ASHLEY BROMPTON: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today. We appreciate you all taking some time out of your day to spend with us. And I know that our presenters are going to be really thankful about that too. One second, it looks like we are having some technical difficulty. We're going to pause for one quick second while I address a technical problem. We'll be right back. OK, we are going to go ahead and get started today. I apologize for that brief delay. Thank you all for spilling out our poll. It looks like the majority of you have not read or seen Harry Potter. That's OK. And then our second largest class is people who believe they are Gryffindor, as do many of us who have watched or read Harry Potter or done both. So thank you all so much for participating in our poll. I'm going to stop sharing the poll. Again, my name is Ashley Brompton with the Vera Institute of Justice. And I'm so happy to see you all today. I'd like to welcome you to our webinar today. We are pleased to bring it to you as part of our 2021 End Abuse of People with Disabilities webinar series. Before we start today, I want to provide some information about the accessibility features of our Zoom webinar platform as well as how you can interact with us today. You should be in listen-only, view-only mode. That means you can hear and see us, but we cannot hear and see you. If you would like to turn the captioning on, you can go to the bottom of your screen. And then there's the thing that says for the subtitles or the captions, there's a little button that you can press. You'll click that. You can select Show Subtitle or View Full Transcripts. If you click Show Subtitle, it will show the words that I am speaking below the videos on your screen. If you click View Full Transcript, it will show to the right of the videos on your screen. It will cover the chat if you use full transcripts. Today, we have a multilingual space. The presentation is in English. You'll see that we have American Sign Language interpreter is here with us today. We also have Spanish language interpretation today. You should be able to see the interpreters on your screen. If you can't see the interpreters on your screen, you can go to the upper right-hand corner where it says View, and you can click Gallery View. That will make sure that you can see the PowerPoint at some point and the interpreters or myself or the presenters speaking today. You should have received an email about how to access the Spanish interpretation if that was something that you requested. If not, my colleague Jeanette is posting some of that in the chat so that you can access the Spanish line. We're going to pause today every 20 minutes or so for an interpreter switch. At this point, we will pause the session. We will allow the interpreters to switch, make sure that they have the all clear, and then we will continue. You might hear me interrupt the panelists. That's just to make sure that if, for some reason, sometimes you're are on a roll and it's a little bit hard to remember to do a switch, we want to make sure that we are ensuring the highest quality interpretation that we can. So we do try to stick to our 20 minutes, give or take, for interpreters switches. If you have any questions with the interpreters or the captioning today, please let us know in the chat or the Q&A. We're here to help you. We have a team of people here to make sure that you are able to access the session today. We do value complete access in our virtual sessions. If we have a technical issue, as you saw at the very beginning of the session, we will probably pause to address the issue. If it can't be resolved for some reason and it is impacting your ability to access the webinar, we may cancel the session. If we do that, we'll send you an email with further instructions and information. If you have a question for the panelists or presenters today, we do ask that you try to use the question and answer box. You can find that by clicking Q&A at the bottom of your screen. This is so that we can keep track of all of the questions until the very end of the session. At the end, we're going to bring a bunch of the people back on to answer some of the questions that might have arisen. So again, if you can try to remember to use the Q&A for questions, that would be great. The chat is there if you would like to use it. We will give you video privileges if you would like to ask a question in American sign language. When it's time for questions, please raise your hand, and we will follow up with you and give you video privileges should you need them. A quick note about the chat. You cannot save the chat or paste from the chat. This is a security measure to make sure that people aren't taking any information that we're putting in the chat. You should be able to click links in the chat, but just in case you can't, we also sent them out in the confirmation email. And we'll make sure that they end up in any participant materials. So if for some reason you can't click a link, don't worry. We will make sure that it is provided to you in other formats. Right now, if you're joined using your webinar browser or your web browser, excuse me, you may only be seeing Speaker View, which means you may only be seeing the interpreter. We do recommend that you join using the Zoom desktop application because it allows you to use Gallery View so that you can see the interpreters and the presenters as well as the PowerPoint. We do suggest that you use Gallery Side-by-Side View once the PowerPoint is up. It just makes sure that you can see the PowerPoint, the interpreters, and whoever is presenting. We are recording today's webinar. The recording and materials will be posted on the End Abuse of People with Disabilities website within two weeks. A record of attendance and materials from this session will be available for download via link in the chat. I know my colleague Jeanette has posted the link already. And we will continue to post it several times throughout the session to make sure that you all have access to it. At that link, you can find, again, the record of attendance, the PowerPoint for today's session in both English and Spanish, and