TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2017

1:30 P.M. EST 
CENTER ON VICTIMIZATION AND SAFETY WEBINAR 
"VIOLENCE AGAINST PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES 
AND DEAF PEOPLE" 


>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: Hello, everyone. This is Ashley Brompton with the Vera Institute of Justice. The webinar will 
begin in just a couple minutes, at 2:00 o'clock. If you have a question or need any assistance, please send us a question in 
the question pod to the right and below the Power Point.

If you would like to download a copy of the Power Point you can do so by clicking the file in the materials box and clicking download file. 

(Pause.)

>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining our webinar today. I'm Ashley Brompton with theCenter on Victimization and Safety at the Vera Institute ofJustice. I would like to welcome you to today's webinar where we will be providing an overview of Violence Against People with 
Disabilities and Deaf People. We are pleased to bring you this as part of our End Abuse of People with Disabilities series. We 
appreciate you taking the time to join us on this our rescheduled date. We have a few logistics to go over today. We 
would like your assistance in testing the captioning pod. The 
captioning pod is located in the bottom left-hand side corner of 
your screen directly below the presentation.

The words I'm speaking should appear in the captioning pod. 
If you can see the captioning, please go ahead and raise yourvirtual hand using the virtual person at the top of your screen. 


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>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: Okay, great. If there is anyone whocannot see the captioning, please send a message in the Q&A pod.

Next, in the pod to the right of the presentation you shouldsee our American Sign Language interpreter. How is the light?
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>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: If you can't clearly see them or the lighting is too dim to see, please use the Q&A pod to contact us. I will now pause for just a moment to see if anyone needs assistance and to allow time for our interpreter to make any necessary adjustments.

Okay, great.

Participants are in listen only mode, which means that weare not able to hear you, but you should be able to hear us. If 
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This is the best way to communicate with me or my Vera colleagues. Who are providing technical support throughout the 
webinar today. I am going to pause for just a second because itseems like we are having a problem with the interpreterconnection. 

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>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: Okay, let's test the interpreterconnection one more time. Does this look clear for everyone? 

Great! Thank you.

We plan to have time after the presentation for questionsand comments. If you don't want to lose a question or commentduring the presentation, please feel free to go ahead and enterit in the question pod. We will hold on to your questions untilthe end of the webinar. If you would like to download a copy oftoday's presentation you can do so by going to the pod to theright of the Power Point. Select the document called final 
violence against PWD, final Power Point. Click the download. 

We will be recording today's webinar. A link to these and 
all materials will be emailed to all participants following thewebinar. 

Let's begin. The webinar today will provide an overview onthe incidence and prevalence against people with disabilities 
and Deaf people, unique, barriers to access and solutions tochange. The presenter is Sandra Harrell. She began her ten-
year tenure with Vera Institute of Justice in 2006. She is the 
project director on Vera's Accessing Safety Initiative, in 


victimization and safety and work focusing on helpingindividuals, organizations and communities across the countryaddress violence against adults around children withdisabilities. 

She worked with over 50 communities funded by the Office on 
Violence Against Women with Disabilities Grant Program, helpingthem to build collaborations to address the gaps in and betweentheir systems to ensure that survivers with disabilities get thehelp they need. In addition Sandra leads the efforts to address 
sexual abuse of children with disabilities and Deaf children and 
is advisor to all projects focused on the intersection ofdisability and violence.

She also delivered training on violence against women withdisabilities at many venues across the country and coordinated 
meetings and round tables to expand the field. Thank you forbeing with us today. I will now turn the presentation over toyou, Sandra.

>> SANDRA HARRELL: Thank you, Ashley. And thanks to 
everyone who was on the webinar two weeks ago who came back thisweek. We do apologize for having to reschedule it, but we hadtechnical difficulties that were making it inaccessible toparticipants who were Deaf or hard of hearing. So we appreciateyour patience and your commitment to coming back. Thank you somuch. 

As Ashley mentioned, today we are going to spend some timejust talking about violence against people with disabilities andDeaf people. Specifically looking at the domestic violence andsexual violence in the lives of people with disabilities andDeaf individuals. We are also going to spend a little bit oftime discussing implications for the work that is being done indomestic and sexual violence programs as well as disabilityprograms and overall the implications for the field of domestic 
and sexual violence. 

Specifically, we are going to talk through the incidence andprevalence rates that we are aware of. We will spend timeexploring the unique problems of people with disabilities and.
We will look at impacts for survivors of people withdisabilities that may be unique to people with disabilities. We 
will look at the barriers to accessing assistance and support.
And then opportunities for change within domestic and sexualviolence programs as well as disability programs.

So let's get started looking at the incidence andprevalences rate.

We always start with the caveat of explaining that there isvery limited research out there around incidence and prevalencesrates for violence in the lives of people with disabilities. 
And a lot of the research that is out there is actually 


collapsed all violent crime under one category. It is hard to 
tease out specifically what is, the types or incidence andprevalences of domestic and sexual violence in the lives of 
people with disabilities because it all has been collapsed intoone category of violent crime.

Then also what we find around the research is that the 
category of disability is collapsed all into one. So theyhaven't teased out the types of disabilities. It is difficult 
to look at the research and be able to generalize the findingsto all people with disabilities because the different peoplewith disabilities may experience higher or lower rates ofviolence. We just don't know because of the limited research 
that is out there. 

But what we can determine, what we know is that people withdisabilities are twice as likely to be victims of violent crime.
That would include domestic and sexual violence, but alsorobbery, vandalization and et cetera. Keep in mind violentcrime is a broader topic than just domestic and sexual violence.
While people with disabilities are 14.2 percent of the overallpopulation they are twice as likely to be victims of violentcrime. 

So there is just a much higher incidence rate for peoplewith disabilities. 

