution almost is never what actually happens. And so I think helping folks understand that and understanding how that then influences and impacts the healing process, and so understanding that as much as we would like to deliver a step-by-step on what to do after an assault or what the steps might be to healing that isn't necessarily something that's gonna be available to us or afforded to us when we're working with folks on the inside.

0:32:18.6 VS: And so it then becomes a conversation or a question of having to discuss what it means to be flexible, even when you shouldn't have to be and how to cope with that and so to have that really difficult conversation. And how then do we advocate for ourselves, again, going back to some of the other key components that we were talking about earlier, is then having conversations with survivors around when things are not going your way, when processes and procedures are not going according to plan or according to the way you were told they were gonna go, how do we then advocate for ourselves and ask questions in the right way so that we can elicit the responses that we're looking for? Because again, I think one of the really difficult and challenging things about working with folks on the inside is that we wanna make sure that we're trying to set them up for success as much as possible and unfortunately, it often boils down to having to explore communication styles on the part of the survivor, and having to have those really difficult conversations of like, when you're met this way, or you're approached this way by this person, and it shouldn't happen that way, how are you then gonna respond and keep your cool so that the next thing can happen and we can continue to move things forward, and it's a really difficult conversation to have but...

0:33:49.1 VS: And then... So then what are the consequences of that? How does that then re-trigger a survivor when things are out of sequence and when things are not going according to plan or the way that they were told they would go, understanding as an advocate that that in and of itself can be a really triggering experience, and so kind of being prepared as the advocate to then help the survivor navigate through that difficult and challenging aspect of all of this, when we're talking about folks on the inside.

0:34:21.8 LM: Vanessa I know that there's also this element of empowerment that has to do with healing that focuses on the whole person, so the importance of being holistic, including one's identity as a man, and then also being individualized, so it's kind of like... I don't know, maybe those are on opposites, but those are two different things, so thinking about male survivors who are incarcerated, what are some considerations for making sure that your work is addressing holistic healing needs and also is individualized.

0:35:05.6 VS: Yeah, so I think the word holistic is really key here, because if being holistic means focusing on the entire person as a whole, that's especially important when we're talking about folks on the inside, because when you're in detention, you are typically only seen as an inmate or as a prisoner or whatever term they use in whatever state you're in. And if you notice, I think you and I, Louie have done a really great job throughout this entire podcast of referring to folks on the inside as people, and that isn't typical of doing this type of work. Normally, we are... And you and I've had conversations... You and I had a conversation earlier about language and communication, and I think that that's really key, and so a big part of someone's identity on the inside is being viewed as just an inmate, and so other aspects of who they are as a person, which includes all of us, like all the aspects that make us human, all the things that make us an entire person don't really exist in detention and aren't being offered in that way and any other aspect or in any other regards.

0:36:25.8 VS: So I think in our work, understanding that the work is not the same and the work does not change, that we are not talking to an inmate, we are not talking to a prisoner, we are not talking to even the incarcerated, we're talking to a person who happens to be in detention, very much like I am a person who happens to have a disability. We are not defined by our circumstances, we're not defined by where we live, we're not defined by what we look like and so I think in terms of being empowering in this sense, the fact that we are able to see past the fact that someone happens to be incarcerated and still focusing on all of those aspects that make us human, our relationships are roles that we play... Just because you're inside doesn't mean that you stop being a son or a father, or an uncle, or a nephew, or a best friend, all of those things still exist in that person and they don't just stop. Those roles don't just stop because you're inside, they continue to go on.

0:37:41.0 VS: And so I think that when we are supporting incarcerated survivors, we have to look at all of those things and we have to make sure that we're having those conversations and exploring all aspects of the person and not just the circumstances related to their incarceration, which can be really easy to do. And I think even challenging that a little bit, because I think sometimes I found myself talking to incarcerated survivors and that's all they focus on as well. And so I think part of shaking things up and getting outside of this detention mentality is to explore some of those things as long as it feels safe and comfortable to the survivor, and I find that most of the time it is. It's like, Let's focus on your family and your kids and on all of those kinds of things. And so I think when you're able to kind of get them out of that, "I'm just inside and this is all I know," that the better it is.

0:38:46.6 LM: Finally, I know that you were talking about how another key element in this direct service work with incarcerated male survivors is that healing involves a person-centered approach that's individualized to the survivor that you're working with, which I think that's something that advocates should find familiar, that each survivor is their own unique person, and that healing is personal and looks different for everyone, but what are some of the specific ways that the advocates should be using that lesson in a setting of detention and in working with male survivors who are in that setting? 