some other materials that might be helpful that the collaboration provided including a copy of the survivor support packet that we're going to talk about today. And with that, I want to turn it over to the folks from MASS Rights for Change and Inger, who is their project director. INGER RILEY: Thank you, Ashley. Good afternoon. My name is Dr. Inger Riley, and my name sign is Inger for those of you who use ASL. I am lucky enough to be the project director of the MASS Rights for Change collaboration. I think we have our PowerPoint up. I'm not sure I see it. There it is. Thank you. So this is us, MASS Rights for Change. And I want to move right into our first slide because our collaboration is made up of three agencies. The lead agency is Pathways for Change, which is one of the first rape crisis centers established in our state of Massachusetts. And they serve 47 cities and towns throughout central Massachusetts. And they have been empowering and supporting survivors of sexual violence since the early '70s. They have a long and very strong partnership with our second agency called the Victim Rights Law Center. They're the first nonprofit law center in the country to focus on the legal needs of survivors of sexual violence. They started in Boston. And now, they have offices throughout Massachusetts, and they now also have offices in Oregon. And our third agency is Massachusetts Advocates Standing Strong. We call them MASS. They're a self-advocacy organization. And it is run by and for people with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities. And they have a training program called the Awareness and Action training, where they go out in the community, and they provide training to people with disabilities informing them about abuse and what to do about it. And through that work, they asked for one of the counselors at Pathways for Change to come out and support people who are taking the classes or who are doing the training to support them with the issues around sexual violence. And through that partnership, through all three agencies, we requested a grant from the Office on Violence Against Women in their disability grant program. And we were awarded a grant to be able to come together and better serve and support survivors of sexual violence who have intellectual and/or developmental disabilities. Now today, you might hear us say IDD, for a short work version of Intellectual and/or Developmental Disabilities. And as one of our self-advocates, Brian Kelly, noted, labels are for jars and not people. So we are not using IDD as a label. We're just trying to shorten the language as we talk about people with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities. So today, we are here to talk about our survivor support packet. And when we start, we always start from this screen forward, nothing about us without us. This is a phrase that was built from the grassroots disability rights, grassroots movement. Nothing about us without us, meaning don't talk about us. Bring us into the conversation and have us be a part of what you're doing to support us for people with disabilities. So this empowerment model is the culture at MASS. And they introduced us to the statement, but it also fits with the empowerment model of both Victim Rights and Pathways for Change. So together, we always move forward starting from this place, nothing about us without us. So today, we're here to talk about our survivor support packet, one of the products that our grant, we as a collaboration, created. And I want to introduce you to our people, some of our team today. We have a large group actually. Am I frozen? I'm seeing that I'm frozen. I'm hoping I'm not, so I'm going to keep talking. So let me just introduce you. We have two people from Pathways for Change, Heidi Sue LeBoeuf-- oh, I'm not frozen. Thank you. Heidi Sue LeBoeuf and Jen Rioux. From Victim Rights Law Center, we have Nora Grais-Clements. And from MASS, we have three self-advocates; Pauline Bosma, Brian Kelly, and John Michael Mullaly, as well as Sue Moriarty. And they are actually one of the awareness and action training teams that trains in central Massachusetts. So those are our presenters today. We have a larger team than that if you can believe it. But our survivor support packet is what we're going to present today. And we're going to talk about what is in it, why it's important, and how to use it. We're going to share some examples of what's in it, maybe a couple of exercises. Then as Ashley said, we will stop for some questions. And hopefully we can engage with you guys about the packet, and then we'll wrap up for the day. So I'd like to introduce first Nora. She's going to introduce a poll, and tell you a little bit about why this work is so important. So Nora. NORA GRAIS-CLEMENTS: Thanks, Inger. If we could just bring up that poll. This is Nora. I'm with the Victim Rights Law Center and one of the staff attorneys there out of our Belchertown, Massachusetts' office. So the poll should be showing up on your screen now. And it asks, what is the rate of people with intellectual disabilities who have experienced rape and/or sexual violence? If you could just take a moment to answer that question, if you know the answer, if you have an idea, and we'll wait to see how folks respond. We have those responses. If we could just pull those up. So yes, it looks like many of you know that 7 out of 10 people with intellectual disabilities have experienced rape and/or sexual violence. So why is this important to us? Why are we doing this work? The reason is because the particular vulnerability of people with disabilities and the statistics around that vulnerability are staggering. I'll say it again 7 out of 10 people with IDD are survivors of rape or sexual violence. The rate of rape and sexual assault of people with disabilities is more than seven times the rate against people without disabilities. Among women with intellectual disabilities, it's about 12 times the rate. Survivors with IDD experienced the same trauma responses as the broader population but with additional challenges and barriers to recovery and healing. So we just wanted to talk about some of the factors that can