Women who have experienced intimate partner violence aremore than twice as likely to also report a disability. Again weare seeing higher incidence rates among women with disabilities 
in domestic violence. Men with disabilities actually reportedexperiencing sexual violence at much higher rates than menwithout disabilities. 14 percent of men with disabilitiesexperience sexual violence, whereas only 4 percent of menwithout disabilities experience sexual violence. In some 
settings, it shows that men with disabilities are more likelythan women without disabilities to experience higher rates ofsexual violence. 

So again it's high, high incidence in the lives of people 
with disabilities. For people with developmental disabilities,
we see incredibly high rates of violence in their lives,
specifically sexual violence. Almost 50 people of --percent ofpeople with developmental disabilities have been assaulted moretimes. People with developmental disabilities experience theseviolations ten or more times in their lifetime. 20 percent ofDeaf adult also have experienced physical abuse by an intimatepartner and 15 percent have experienced forced sex in anintimate partner relationship.

What we know about violence in the lives of people withdisabilities is that there are a lot of similarities for peoplewithout disabilities. So most survivors will report that 


following abuse or sexual violence they might experience fear of 
retaliation and/or retribution. We hear that from people withdisabilities as well. Often they fear they will not be believedwhen they tell someone. Again this is something that we hearcommonly from people with disabilities as well. Often we hear 
from survivors of violence in general that they are ashamed,
that they feel responsible for what happened. That they areembarrassed to tell anyone about it because they feel ashamed ofit. Again, we hear this also from people with disabilities.
And they commonly will hear from survivors that they don't know 
about any safe or supportive resources in their community. Theyare unaware of those resources. Again this is true for peoplewith disabilities. And then they also fear loss of supportsystems, friends, family, et cetera, if they tell anyone.

These are common experiences across survivors generally, butwhat we see in the lives of people with disabilities is thatthere are also some dynamics that are very unique to thembecause they have disabilities. So, for instance, what we knowat a cultural level for people with disabilities is that thereis a systematic denial of information about what constitutes ahealthy relationship in the lives of people with disabilities.
This starts very early on within their family, but also within 
their educational system. There is almost an assumption thatpeople with disabilities shouldn't be in relationships or willnot be in relationships. So no information is shared with them 
about what constitutes a healthy relationship.

Additionally, we see for people with disabilities that theyare isolated, exploited and marginalized through just asystematic oppression. And this layers into their experience ofviolence, and often times contributes to higher rates of 
violence in their lives because of the fact that they areisolate and marginalized from society makes them susceptible tobeing targeted for violence.

Then also at the cultural level or the societal level for 
people with disabilities, there is a significant lack of 
confidentiality. This is partially due to mandatory reportinglaws that are on the books in all 50 states. Mandatory reportof abuse of vulnerable dulls. In some states the mandatoryreporting laws are clear. In other states those mandatoryreporting laws are clear as mud. What happens is someorganizations may over interpret their mandate and report anyincident that they hear of, which means that for people withdisabilities in some states they have no confidential avenue forseeking support or resources following victimization.

Additionally, often times, particularly for the Deafcommunity, within their communities they are small and closeknit. This can compromise confidentiality as well. Then for 


people with disabilities who have a legal guardian, either as a 
full guardian or just someone who looks over their money, againthis can compromise their ability to maintain confidentiality ofwhat happened to them.

And then there are also unique dynamics on the systemslevel. Again we've talked about lack of confidentiality due tolegal requirements, such as mandatory reporting and guardianshiplaws, but also what we'll see is that disability organizationsare often ill equipped to address victimization of people thatthey serve. You know, disability organizations are designedaround creating access for people with disabilities, advocatingfor access, possibly helping them to gainful employment, doingworkforce training. They were not designed around responding todomestic and sexual violence in the lives of the people thatthey serve. And they often feel like, their first reactionoften is: That's someone else's job, that's not my lane. We 
know that people with disabilities are often very connected tothe disability organizations and their community, and not 
connected to those domestic and sexual violence programs. So if 
the disability organizations are not equipped to serve or torespond to victimization that is experienced in a non-victimblaming 
non-re-traumatizing way that may shut down the only 
avenue of support that that survivor may have.

Then we also know that victims services organizations werenot designed necessarily around the needs for accessibility bypeople with disabilities. This is true in the physicalconstruction of the buildings. We know that many times victimservices are located in donated spaces that the community hasgiven an old historic building to a program or that the localgovernment has maybe donated some space. Very rarely are wegetting donated spaces that are universally designed for thehighest level of accessibility. So the physical space is ofteninaccessible. But in addition to that there are often in placethe way they are first initially contacted may be inaccessible.
A lot of victim services do their initial intake over the 
telephone. And for people who are Deaf or people who havedisabilities that affects communication or cognition, this isnot an accessible way to access those services.

And then once they do get into services, there is often 
times access concerns that are sprinkled throughout the policiesand procedures within the organization. There may beexpectations around medication or doing chores when you are inservices that a person with a disability just would not be able 
to do. 

So there are often a whole array of barriers to access, bothin the communication environment and the physical environmentand the social and policy environment of these organizations. 


And then there's also an important consideration about how 
related systems such as the adult protective system and criminaljustice advertise system respond to survivors with disabilities,
in the aftermath of victimization. This includes the fact that 
a lot of times just on the face of having a disability they may 
be deemed as lacking credibility by law enforcement. And APS 
may take as their responsibility once they hear about somebodybeing victimized they may think: Oh, well, maybe this is due tothe caregiver being stressed out. They may wrap services around 
the caregiver and not give services to the victim in this case.

Or we have also heard stories of how APS responds to reportsof victimization and they are --they report, they respond tothe report of victimization of a person with a disability and 
their response is to remove the person from the community andhave them stay in an assisted living environment or nursinghome. 

So for a lot of people with disabilities, their primary sortof thing that they worked for all of their lives is to live 
independently in a community, and having that taken away fromthem may just be too much. They may refuse to tell anybodyanything ever again just because they feel like having adisability and then being victimized has stripped them of their 
independence.