0:39:30.2 VS: Yeah, so I think all the things that you just said, that each survivor is their own unique person, healing is personal and it looks different for everyone, and of course, you know what works for one male isn't gonna work for another. But I think even more than that is that no other relationship is more important than the one that you develop with the survivor. And so what we mean by that is that we can have a tendency to over-involve ourselves in advocacy and developing relationships with other service providers, so I think as advocates, that's what we wanna do, is we wanna advocate, and so we want to develop relationships with service providers and people that could potentially help, but then what ends up happening is that we're indulging in aspects or details that may not be salient for the survivor, and so these actions can actually pull us away from focusing on the survivor, and that is again, completely counter to what it is that we're there to do. And so I think that's a really important thing to keep in mind is that when we're talking to folks on the inside or we're seeking to support folks on the inside, there can be this increased sense of urgency that comes up, where you're seeing the immediacy or the immediate need for something to happen, it's like, "Oh my gosh, this person has nothing and these conditions are horrible, and I just... "

0:40:57.6 VS: And so when you're doing this flustered thing and you're just spiraling to figure out what to do, I think to center ourselves and remember that it's not about us and it's not about the things that we're freaking out about, it's not about the things that are making us uncomfortable, it's about staying connected to the survivor and what it is that they need, and that is one of the hardest things to do as an advocate, especially when you have a bleeding heart and you care so much, it's so easy to get caught up in all the things that are difficult about this environment and wanting to fix it all and make it all better, and at the end of the day, as much as that's great, and there are certainly a time and place for that, and there could be space for that in our work, that at the end of the day, the most important thing is staying connected to the survivor and making sure that you are not exhausting precious time that you could be spending developing and deepening your relationship with them on other things that may not be as important to them, but are clearly important to you, if that makes sense, and that's... It's a really difficult, difficult balance, I think, especially if you're not used to doing this work and you're sort of discovering what it means to be in detention for the first time.

0:42:14.4 LM: Yeah, and I think what you described of trying to fix everything and you're going with one's own feelings as an advocate about the detention setting is really putting yourself at the center of the experience, and that really seems clear to me that that is not empowerment. Yeah, so... Oh my gosh, Vanessa, you're offering up some great tips and great considerations for advocates to incorporate into their work. Hopefully, a lot of it sounds familiar to people, maybe some of it sounds new, or maybe people have heard new ways that they can apply old lessons to a detention setting and working with male survivors there, but is there anything else that you wanted to say about empowerment including... I know you mentioned at the very beginning that you and JDI measure what you're doing against this model and say, Are we living up to these characteristics and to this model? So... Yeah, anything else that you can say about how you do that, how often do you do that, how you go about making changes when you realize that you're not meeting those goals? 

0:43:23.8 VS: Yeah, absolutely. I think for JDI, before we implement any sort of direct service, our first step is always to connect with the community directly as much as possible, whether it's in person, whether it's via survey, whatever means you're able to do that and of course, our recommendation would be that it always be in person if that's possible, but that is always our first stop, is to check in with the community, check in with the population and ask them directly, "Hey, this is what we're thinking of doing. Does this work for you? Does that meet some needs that exist in this facility and also what would be your plan for executing X, Y and Z service?" And so I think as much as possible, when you're able to do that, then essentially you're setting yourself up for success, rather than guessing how this might work or how this might be effective? And I think it's beyond also just meeting with partners and meeting with administrators, and meeting with staff, you also wanna meet with the community, you wanna meet with the folks on the inside. And so in doing that, once you rolled everything out, I think, yeah, all the things that we've talked about, all these different considerations are things that you're always gonna wanna circle back to, and at the end of the day, ask yourself the question, What does empowerment mean and does it include the things that we've talked about? 

0:45:01.0 VS: And also just thinking about what other cultures or communities do we make mistakes with in our attempts to empower? And so like I shared with you earlier, my background prior to coming to JDI, and a big part of my life and my work now is being an activist for the special needs community and people living with disabilities, and I think this is certainly something that I've experienced as a person who identifies as having a disability is that there's this tendency to want to over-help and over-step and over-correct and do all of these things, is like, I know what's best for you, and I don't have a disability, but I'm this executive director of this organization that is serving your community, and I know what's best, and so I think I carry that with me in the work that I do at JDI and working with incarcerated survivors is I'm working really hard to not make the same mistakes that I've experienced being made with me as a person with a disability and well-intentioned and well-meaning people wanting to help. And so I think as much as we can think through some of those errors that we've made in our work currently, you can always apply it back to any community that you're working with.

0:46:09.6 VS: And I feel like if we can reflect on some of those examples, those feel much more real and we can all draw from previous mistakes that we've made, and making sure that we don't make those same mistakes with incarcerated survivors moving forward. And I think that if you can look through some of these considerations, if you can focus on being self-directed, if you can focus on hope, if you can focus on responsibility, respect, peer support, being strength-based, understanding that this is not linear, that we wanna be holistic, that we wanna be individualized and person-centered, then you are absolutely, really setting yourself up to being as empowering as you can possibly be as an advocate, which at the end of the day, I know is something that we all want. We're all here to empower and uplift each other and to uplift survivors and so I think that this is a good place to start.