increase the vulnerability of people with disabilities to sexual violence. Some of those factors are that folks with IDD can be dependent on caregivers for assistance with activities of daily living. They are sometimes less likely to be provided with general sex education or education on healthy sexual relationships. They may be socially isolated. They may have been taught to be compliant with caregivers or service providers. And what we know is that rape and sexual assault victims, even when disability is not a factor, are not consistently believed when they come forward. So having a disability only adds to the, quote, "unbelievability" of a victim and the likelihood that they will not be seen as credible. So because of this extreme vulnerability, it's even more important that we work together to ensure that victims with disabilities know about the resources that exist for survivors of sexual assault and that the organizations like ours, who serve victims, also have the tools to make our services accessible for our clients. We learned by working together about this immense risk for people with disabilities. We saw gaps in what we were doing as agencies. And we came together to improve access to services for victims with disabilities. So we're excited to share with you this product. And I would like to turn it over now to Heidi Sue to talk about the lens with which we do this work. HEIDI SUE LEBOEUF: Thank you, Nora. And hello, everyone. I'm Heidi Sue from Pathways for Change. And as Inger mentioned, we are a rape crisis center in central Massachusetts. We also have a program for deaf and hard of hearing survivors called the Deaf Survivors Program, which is a statewide program. At Pathways, are counselors or community health workers rather than therapists. This means we can't and don't diagnose, nor do assessments, nor treatment plans and all those things that therapists can do. The type of support we provide, though, is meaningful and gives comfort and compassion as survivors deal with the trauma of having been sexually abused or assaulted and as survivors begin their healing journey. In order to do this work, our staff gets lots and lots of training on how to support survivors, how sexual assault affects individuals, families, communities, and even society, as well as how to create plans for each survivor to help them in their healing path. And we always understand that when someone experiences sexual abuse and assault, they're experiencing a trauma. And trauma is an emotional response to a terrible event like sexual abuse and sexual assault. And we know that often right after sexual trauma, a survivor may experience shock, fear, denial, hoping the feelings and memories will just go away and worried no one will believe them. And reactions, even after some time has passed, might be unpredictable emotions, flashbacks, triggers, challenges to relationships, and feeling like they don't want to socialize with anyone. And survivors may even experience physical symptoms like headaches or nausea. So all of our counselors work from a place called trauma-informed support or trauma lens. And we created the SSP with the understanding of how trauma affects survivors. And we took this approach because we always start by believing survivors. Survivors experiences are real, and they deserve to be supported and believed in this very difficult time of their lives. We recognize how trauma affects survivors in all the areas in their life such as relationships at home, at work, at school. And we also understand that even talking about sexual abuse and sexual assault can be retraumatizing. This means that the survivor may feel all the traumatic feelings they did when it first happened regardless of how long ago it was, which means building a rapport with the clients. So it's important building trust and safety for survivors to explore their feelings and talk about the abuse and the assault if the survivor wants to talk about these things. Even if somebody doesn't want to talk about the details, that's OK. We can help survivors by identifying resources, coping strategies, and self-care that help survivors on their healing journey. We also don't want to be that only supports for survivors, especially since sexual abuse and sexual assault can cause someone to feel alone and isolated. Just like they say it takes a village to raise a child, at Pathways and within our team, we believe it takes a village to support survivors. So we collaborate with survivors in building networks of support to help create a team to support them. And the support system also includes supporting survivors loved ones, the folks who didn't hurt them such as family, friends, partners, support staff all who we call significant others, are going to help significant others understand about sexual trauma-- ASHLEY BROMPTON: Heidi, this is Ashley. Can we pause for a quick interpreter? I'm so sorry. HEIDI SUE LEBOEUF: Oh, absolutely. ASHLEY BROMPTON: Thank you so much. HEIDI SUE LEBOEUF: Welcome. ASHLEY BROMPTON: Once we get all clear-- we'll get the all clear in the chat. And then we will continue. Thank you so much. HEIDI SUE LEBOEUF: No problem just let me know. ASHLEY BROMPTON: OK. Thank you so much. We're good to go. HEIDI SUE LEBOEUF: Thank you. Thank you, interpreters. So as I mentioned, the Pathways, we're survivor-centered. And also, within our group, we're survivor-centered. And our services are social services and social change. And so much like the nothing about us sentiment, at Pathways, we believe nothing about survivors without survivors. So this means we'll always believe survivors. We believe they should have what many of us know is human rights, which means ensuring the survivors of sexual assault and sexual abuse are treated with dignity, are not blamed, have rights to privacy and confidentiality, to outface further discrimination because we believe sexual abuse and sexual assault are forms of oppression, as well as receive support information or referrals to expand their support systems. So at Pathways, our community health workers and counselors and advocates understand every survivor's experience and needs are different, which means developing different strategies