Then on the individual level, we see that perpetrators inthe lives of people with disabilities will often use tacticsthat expressly target people with disabilities and expresslytarget elements of their disability that will make the person, 
make the survivor feel like they were targeted because they werea disability. And you can imagine that if you have spent yourlife already feeling othered because you have a disability,
already feeling marginalized and isolated because you have a 
disability, also feeling like you were targeted because you hada disability is just come pounding overarchingly the trauma youexperienced with all of that.

And then people with disabilities who experience domesticand sexual violence have a real fear of institutionalization. 
Prior to the '70s, the most common way that our societyresponded to a person with a disabilities was to put them in aninstitution. And we all know the deplorable conditions thatpeople with disabilities have experienced in those institutions. 
So maybe even greater than the fear of re-victimization would be 
the fear of being reinstitutionalized. That fear is real. It 
layers into the traumatic effects of experiencing domestic andsexual violence. 

Importantly as well, they may not even know that what they 
experienced is abusive and or criminal. A lot of times peoplewith disabilities will experience something that no one has ever 


told them it was wrong for them to experience. This comes in 
part because there is not an expectation around many people with 
disabilities of boundaries or personal space. And so if youhave --I'm not saying that that's okay. I'm saying that thisis a problem, that there is often times we don't allow forpersonal spaces and boundaries around people with disabilities. 
So when that personal space and those boundaries are violatedthrough domestic and sexual violence it may not be somethingthat registers with that person as being a crime, because no onehas ever actually said that they were deserving of independent 
boundaries and personal space. So they may not register thatright away as a crime, or ever as a crime.

Then there's also the fact that people with disabilities mayexperience violence throughout their lives by multipleperpetrators. Often those perpetrators are connected to themthrough their disability. And so again this layers into theoverarching trauma that is experienced, because layer afterlayer of victimization, layer after layer of perpetrator. And 
it's layer after layer after layer of having the same narrative, 
that you are being abused, being hurt because you have adisability.

Then if you layer into all of that the fact that they arenot able necessarily to access the services and supports thatthey need for healing, then it is unresolved trauma that is 
getting layered on top of it every single time they experiencevictimization. 

Okay. So then we will spend a little bit of time on theperpetrators. As I just mentioned, the vast majority ofperpetrators are known and hold positions of power or authority 
in the lives of people with disabilities. And they often have arelationship with the individual because of their disability.
In fact, 44 percent of perpetrators have a relationship with theindividual because of their disability.

And the perpetrators can be caregivers, paid or not. Theycan be attendants, again paid attendants. It could be 
transportation providers. We hear a lot about drivers of 
accessible transportation being the perpetrators.

Then, of course, as with people without disabilities, it may 
also be family members, boyfriends, girls friends, oracquaintances.

The tactics that perpetrators use often times exploit thesort of cultural systemic and individual barriers that surroundpeople with disabilities. So, for instance, around sexualviolence for people with disabilities, perpetrators may groomthe person for abuse. In other words, this is just essentiallybuying her gifts, becoming a confidante an a friend, little bylittle pushing the boundaries of what is appropriate to the 


point that when the sexual exploitation begins, the individualwith a disability may feel like a good friend of theirs is doingthis to them, and may be less likely to want to tell on them.

And another tactic specific to sexual violence is exploitingthe fact that people with disabilities are often raised to becompliant and relatively trusting of others. And perpetratorsmay take advantage of that. The fact not only that they aretrusting, but also they may be really desirous of relationships 
because they are often so isolated from society in general. And 
the perpetrators may take advantage of that as well.

I mentioned earlier that people with disabilities aresystematically denied information about healthy relationships. 
This is also true about sexual education or knowledge. For 
instance, we were working with a group of adults withdisabilities around doing a sexual violence prevention trainingin partnership with rape prevention educators. A large group of 
the adults with disabilities had incredible challenges beingable to say words like vagina or breast or vulva. They simplyhad never talked that way before. No one had ever spoken tothem or taught them about these parts of their bodies. There 
was a deep discomfort in them being able to talk about itbecause it had not been normalized in their lives that they weresexual beings and that sex was a part of the human conditionthat they would explore as well.

So what happens for people with disabilities when they are 
denied basic vocabulary words around how to describe theirsexual body parts is that if they do try to talk about whathappened to them, they may not have the language to describe itwell. People may not be able to be understand what it is that 
they are trying to say. It may seem far more innocuous if yousay that someone touched my flower as opposed to someone touchedmy vagina without my permission.

So this is something we often see around child sexual abuseas well, but this follows people with disabilities well into 
adulthood. 

Perpetrators may also target people with disabilities fortheir perceived vulnerabilities. So if, for instance, aperpetrator targets a person who uses a wheelchair, they may beable to use the fact that the person has limited mobility to 
more easily restrain the person. Or if someone is targeting aperson with a cognitive or intellectual disability, again theymay exploit the fact that that person may not have the abilityto fully explain what happened to them. Someone is targetingsomeone with a disability that affects their communication,
again they can exploit the fact that they may not be able tofully explain what is happening to them. Therefore, they canget away with it for longer periods of time. 


Then another key tactic that we hear from survivors withdisabilities around what perpetrators do, they become a reliedupon caregiver. This happens often times in the context ofdomestic violence as well, where someone will start dating, 
someone will start dating a guy and he will say hey, there's noreason for you to continue to pay this person to come in andhelp you with things like bathing and toileting and gettingdressed in the morning. I'll do that for you. I love you somuch, I'll do that for you.

So you get rid of your paid caregiver so that you can, sothat your boyfriend is helping you out now. Then that boyfriend becomes abusive and takes advantage of the fact that youdon't have anyone else around you to help out to be able to 
continue doing that abuse.

Another way that this occurs is that many people withdisabilities who have had personal care attendants for years andyears and years may not want to have to start with a brand newpersonal care attendant. They may feel like they have to 
tolerate that abuse. At least they know what to expect withthis person versus a complete and utter stranger coming intotheir lives. 