0:47:00.8 LM: Vanessa that is an amazing call to action to end on. Is there anything else you wanted to say as we're wrapping up? 

0:47:10.0 VS: I think acknowledging the fact that in order to even do any of this work, that understanding that obviously Rape Crisis Centers and advocates are gonna have to develop partnerships and relationships with facilities, which again is a completely separate podcast in an of itself, which I can appreciate that, but I think some key things to keep in mind as you're working to build these relationships and these partnerships for the sake of incarcerated survivors, so you can do this work, is just really wanting to identify who your key players are within a facility and so for us, very often it's the community resource manager who oversees programming in a facility, it could be the Chief of mental health and whoever oversees mental health programs, so really not just focusing on folks at the very, very top, like Warden, but also working on building relationships with key folks on the inside whose work... It informs what you do and vice versa, so really wanting to connect and be plugged in to that.

0:48:11.5 VS: And then I think also just always keeping in mind, always always keeping in mind that you are a leader of language when you are talking to incarcerated survivors, when you're on-site, even when you're talking to your team, we've talked a lot about not using the word inmate, not using the word prisoner and just avoiding labeling people as much as possible, and I think especially within your agencies, really wanting to keep that in mind that again, you're talking about a community of people no different than any other community, and so how would you go about doing that sensitively and making sure that nothing changes in terms of when you're addressing folks who are on the inside, and I think as a Rape Crisis Center, are your services inclusive? And by inclusive we mean, are you prepared to offer services to incarcerated survivors.

0:49:07.2 VS: Do you have procedures in place? Have you thought through what it might look like if you received a letter from someone on the inside and how you would respond? Have you trained your staff on what it means to be a survivor on the inside? And... Again, just to plug in JDI, that's certainly something that we can help with and JDI, of course, has a plethora of resources on our website that we can support people with, and I appreciate Louie mentioning some of those resources at the top of this podcast, and then just really wanting to think through, once you know all of those things, really thinking through what some of the barriers are. And so again, this is not just folks on the inside, but also in re-entry, so you could very well have survivors coming in who have been on the inside and are now on the outside, and what are the barriers that incarcerated survivors who are now getting ready to be released might experience and gaining access to your organization or your agency. Are you plugged into the various systems in place where folks can know who you are and know about you, and that could very well mean creating flyers and pamphlets and things that you can send to the inside so that folks know how to access you on the outside. Do they have access to your phone number? Do they have access to your address, and making sure that you're not placing the responsibility on them to find you, but that it's our responsibility to find them.

0:50:40.5 VS: And I think just to round things out, just some sort of general tips and considerations that I think are helpful for anybody, if you're gonna work with folks on the inside or find yourself working with the detention facility is being aware of your own biases of working with men, specifically men of color, and working with men on the inside, and I think we've talked a lot about humility and checking ourselves and our own privileges and our own insecurities and so on and so forth, but I think being aware of our own biases and focusing your efforts on trauma in general, rather than on sexual abuse, I think is also really key for rape crisis centers out there and for advocates, is that really figuring out how to talk about trauma in a general sense, rather than being so focused on wanting to talk about sexual abuse and being very direct about calling it sexual abuse. There is a time and a place to name it for someone, but I think initially, even for a while, we might want to consider how to have conversations about sexual abuse where we're not directly talking about sexual abuse and so really kind of rising to that challenge. And the last two things is I think, remember that talking about trauma or showing emotion is not safe in detention, and that the sentiment carries over even when someone is released.

0:52:09.7 VS: So again, talking about re-entry as well as when you're still on the inside, is that talking about rape and trauma and sexual assault and sexual abuse is not safe in detention, and so that for all of us is gonna be one of our greatest barriers, and so we need to be prepared to be creative and sensitive to how we talk about it, and then just lastly, that male survivors tend to be more concerned about surviving in the present and not focusing on the past, and so really just being solution-focused and future-focused in our work as much as possible and understanding that we may not have the luxury of being able to look to the past or look at how we got here.

0:52:52.7 LM: Vanessa, thank you so much for joining me and us again today. I think this was a great conversation, and you're just offering up so much great stuff to advocates who are working with male survivors in detention, whether they're just starting to do that or just approaching doing that, or whether they have been doing it for a long time and want to assess whether or not they are doing this work in an empowerment type of way, so thanks again. We invite listeners to learn more about working with male survivors, and to learn more about JDI's Work to check out the links in the show notes.

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0:53:49.0 LM: Thanks for listening to this episode of Resource on the Go, for more resources and information about understanding, responding to and preventing sexual assault visit our website at www.nsvrc.org. You can also get in touch with us by emailing resources@nsvrc.org.