to help support them. And so the counselors work with survivors to develop a healing plan that is the best for the survivors they are supporting because survivors need to be in charge of the healing after sexual trauma. A tag line of Pathways is ending the silence and ending sexual violence, which means at Pathways, we are committed to help bring voice to survivors' experiences. And we do this by providing education and outreach to youth, adults, professionals, all to help them understand how hurtful sexual abuse and sexual assault is and how we can all work together to address it and one day end sexual trauma. And that's why we collaborate on this project with Mass Advocates Standing Strong and Victims Rights Law Center because we all believe survivors deserve support and deserve to be believed. And we all work together to be part of that village to support survivors. I want to thank you for letting me be here. And now, I'd like to invite Sue Moriarty on screen. SUE MORIARTY: Thank you, Heidi Sue. Hello, everyone. My name is Susan. I go by Sue. So I'd like to show you today what is in our survivor support packet and just briefly how we set it up. So this is online. And it will be housed online at the website of Mass Advocates Standing Strong. Our website is wearemass.org. So this is made to be used right from online, or we have it indexed. So people can choose which parts they want to see and access. But you can use it online, and you can also choose pieces of it and make copies of those parts. That's why we have the different page numbers. So it's kind of like a menu. We like to give people choices, as Heidi Sue said. So the first section is knowing your rights as a survivor. And some of the things that we want people to make sure to know is that sexual violence is never OK. It's not your fault. We believe you. And it's OK to have your feelings, feeling angry, crying, feeling moody. It's OK to take care of yourself. And it's OK to speak up and tell people what's best for you and ask for the support that you need. So we felt that this was very important to include. We also have a quick resource list where we have all different resources that people can access. We have a trust card. And we are going to talk more about that later in this webinar. But where do you get more help? So we have information for Pathways for Change and their services, the Victim Rights Law Center services. And the SARU unit is the Sexual Assault Response Unit. And they do peer-to-peer counseling. We also have self-care tools. And we're going to go into much more depth about the self-care tools to help people. And then lastly, we'll talk about our tips for supporting survivors. So those are the pieces of our packet. And we'll highlight some of those pieces for you. Now I'd like to turn it over to Pauline and Inger. They're going to talk more about self-care. Thank you. PAULINE BOSMA: Hello, I am Pauline. INGER RILEY: Hi, and I'm Inger. I was just going to say, Pauline, do you want to give a good introduction for yourself, and then we can start talking about the packet? PAULINE BOSMA: Yeah. I'm Pauline, and I am proud to be a part of this wonderful collaboration we did. And it makes me feel good and everything like that. And part of the self-help, we're going to show you a little video that I did of me and my bunny rabbit that helps me relax and everything like that. It's one of those self-help tools that we put on this packet that was really good. So there's a bunch of other ones in there that we've got. INGER RILEY: Yeah. And this is Inger. And that's exactly right, Pauline. We're going to show your video in just a minute. But the reason we're focusing on self-care, especially in this webinar, is a lot of people, a lot of agencies create packets and tools for survivors, but it's mostly agency names and listings and phone numbers. And for our packet, we really focused on self-care as part of the support for survivors. So let's show your video, and then we'll come in on the other side and talk more about it. ASHLEY BROMPTON: This is Ashley. Please let me know if you cannot hear the audio. This is Ashley. One moment, I am going to stop sharing my screen and resharing my screen because the audio just does not like me. Give me one second. Let's try this again. PAULINE BOSMA: He likes it when I pet him on the forehead right here. That's his little safe spot that he likes. AMBER: He's very cute. Does Snowball help you cope with difficult things? PAULINE BOSMA: He does. When I lived by myself and everything like that, it's good to have somebody to at least look at and just play with once in a while. And that's what I do because I live by myself. So it's like I got to look at him and say, what do you think, huh? Yeah. AMBER: So he's helpful for companionship? PAULINE BOSMA: He's been very helpful with that, yeah. AMBER: Are there any particular ways that he helps you calm down, or is it just being around him? PAULINE BOSMA: Just being around him just makes me feel better and everything like that because just knowing that he's here with me and everything like that. And knowing that I have him to look at and take care of him and feed him. And he's not like most rabbits or most animals of this kind that they got to drink out of a water bottle or something like that. He actually drink his water out of a bowl. So he learned how to drink out of a bowl full of water and everything like that. And he goes to the bathroom in a litter box. So he's very well trained and everything like that. AMBER: Well, that's impressive. I've never heard of that. Pauline, would you recommend having pets to other people to help them stay calm? PAULINE BOSMA: Yeah. Yeah. I think a pet is good. If you can find an apartment building or a place that will let you have a pet, I think it's very good to have one. So I just think they're very helpful to have. AMBER: How do you think your life would be different if you didn't have him around? PAULINE BOSMA: It would probably be pretty boring. I would probably be doing a lot of videos, a lot of video watching, or TV watching. I watch a lot of videos. I would probably watch a lot more videos on YouTube or whatever. AMBER: Yes. That's