So we talked about becoming a relied upon caregiver in thecontext of domestic violence. Other tactics that we have heard 
about from survivors of domestic violence who have disabilities 
is that perpetrator would give her drugs without her knowledge.
Or force her to take drugs or medications. This is particularlytrue in cases of people with psychiatric disabilities, that the 
perpetrator would give her either illicit drugs along with herprescribed medications, or give her too much of her prescribedmedication, or withhold her prescribed medication, all in aneffort to further compromise what would be deemed credible by 
law enforcement should she tell someone. 

A very common tactic includes threatening, entering injuringor scaring away the service animal. For people withdisabilities, you know the key role that service animals play infacilitating the independence of a person with a disability. 
And if that service animal has gone through extensive trainingto be able to be in public places. Every public place that theindividual with a disability goes, the service animal should beable to go. If that service animal is threatened, injured orscared on a regular basis, that training starts to evaporate.
All of a sudden this individual with a disability who has reliedupon this service animal to help facilitate her independence inthe world can no longer rely on that animal.

Moreover, as we all know --most of us know, if you're ananimal person, like those of us at CVS are, they have a realimportant place in our hearts. Many people feel about their 


animals similarly to what they feel about their children. And 
having their animal threatened, injured or scared on a regularbasis is like being threatened, injured or scared yourself. So 
this tactic is particularly effective for ensuring that thepower and control within that relationship is intact. 

Another topic that we hear about often in the context ofdomestic violence is using transportation options, they'll limitthe transportation options that are available for people to beable to stalk her. And also just to be able to create this 
sense that he is omnipresent and all knowing as well. Because 
if you are stalking someone and you are in the relationship withthem and you tell them, you know, that you could just accountfor every single solitary thing they did that day, it reallydoes make you seem more powerful maybe than you are. It 
certainly sets up for the survivor a sense that if I try to getaway, he'll always be able to find me. The fact is in most 
communities even in the communities with lots of accessible 
transportation options, which is very, very rare, those 
transportation options are often on a fixed route. And a fixed 
schedule. And that means that an abuser can easily stalk herthrough those transportation options.

Another topic that we have heard a lot about is hiding of 
mobility devices or putting them right out of her reach. One 
woman told me how her abuser would tip her over out of herwheelchair and then sort of snicker at her because he put thewheelchair just far enough that she would have to crawl to it.

And so this was something that he did on a regular basisjust to demoralize her an also just to exert his own power.

Another woman that I worked with had lost her eyesight dueto glaucoma. She would tell me about how her abuser would sneak 
up to her and shout right in her ear just to scare her and throw 
her off balance all the time. You know, so attacking her beforeshe can sense what is coming or using the fact that maybe thereis a sensory disability to get the edge on being able to attackher or scare her. 

Then we've already talked about threatening, injuring orscaring away her service animal. That's a re-beat bullet point.

Now, for domestic and sexual violence around Deaf people,
there are a few key ways that perpetrators take advantage of the 
smallness of the Deaf community. One way is, there are about500,000 Deaf people in our country. So in every community wherethere is an actual Deaf community, you are going to find thatthat is a small group of people. Not only is it a small groupof people, but the folks within that community cherish and valuetheir community, their traditions, their values, the fact thatthey have a network of friends deeply. 


This is something that is deeply, deeply valued by Deafpeople. So when someone is perpetrating domestic violence, they 
may threaten her with: If you start talking about this, you aregoing to lose all of those friends that I helped you to makewhen you moved here. Or are you really going to deny me acommunity? Are you really going to make me look bad in front of 
our entire community? Do you know how horrible that is? There 
are a number of different ways that perpetrators can exploitthat. 

Then in addition, we also hear from Deaf survivors thatperpetrators may steel, destroy their communication or adaptive 
equipment so she wasn't able to call for help. They may be ableto put spy ware on their communication or adaptive equipment andtrack them using spy ware. That's an important thing to keepyour eye out for.

Finally, if the person who is perpetrating the domestic 
violence is hearing or grew up in a hearing family where theylearned to be oral, they may use that privilege. It is called 
hearing privilege, to be able to say when the police come, forinstance, that she --look how she's acting. Be able to 
communicate, and the law enforcement language in a way thatmakes them able to form sort of a rapport with law enforcement.

They may also use hearing privilege by making fun of her,
you know? Or talking about her like right in front of her, but 
she can't hear what is going on. So there are a number of 
different ways that that will apply.

I am going to pause. I did see that a question may havecome up.

(Pause.)

>> SANDRA HARRELL: So there is a question that says: If 
deemed as incompetent or lacking credibility, shouldn't a courtappoint a guardian who is competence ten and work with anindividual to obtain a resolution that is in the best interests 
of the victim? 

I will say that that is often what will happen. There will 
be sort of a knee jerk reaction to appoint a guardian over theperson. I am not sure that's the best practice. Especially forpeople with disabilities who worked really hard to be able tolive independently in the community, who worked really hard to 
be able to make their own decisions and who through no fault oftheir own, keep in mind, have been targeted for victimization.
Taking away their ability to make their own autonomous decisionsoften times is as traumatizing as being placed in a nursing home 
facility.

So we'll talk a little bit about the impact of domestic andsexual violence on survivors with disabilities. We justmentioned it, loss of autonomy and independence. Any time that 


the system responds by removing a personal care attendant, 
changing housing, appointing a guardian because they can not, inquotes, protect themselves, it results in a loss of autonomy andindependence, hard fought for autonomy and independence. This 
can have devastating results on that person's life, including 
the fact that they may never again want to reach out for help asa result of victimization. 

There is a psychological impact including post-traumatic 
stress disorder, trauma responses such as fight, flight, or fleaor freeze. There is a whole host of responses, psychological 
responses. Post victimization, which includes hyper vigilance,
feeling afraid all the time, feeling as if there is no justicein the world, no fairness in the world because maybe youfollowed all the rules and you were still victimized.

Feeling incredibly responsible for what happened to you.
And, therefore, not truly trusting yourself anymore. All of 
these are true for people who experience domestic and sexualviolence in general and then they are compounded in the lives of 
people with disabilities because of all the other elements goingon, or dynamics surrounding their lives as people withdisabilities. 

And then there are a range of physical responses that mayhappen, including physical injury. You know, if it was a sexual 
assault, there could be STDs, there could be a number ofphysical responses. For people with disabilities, thevictimization could exacerbate their disability or cause anotherdisability.

So you know, for someone who is hit over the head, they may 
incur a traumatic brain injury coupled with the physicaldisabilities that they had since birth. So there are a number 
of clearly negative consequences.

Then there are barriers to accessing assistance and support.
Within domestic and sexual violence programs, within healthcare 
settings, the criminal justice system and other areas, you willexperience people with disabilities experience, as I mentionedearlier, physical barriers, communication barriers, attitudinalbarriers. That may feel like they are not comfortable working 
with people with disabilities and, therefore, they may finddifferent reasons why the person isn't eligible for services.

They may, service providers may lack knowledge of disabilityin general, or want a checklist which really doesn't work when 
you are working with people with disabilities because a personexperiences disability in unique ways. All people are uniqueand no one experience of disability is the same as the next. So 
it is critical that service providers have the skill sets and 
knowledge to work with people with disabilities, not simply to 


try to grab a checklist and respond based on that checklist. It 
doesn't work. 

I mentioned earlier there may actually be policies in placethat would prevent survivors with disabilities from even usingour services. In some programs, there are clear policies aroundpeople with psychiatric disabilities not being on theirmedication or they may specifically say that the program is notdesigned to provide therapeutic or clinical responses. 
Therefore, they can only work with a certain group of people.
And that may exclude people with disabilities.

Within disability programs, I mentioned this earlier. There 
may be barriers to disclosures of violence and abuse including 
the fact that in an effort to promote community within thedisability organization, there may be very few private spaces.
There may also be no staff member of the organization who is nota mandatory reporter. They could be serving both the abuser and 
the survivor. And within the same organization. So the victim 
is showing up to this disability association seeing herperpetrator at the exact same classes that she's going to.

And then again as mentioned earlier, there are far feweroptions for transportation, for accessible transportation. This 
may impact safety planning.

For Deaf survivors there are unique barriers. One is the 
fact that the community of American Sign Language interpretersis often small and tight knit, which means that if they are 
interpreting for the survivor, they may very well haveinterpreted for her perpetrator in the past if he too is Deaf.

The disability services in a community may not have a strongconnection to the Deaf community. Therefore, there may be fewer 
options for resources for Deaf survivors in a community. If 
there are Deaf services in a community, it may focus exclusivelyon communication access. For Deaf folks, and not fully on therange of violence and abuse. Much as disability agencies are 
set up to promote accessibility for people with disabilities,
Deaf services in many communities will be set up to ensurecommunication access. And very rarely were they all designedaround the full human experience of the people they would serve. 
It is like one element of their experience. Access,
communication access. Even though we know from the literatureand research that these populations have a high, high incidencerate of violence and abuse, those programs that are designedaround serving them don't always have the knowledge of how to 
respond effectively to violence and abuse.

As mentioned earlier, many victim services organizationsrely primarily on the telephone for initial intake. This means 
that a Deaf person may contact a crisis line and encounter 
either a crisis line worker who has no idea how to operate their 


TTY machine which is outdated, if you are relying on TTY withinyour services. That's a pretty good indication that there areupdates that need to happen. Or crisis line workers may be very 
unfamiliar with how to work with the Deaf person using VideoRelay Services. And in either case, in the moment of crisis,
the Deaf person is not getting the level of service and supportthat non-Deaf people are receiving.

As mentioned earlier, the ASL interpreters, there is a 
community of American Sign Language interpreters that is smalland tight knit. An even smaller group of advocates arecertified Deaf advocates and certified pace, post trauma, oftentimes there are so few certified Deaf interpreters in the 
country, accessing them in a rural community, in Alabama, wouldbe nearly impossible.

Although that is often times when you need a certified Deafinterpreter the most because in rural communities withinAlabama, Deaf kids may have only been taught home signs. So a 
certified Deaf interpreter is critical for that population.

And if a Deaf person goes into shelter and the shelter is ahearing shelter, which most are, the sense of isolation thereoften results in her not staying very long. This is the most 
common refrain that we hear from Deaf survivors. To go intoshelter after violent incidents at home and to not have one 
person, not one person that you can communicate with there isalmost as painful as being in that home and being afraid. 
Sometimes they choose to go back home where they have theability to communicate and be social than stay in the isolatedplace that is the shelter.

Then importantly we also see within victim services thatthere is a profound lack of understanding of Deaf culture. 
Therefore, the service providers may unintentionally reallyoffend Deaf people by looking at the interpreter instead of theDeaf person when they are in the midst of an intake, making eyecontact with that interpreter, asking the interpreter questions 
as opposed to asking the individual questions, et cetera.

So a number of different ways that service providers canunintentionally offend a Deaf person. It is not a small 
offense. It is something that their entire lives they feel like 
they have been ignored. Here they are reaching out for help andsupport and because the workers have not been trained or don'thave knowledge about Deaf culture and the proper etiquette, theydo things that profoundly have a negative impact on the Deaf 
person.

So that's the really negative stuff. That's me bringing youdown for about an hour. It is not a pretty picture out there.
I am not going to pretend that it is. 


But there are some real great reasons to be optimistic. As 
Ashley said, or in my introduction, there have been over 50communities. I think the number at this point is 72 communitiesfunded through the disability grant program that are activelyworking to address the barriers within their services, their 
staff knowledge, their own community level response to violenceagainst people with disabilities. They are working to raiseawareness. In Boston they have an entire poster campaign in themass transit authority highlighting violence against people with 
disabilities. People are doing really good work. From that 
work we have identified some key strategies for making change inthese areas. 