great. Sounds like he keeps you very active. PAULINE BOSMA: He does. He does. AMBER: Well, is there anything else you would want to tell people in terms of coping with stress or difficult situations, especially when it comes to pets? PAULINE BOSMA: I think the most important thing is just to try not to-- if you've got a pet or some way of coping with stress or anything like that, I think it just helps because it calms you down a little bit. It makes you feel better inside. I'm not sure with all pets and everything like that, but with like cats and dogs and everything like that, an average person might live a little longer because they have a cat or dog because they have that social interaction with them and everything like that to be part of their life and everything like that. So I think with any animal, it helps you because it keeps you on your toes and everything like that. So it just makes you aware that you're going to be thinking about, well, those-- when does the bunny rabbit has to be fed, and when you change the litter box and everything like that? AMBER: I think that's a very good point. Well, thank you for talking with me today about how you have your pet be part of your life and help you cope with difficult things. I really appreciate it. PAULINE BOSMA: Yeah, you're welcome. No problem. INGER RILEY: So this is Inger. And we are back from the video with Pauline. And I want to bring in John Michael Mullaly and Brian Kelly. If you guys could come on camera and introduce yourselves because I want to talk to all of you guys about the self-care tools. Hi, John. JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: Hi. INGER RILEY: Do want to introduce yourself? JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: I'm John Michael Mullaly. BRIAN KELLY: Hi, I'm Brian Kelly. INGER RILEY: Fantastic. So we just saw Pauline's video. And we're only showing one of the several that we have here. On the screen, you can see there are links to all of these self-care videos. And do you want to talk a little bit together about why we chose to have you guys create your own videos to empower people with disabilities to see others talk about what's awesome about self care? BRIAN KELLY: It's very important to take care of yourself. INGER RILEY: Brian, yeah, do you want to talk about your video and how you use music? BRIAN KELLY: Music is very soothing, especially music without dirty words in it. INGER RILEY: Right. I know that-- BRIAN KELLY: Symphony and slow jazz, I love them. INGER RILEY: Yes. And I want to note too, Brian, that your video because you're somebody who's legally blind, who has low vision, you created a video that's not all about seeing things. But it's mostly a picture of a cell phone because you're talking on the phone interviewing you, right? BRIAN KELLY: Yep. INGER RILEY: And so it fits who you are and what's important to you. And you also talk about listening to the sounds of your town. Do you want to talk about that? BRIAN KELLY: It helps to know where you are and keeps me calm. INGER RILEY: Helps you ground and orient yourself, right? BRIAN KELLY: Right. INGER RILEY: And John, if we can bring you in too, your video is about yoga. And do you want to talk about why you chose that? JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: Yeah. Yoga, for me, is very calming. And I will be doing it with all of you later on. Is that fine, Inger? INGER RILEY: Yeah, that's great, John. Thank you. This is Inger. And Pauline, I did want to get back to you about-- JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: Thank you. INGER RILEY: Thank you. Sorry I'm stepping over you there, John. Pauline, I want to get back to you and talk a little bit after your video about how you chose Snowball and why you decided that was the video to make for the packet. PAULINE BOSMA: I chose Snowball because I think having some kind of animal, especially when you live alone, it gives you a little bit of companionship. But it also like -- it keeps me grounded and everything like that. He's getting really smart because he has this little trick where he takes a little plastic cup. And he'll put it in his mouth, and he'll throw it across where he is. And then he'll go pick it up again and throw it across again. And I like that, knowing that he's learning and that he doesn't-- he's got a big hatch inside of the house here. He only goes there to go to the bathroom. That's it. And he stays outside the hatch all day and all night. And he has the freedom of the whole home, but he stays in his little corner there. And that's where he stays. And he's fine with it. But it just feels good. And I think it helps me, but it's also going to help other people to relax a little bit because somebody might be able to relate with an animal or a pet if it's a cat or dog or bird or whatever or goldfish. It doesn't matter as a pet. It's going to be there to support, help you, calm you down, everything like that. INGER RILEY: Exactly right. This is Inger again. And exactly, we were trying to pull from-- because we have a good relationship, so I was pulling your bunny is so important to you and helps you, could create a video about that? And you were like, sure. And then you took off and created this whole thing about how Snowball helps you feel good and be better when you're struggling. And the same thing with John, right? You teach yoga. So when we were asking what makes you feel less stressed and how to help support yourself, it's not just to do the yoga, but your teaching of yoga helps you feel empowered and strong. So you jumped on that and then took off and created your video, which we're going to show a little bit of it in live in a little bit. And the same thing with Brian, right? Music is a huge good thing for you. We knew that. BRIAN KELLY: That brings back memories. INGER RILEY: That's right too. Brian, you were saying-- BRIAN KELLY: I got married to a beautiful lady. Her name is Julia. And her first slow dance was Alabama, "Feel So Right." It was a slow dance. INGER RILEY: Makes you feel so good. Right, so you guys took things in your lives that make you feel better and more empowered and in control a little bit. And then we put those into our