Some of the general strategies for addressing violenceagainst people with disabilities include promoting's quality and 
inclusion of people with disabilities. This means reallybringing people with disabilities into the work that you aredoing, letting them inform the strategy that you are putting inplace, any changes that you are trying to make. Bringing peoplewith disabilities within your community as experts of their ownexperience, really listening to those folks to really hear whatit is that they are saying.

And then another important strategy is building 
partnerships. The primary vehicle for change that the Verainstitute uses to promote change around this issue iscollaboration building. We work with all of those communities 
that have been funded to build strong, lasting, sustainablecollaborations between disability organizations and violence 
against women organizations. Sometimes we include law 
enforcement in that, depending on what the community's interestis. 

Partnerships and communication are key to be able to addressthis. No one organization is going to be able to provide the 
full range of information, knowledge, and expertise that isneeded in order to address this complex issue. And so poolingyour resources, pooling your expertise is the best way to ensurethat you are able to wrap that survivor with a disability in the 
services they need for healing.

Then also just for justice.

Raising awareness and fostering accountability, I mentioned,
that involves doing --Boston doing the poster campaign on masstransit, but also talking about these issues among your staff, 
in your organization, within your community. Not allowingpeople to look away because it is uncomfortable or hard to hearabout. Really pressing people to think about what this meansand how we can address it and how we can hold accountable not 
only the perpetrators who are doing this but ourselves who arecolluding with those perpetrators in some cases. 


Strengthening prevention efforts is another importantstrategy. You know, it is a common analogy used within the 
violence against women world about a man who sees a baby comingdown a river and he goes over and snatches the baby out of theriver and he sees another baby, and he jumps and pulls the babyout of the river and it he does this ten times before he thinks: 
Wow, I need to find out who is throwing babies in the river.

Preventing it in the first place should be our ultimategoal. Right now when it comes to preventing violence againstpeople with disabilities and Deaf people, there aren't a wholelot of strong prevention strategies that are out there. We need 
to cultivate prevention strategies through a variety of effortsbut really looking at primary prevention against people withdisabilities. 

And of course, we need to increase research. I started this 
presentation by talking about how limited the research is. If 
we are going to make an effective argument about this to lawmakers, policymakers, funders, et cetera, we need the numbers.
And this is another area that we need to be able to say morethan anecdotally that this is happening and here is the proof.

And then, of course, I spent a lot of time talking about thedifferent barriers that exist within agencies. Really buildingto enhance services is critical. There's a number of thingsthat we do within the disability grant program within all these 
communities that we work with, including working with them toimprove their policies and procedures, to train their staff onthese policies and procedures but also the substantive areas ofviolence against people with disabilities.

You know, doing safety and access reviews within theirorganizations. So there's a number of very specific concretesteps that we encourage organizations to take. But it is all 
about working to enhance those services.

You can find a lot of this on our website End Abuse of 
People with Disabilities. We go into far more detail there.

Strategies that you can undertake in your own community isto advocate for accessibility in other community resources.
Advocating to make sure those community resources are safe and 
welcoming of people with disabilities. So you know, have someimages of people with disabilities in your brochures, in theposters that you hang on the wall. Let people with disabilitiesknow that they are welcome there by putting the universalsymbols of access on your materials. And making sure that youhave budgeted to provide those accommodations if requested.

Of course, promoting partnerships between violence againstwomen agencies and disability and Deaf organizations.

Specifically violence against women organizations, again youreally have to budget for accessibility. The provision of an 


ASL interpreter is not free. They are not going to donate theirtime. You have to have a line item in your budget. So make 
sure you are budgeting for those accommodations.

Make sure you have a process in place, a procedure in placefor providing those reasonable accommodations. We highlyrecommend creating a policy and an accompanying procedure 
because staff, particularly in violence against women agencieswho are working overnight, for instance, can't always reachtheir Executive Director to find out what the process is.

So put it all in writing. Make sure the staff is trained on 
it. Make sure they understand what their responsibilities are, 
and that they have the power to provide those reasonableaccommodations. Also in providing reasonable accommodationssomething you should do proactively is again buildingrelationships with a disability organization in your community 
because then you are going to be better equipped to providereasonable accommodations when they come up because you willhave an existing relationship. It is tough to form a brand newrelationship with a disability provider while also not being 
totally sure how you are going to pay for these accommodationsor even what the accommodations are. 

So be proactive. Create those relationships. And then 
those relationships can serve as a resource for you when areasonable accommodation request comes up.

Other ways that violence against women agencies can signalto people with disabilities that they are welcome and they areeager to serve them, making sure that agency materials areavailable in alternative formats. I mentioned incorporating 
disability and Deaf-specific images in your materials.

Within disability agencies, a couple of key strategies thatcan be undertaken include creating a private space. At least 
one private space within the agency where someone can go to talk 
about anything that is happening that is particularly --that 
needs confidential space to do so. Ensuring that your policiesare clearly articulated in your responsibilities aroundmandatory reporting. If you aren't clear about what yourmandatory reporting requirements are, getting clear about those 
and again making sure that you are being very clear with thepeople you serve about that as well. One of the worst thingsthat can happen to a survivor of domestic and sexual violence isthat they disclose what is happening to them and then they lose 
all power over who finds out. So it is important that youproactively let people know what may happen if they tell youabout violence happening in their lives and where there areother avenues of confidential support if needed.

And what every organization can do is actively recruit andretain board members, staff and volunteers who have 


disabilities. Again this is part of promoting inclusion andequality is that you are making sure that people with 
disabilities are part of your organization, they are part of thefabric of your organization.

And then providing ongoing training opportunities onviolence against women with disabilities and Deaf women both inyour organization and within the community at large.

Just a handful of our strategies to keep in mind. If youare a disability organization, one of the things that you wantto be thoughtful about, and this is another reason why it'simportant to build relationships with victim services, is 
avoiding victim blaming language. Victim blaming language isanything that situates the blame for what happened in thevictim. That's including something like saying: This personalcare attendant, you've worked with this guy a long time. How 
did you not know he would do something like this, how did you 
not pick up on the fact that he would do this? Or he came after 
you probably because you have a disability.

There are other ways to talk about it. It is important thatyou sort this out in your own head before you actually start 
responding to the survivors. It is important that you focus onthe person as a whole person. They are not just theirdisability, not just their victimization. They are the sum ofall of the experiences they have had up to the point that they 
come into your office. Really focusing on that and ensuringthat you are not negating a part of their humanity in the faceof disability or in the face of victimization.

If you are serving the survivor with a disability, if youare a victim services organization, you may need to be moreflexible and allow some more time. You've got to create spacefor that are person to be able to --you may have to modifyservices, you may have to modify when you come in. Create that 
flexibility now so that you are ready to be responsive if a 
survivor with a disability comes in.

Work with her or him to understand how best to immediate 
their needs. It is again --we as service providers, we have aset of skills and experiences and expertise that we want to 
bring to bear in the life of this person that we want to help.
That person also has a set of experiences, wisdom, expertise.
Let's come together to work to meet those needs together, notjust us telling them what they need, but really listening to 
what she says she needs.

I mentioned already that it is important to budget foraccessibility. But for disability agencies, you may want tobudget for emergency housing if necessary, or other safetyplanning needs. You may want to create a little line item 
around that as well. 


And indicating safe ways to talk about violence or abuse inyour program materials. This is true particularly fordisability agencies. And then for violence against womenagencies, work to tailor your programming to meet the unique, 
barriers for the lives of people with disabilities. For examplethe domestic violence world has long used the power and controlwheel. The power and control wheel is a fantastic visual forpeople who are experiencing domestic violence to really begin to 
understand, wow, he's doing most or all of this! You know, thisis all going on for me.

But for people with disabilities, some of the particulartactics that are used against them aren't represented in thatpower and control wheel. So we have seen our communities that 
we work with actually create disability-specific power and 
control wheels so that the experience of survivors withdisabilities are reflected for them in this really effectivevisual model that has been used for years and years and years.

And then make sure your staff, particularly if you are avictim service agency, know and follow basic etiquette forinteracting with people with disabilities and Deaf people. You 
can find this on our website. You can find this online. But 
there are just some key ways that you want to interact withpeople with disabilities to show that you are respectful ofthem, that you respect their humanity.

That brings me to the end of this presentation. There are 
some resources listed here. I mentioned our interviews with 
disability website, the URL is there for that as well as thenational council on independent living task force on violenceand abuse of people with disabilities. The ADA home pain,
national violence, the disability and business technical 
assistance center, the national coalition against domesticviolence and job accommodation network.

At that I will open it up for any questions.

There is a question that has been supposed. Is there a list 
of --if you go to the End Abuse of People with Disabilities, 
there's a section called get connected. Every community thathas been funded through the disability grant program is listedon that map. Or you can see their focus, you can see anyresources they created. So everything is right there.

And we also have contact information there for folks. 

There is a question here that says: What have you seen ashelpful alternative access channels for DV services for peoplewith developmental delays? In-person access channels? So 
finding ways to communicate that this is, that you can comedirectly to the services. Also if that is completely impossiblein your community, what we have found to be helpful is that youwork out a release of information with the people with 


disabilities provider and you actually speak, that person speakswith you through the support of someone in a disability agencyor their trusted communication partner.

Another question. Yes, there is a point being made thatthere is fantastic work being done in the area of elder abuse,
the national clear house of abuse and later life, which isheaded up by Bonnie Brandall, has done fantastic work. There 
are a lot of intersecting issues when you look at elder abuseand people with disabilities.

But they have really done, they've built their expertisearound elder abuse specifically while we have been building ourexpertise around people with disabilities. But we often times 
cross paths, just because there are so many intersections.

There is a question about getting a copy of the Power Point.
You can download a copy of the Power Point if you go, you'll seea pod right underneath the ASL interpreter that says files 2.
You can click on it and it will give you the option ofdownloading the file.

Then there's a question about, do I have any other thoughtsabout how to prevent violence and abuse, neglect and financialexploitation of people with disabilities? I have tons of 
thoughts about that. Specifically, I think that one veryeffective way for disability providers to play a role in this isto create environments within their organizations that areinhospitable to violence and abuse. This can be done by doingaggressive background checks of employees. Really, screeningemployees before they are hired for any history of domestic and 
sexual violence, any complaints, really checking references.

But then while, when the person is employed, really creatinga zero tolerance policy. Messaging to staff that any complaint,
it's going to be taken seriously. That any, no one is going tobe ignored. That there will be significant investigations intoany complaint.

I think one of the reasons that people who target peoplewith disabilities do so is because they get away with it. A lot 
of times what they've done is treat it more as an administrative 
matter than a crime. If we all started treating it more as thecrime that it is, and really took seriously complaints, and wefirst are, our first inclination is to believe the person andnot doubt their credibility or doubt their story, it would go a 
long way to signaling to those who would target people withdisabilities that we are not going to put up with it anymore.
We are not going to take it anymore.

So those are some broad sweeping suggestions. We are in the 
process of creating a blueprint to end sexual abuse of childrenwith disabilities. I do think it starts there. In that 
blueprint we've outlined a handful of other prevention 


strategies. Once that's published, you can read up on that as 
well. 

Any other questions, Ashley, that you are seeing pop up thatI'm missing?

>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: So we have a question: If the 
perpetrator is disabled, are there barriers to hold himaccountable? For example, arresting them?

>> SANDRA HARRELL: If they, if the perpetrator has adisability?

>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: Yes. 