survivors' support packet so that people with disabilities can see other people with disabilities talking about what helps them, right? So we're going to switch gears. Actually, let's stop for an interpreter change, and then I'll introduce you to our next part. Can we pause for a second? I'm seeing thumbs up. Fantastic. OK, so now, we're going to shift gears and just introduce a little bit more of what else is in the packet with Nora from Victim Rights and Sue Moriarty from MASS and Heidi Sue LeBoeuf as well from Pathways. So we'll take off for a sec. SUE MORIARTY: Thank you, Inger. If we could bring up the next slide, please. Thank you. This is Sue. So I'd like to talk about our trust card that is in the packet. We got this idea because at Mass Advocates Standing Strong, we use this trust card during a training that we give on recognizing, reporting, and responding to abuse. We call that training Awareness and Action. So this trust card is given out to people to think of someone who can stand by them when they need to walk through getting help. So when they're in a good place, they put the name of a person they trust and their phone number. And they put that in their wallet or their purse or on their dresser. And when they get distressed and they need to call on someone, they have that ready. We thought that would really work well for this situation too. Also at MASS, we use what we call scripts. So if someone needs to call a provider and leave a message, and they would like someone to get back to them, then we try to encourage people to use a script where they would leave their name, their phone number, and what they needed help with. Because we are used to using scripts, we thought that would be helpful. And I'm going to turn it over now to Nora to talk more about how they're using this. Nora. NORA GRAIS-CLEMENTS: This is Nora. So I just going to back up a little bit. I know that Inger introduced us briefly at the beginning. But the Victim Rights Law Center, we are a group of lawyers, and we represent victims of sexual assault and rape. And our services in representing clients are free. But despite the fact that they are free and that we are using a trauma-informed lens like Heidi Sue described earlier, we know that calling an attorney can be scary and overwhelming for anyone. And it can be even more so for people with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities. So during our work together as a team when we learned about this idea of developing a script, we loved that to overcome the barriers that we have identified about our intake process. So in order for somebody to access the services of the Victim Rights Law Center, a person needs to call and leave a voicemail message in order to receive a call back from an intake specialist. And we realized that that alone could be a barrier for victims with IDD to access our services. So the question came up, how will a victim know what's important to say if they leave a message? And we loved this idea of creating a script. And we worked together with the self-advocates to create what is essentially a fill in the blank for what to say when you call the VRLC. So it asks for somebody to essentially write down their name, write down where they live, write down their phone number, fill in the blanks ahead of time, either on their own or with the help of a support person, identify if it's safe or appropriate to call, to text, or both, and what the best times might be to do that. And then if a person knows what they need help with, it gives them options to choose for what type of help we might be able to provide. So that says, I need help with housing, where I live, immigration, my school, my privacy, my safety. It says I don't feel safe, something else, or I'm not sure, and I don't know. And we want to make sure that everyone knows it is OK if you don't know what you need help with. Part of our job is to help you to figure that out. Next slide, please. So on the second page of the script, there's a box that we ask folks to fill in only if the client has something coming up in court soon so that we know from the beginning. We can highlight that to know that there's something time sensitive that we need to address. And again, we're just hoping that having the script in the survivor support packet will make calling the Victim Rights Law Center a little less daunting, a little less overwhelming, and to make the process more accessible for survivors with IDD. And now, I will introduce Jen to talk about the role of support people in this work. JEN RIOUX: Hi, everyone. My name is Jen. And I am a disability's advocate and sexual assault counselor at Pathways for Change. And I just want to go a little bit over supports. We did have a poll that we were going to put up. And so I will read the poll. It was poll number 2 and mark all the choices that apply. It's multiple choice. The first one is I am or have been a support person. The second one is I work with people who support people. The third one is I have support people. And the last one is I need more information about support people. So we'll give just a few moments here for anybody who wishes to take in the poll, and we'll see what we have. OK, about 10 more seconds. All right, and if we have results. OK, so the first one, I am or have been a support person that's awesome, I love seeing that, 78%. And a good amount of people work with people who support people. That's awesome. I love to see that too. All right, so why we include supports in the support package. So we'll go a little bit more in-depth in the next slide. However, as Heidi Sue was saying earlier in the webinar that it takes a village to help a survivor, supports are so instrumental in the healing process. And at our agency at Pathways for Change, the first thing that is paramount is start by believing. It's important for other supports as well starting by believing that healing process, and they can help make-- supports make other services accessible to folks who might normally not be able to get the supports. And a couple of examples are helping to make a call, whether it's physically helping to make the call or gain access to a phone or even just being emotionally