>> SANDRA HARRELL: There are no barriers to arrestingsomeone just because they have a disability. What we do see is 
that people tend to --one of the things that we see a lot of 
around particularly sexual abuse is that there's this sort ofnarrative that the person didn't understand what they were doingwhen they did the abusing. Part of this comes from the fact 
that people with disabilities are denied information about what 
is healthy, what is appropriate sexual behavior. So then when 
someone becomes sexual abusive, it fits nicely into thatnarrative. Well, they didn't know any better.

So there may be an unwillingness to hold people withdisabilities accountable, but there is certainly no legal 
barriers to doing it. It is mostly in people's heads.

And the same way that it is in people's heads that peoplewith disabilities don't have sexual relationships. I mean, it'sin people's heads that people with disabilities won't have 
intimate relationships, you know. All of that is untrue, butthere is such a persistent narrative around it that it causespeople to not do what they should.

>> ASHLEY: Okay. We have another question. We are 
currently using a TTY machine as means of Deaf survivors 
utilizing our crisis line. What alternative would yourecommend? 

>> SANDRA HARRELL: Video Relay Services. Video RelayServices have been around now for a decade. It is a far more 
effective way for people with disabilities, for Deaf people to 
have telephone conversations with hearing people because whatthey do is, they call into this Relay Service and they actuallyare on video with an interpreter. Then the interpreter callsyou. And so what I would do is get a little bit of trainingaround using, communicating with somebody via video Relay,
provide some training to your staff and volunteers around it,
and then begin to advertise specifically. Not that I provide avideo Relay, you don't need to, but you can access our crisis 
line via video Relay. We are trained to work with you over thephone via video Relay. 


There is also some movement to create, to allow for atexting line because many Deaf people will use, they have beenusing text messaging longer than any of us. So there is some 
movement around that. There is just a lot of safetyconsiderations that have to be worked out before we can be 
confident that it is, you know, a very safe way for people tocontact you.

For now video Relay is the best.

>> ASHLEY: As a follow-up to that question, what about in 
rural areas where people may not have access to the Internet orcell phones? Maybe they only have access to land lines?

>> SANDRA HARRELL: Yes, that's one of the reasons --sorryabout that, I was muted for a second.

That is one of the reasons that there is this movement 
building around text messaging, creating a text messaging linebecause in rural areas it is a significant concern that thereare many agencies that don't have Internet, that they don't have 
access to any of that.

So that is why there's movement around that. For now, TTYmachines in a rural community is probably the best alternative,
but again it is so outdated at this point that if you can do atext messaging line or video Relay, that is the one that you 
want to go with.

>> ASHLEY: What protection is there if any for young adultswho find themselves as victims and parents?

>> SANDRA HARRELL: Can you say that one more time?

>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: I believe the question is asking whatprotection is there for victims who find themselves as parents?

>> SANDRA HARRELL: Find themselves as parents?

>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: Who are both victims an prents, arethere special protections for them?

>> SANDRA HARRELL: Hmm, I'm not fully following thequestion. But I would say that the same protections that applyto adults with disabilities, whether they are parents or not,
would apply.

But keep in mind a lot of those protections aren't 
necessarily --they are not implemented necessarily in a waythat is in the best interests of the survivor. So be thoughtfulabout a protective sort of approach to doing this work. There 
is a ton of work that has been done in the domestic and sexual 
violence world around really being able to promote safety whilenot stripping a person of their independence and their power.

And that is really part of what we have been working to do 
for the past 11 years at Vera is to merge the best practices ofthe violence against women world with the best practices of thedisability world and creating a space for survivors with 


disabilities to be able to receive support and services without 
losing their independence.

>> ASHLEY: And then are there any organizations or agenciesthat you know of that indicator to male victims withdisabilities specifically?

>> SANDRA HARRELL: Not for males with disabilities 
specifically, but there are a handful of organizations that are 
working to address male victims. I think it is one in seven is 
one of those. And those organizations have worked with us,
although not as intensively as organizations that are part ofthe grant community. But they have worked with us to some 
degree to ensure that they are thinking about men withdisabilities. So we can send a follow-up of resources for those 
organizations that really are working around victimization ofmen. And then we are releasing in the next couple of months a 
snapshot on victimization of men with disabilities, just becausewe did a year and a half long project really exploringvictimization in the lives of men with disabilities and 
beginning to highlight the key considerations for disability 
agencies but also victim service providers.

So that should be coming out in the next few months.

Any other questions, Ashley?

>> ASHLEY: I am not seeing any right now.

>> SANDRA HARRELL: Well, those were some really greatquestions. Thank you for your engagement on this call andspending time with us today, learning about how we are here -we 
not only provide training and technical assistance to thesecommunities, but we provide a national training program as well.
So any supports or questions that you have, feel free to contact 
us. We are happy to be of assistance in any way that we can.
For service providers who are trying to do the important work ofaddressing violence against people with disabilities.

Thank you so much for your time today.

>> ASHLEY: Thank you and I would like to thank all of youfor being online and participating with us today. And beinghere for our webinar. And I am going ahead to ask you all tofill out a brief evaluation which you can do by going to the 
link in the Power Point slide. Or on the pod that says weblinks 2, you will see a link that says Violence Against PeopleWith Disabilities and Deaf People 101 Survey. You just clickthat and click browse 2 and it will open up in your browser as 
well. We would appreciate it if you take a few minutes to shareyour thoughts with us so we can continue to work to meet yourneeds. 

Those of you interested in downloading a transcript of thewebinar, do so by going to the caption pod at the bottom of the 
screen and click the button that says Save. We will leave the 


webinar open a few minute for you to do this. You can download 
the materials which include the final Power Point as well as a 
record of attendance, if necessary, in the Files 2 pod below the 
ASL interpreter.

Thanks again, and have a great afternoon!

(The webinar concluded at 3:30 p.m. EST.)

(CART provider signing off.)

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This is being provided in a rough draft format.
Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) or captioning 
are provided in order to facilitate communication accessibilityand may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. 

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