supportive by staying with them while they make the call. And this is also something that I kind of saw a question in there. Supports are also fundamental if someone cannot read or write, by going over those scripts that we have in the packet. Going over them first with them so that you can help be their voice in situations like that. And then the next transportation, either by supplying or arranging transportation. Sometimes after an assault, everything can be so overwhelming to a survivor. So a lot of supports can help get through the weeds and get these accessibility ways like transportation and also scheduling, because scheduling a lot of folks with IDD, they have other appointments and things like this. So just helping people out so that there's more focus on getting more supports. So the next slide. So support staff deserve support too. And family can be supports as well. At Pathways for Change, we consider anyone who is around the survivor, cares for the survivor, and/or is responsible for their well-being is a significant other. This can be anyone from a partner to a sibling. It can be any family member. It can also be teachers, the counselors, the therapists, or to anyone who is physically or emotionally supports to survivors. Helping them understand the big picture, so they don't accidentally harm during the healing process. That ranges from the significant others' feelings like they no longer know how to act around the survivor. They feel like they're walking on eggshells to even understanding how to manage or recognize the new ways that the survivor is expressing, however they want to express their feelings about the assault. And then holding the feelings of the survivors. That can be heavy work. Compassionate or vicarious trauma can take a toll on supports, all types of supports, support staff, families, significant others. Basically, what it comes down to is when people we care about hurt, then we hurt. So self-care is so important to supports. It's like that adage of we're on the airplane and plane is going down and the oxygens coming down. Who do you give the oxygen to first? You give yourself the oxygen so that you can then help support the other people because you're not going to be much help if you're not taking care of yourself as well. And I thank you for listening. INGER RILEY: Thanks, Jen. This is Inger. And I'm going to take it over from here just to cover some more of what's in this survivor support packet. The earlier page where we talk with Pauline and Brian and John, it showed all of the videos of the self-advocates. And underneath that index is the rest of the index on the left side of your screen here. And we wanted to highlight that we had videos of self-advocates talking about what helps them in different ways. But we realize that some people love videos. And some people hate videos. Some people can use them well. Some people don't use them at all. So we needed other forms of support in the packet. We included an audio file, which is an MP3 audio file, which is a short way to listen to soundtracks. And so what we did was we created just an audio of a relaxation exercise that takes you deep breathing from the top of your head all the way down to your toes. And so if you don't feel like reading, you can just play that audio and listen to a relaxation exercise and try to calm your body down. But MASS realized some people would need access to an audio file. So they created a video with the audio playing along with captioning. So some people can then just read along with the audio file to make sure that they're doing the deep relaxation techniques. Some people don't like to listen or see video. We also created written options. So coming back to center is one of the exercises listed. And it's basically a simple way to bring you back when you start to get upset or are being triggered. It's a way to regain some control and bring you back to center. Also, relaxation exercises, we put in there too. One of the things I want to talk about was the putting hard stuff away exercise that we put in there. And this is a way to compartmentalize. And we found that some people with disabilities haven't learned how to be able to put things away so that they can get on with their day. And instead, get triggered and flooded by what's going on inside of themselves. So we put the putting hard stuff away exercise in there to teach people how to put their hard things away to be able to move on with their day and go to their next meeting or be able to go shopping. And then be able to pull it out when they had the support and time to be able to really work on what's bothering them. It's sort of supportive tools, but we're not clinicians. We're not trying to step in for therapists. We're just trying to give people tools and ways to support themselves as they're on their healing journey. And the tips for survivors is something that Pathways put in as Jen was talking about. That when you're trying to support somebody, sometimes you don't know what to say or what you think might be useful. And those tips help you feel more comfortable trying to give some support. And I just want to also highlight on the right, taking time for yourself is a sheet from the SARU unit we talked about earlier. And you can notice that it's just some pictures with short amounts of words. Get moving with pictures of people moving, or doing a project with arts and supplies, listening to music like Brian was talking about. So we have different ways to highlight ways of taking care of yourself that might suit each individual person. No one size fits all. And we knew that. And so we tried to create a packet that had a bunch of different options for people to select what might make sense for them. The next slide I just want to highlight this is one example of the written exercises that are in the packet. And that's the short version, although I've been told that it's not as short as it could be. It's a little small on the screen there, but it shows you how to breathe in and breathe out and relax from head to toe but short version. So that's sort of what it looks like with a bit of picture and language in the exercise for people. But now, I'd like to switch gears. And instead of talking about things, I want to reintroduce Sue and John to show us a little bit about what's in the packet. Sue and John. JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: Thank you, Inger. SUE MORIARTY: Did we need to pause a moment for an interpreter switch? All set. OK, thank you. And thank you, Inger. Hi, John. JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: Hi, Sue. SUE MORIARTY: So John, being a yoga teacher, thought to use yoga practice in the survivor support packet. So John, so what are you going to show us here today, John? JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: Neck rolls and shoulder rolls. I'm doing five and five. SUE MORIARTY: Are we going to start with the neck rolls? JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: Yes, please. SUE MORIARTY: OK, are you going to count? JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: I will. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Now we can do the shoulder rolls. SUE MORIARTY: Oh, John, could we go the other way for the neck rolls? That felt so good. I need more. JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: OK. SUE MORIARTY: So five to the left. 1. JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: 2, 3, 4, and 5. SUE MORIARTY: Did you hear my neck cracking? OK, what's next, John? JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: The shoulder rolls. SUE MORIARTY: How many? JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: Five and five. SUE MORIARTY: And will we start forward? JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: Yes, we can. SUE MORIARTY: OK, are you counting? JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. SUE MORIARTY: Now back? JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: Yeah. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. SUE MORIARTY: Thank you. JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: You can also find the rest of my yoga routine on the website if you want to use one I put on the website. SUE MORIARTY: Very good. In the survivors support packet, right? JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: Yeah, in the survivor support packet. SUE MORIARTY: Great. Thank you, John. JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: You're welcome. SUE MORIARTY: So now that we're all relaxed and loosened up, let's bring the rest of the MASS team in. We'll have Brian and Pauline join us for a little bit more discussion about how we made this and some advice if others would like to make a survivor support packet. So this is Sue. And I'm going to start. If you would like to create your own survivor support packet, you can start with your state or local self-advocate organization. Every state has one. Building relationships with these potential partners is key. BRIAN KELLY: It is. SUE MORIARTY: Rather than creating a packet and bringing it to them, asking how they like it, it's best to let them know what you want to create and do it with them. Right, John? BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, involve them. SUE MORIARTY: Involve them. BRIAN KELLY: Involve them. SUE MORIARTY: And build it from the ground up. So my quick tips, number 1, make connections. Get to know your self-advocate organization. Number 2, keep building those relationships, find out what they're up to, and how they operate. Number 3, build it together. And a little number 4, your packet obviously will be unique to you and your organizations that you work with. Make sure to go at their pace. Really observe what people need. And a real big take away from me is to practice kindness and just helping people to deal with whatever struggles they face. That's one thing I learned on our project from Pathways. When we went into Pathways, we said something's different here. There's just this kindness quality. BRIAN KELLY: And they're warm and welcoming there too. SUE MORIARTY: What's that, Brian? BRIAN KELLY: They're warm, and they're welcoming people. SUE MORIARTY: That's right. It's that people first, survivor-centered. They're just very kind, and they recognize that we all have struggles. So yeah. So what do you think about-- any ideas here about advice you would give if people wanted to make their own survivor packet. PAULINE BOSMA: Well, this is Pauline. And I think the key thing is that you're going to come across people with all types of disability. But we all have something that we can give to you or teach you about us that you don't know because-- for me, I know I can't read or write. But I come up with thoughts and ideas, and things off top in my head because that's the way my brain works. And it just helps me to know that's the way I communicate is that by thinking and just being myself and everything with that. SUE MORIARTY: Yep, that's a good point Pauline. Everyone has their-- [CLEARS THROAT] excuse me. Everyone has your gifts and your strengths. And once we get to know one another, we depend on that to make us a strong team, right? PAULINE BOSMA: Yeah. And it also helps that each person that when you start, your joining together and helping each other that you learn from each other and that you take the time to get to know us or get to know the self-advocates [AUDIO OUT] because you might not think that-- you might say, well, they can't do that. Well, how do you know they can't do it until you give them a try? If you give them a try to do something, they might be like, I could do it as long as I got a little bit of your support at the beginning to try. SUE MORIARTY: What do you think, John? JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: I think Pauline is actually right. We need the chance to have our voice heard and our talents known. SUE MORIARTY: That's right, John. Like what did you say when we met before? I always call you a forward thinker, right? JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: Yes. SUE MORIARTY: Because when we talk about getting the word out, OK, we've got this great packet, how do we get the word out? How do we tell people? And from the get-go, you've wanted to tell the governor and make it public. And you have all kinds of ideas about what would work for self-advocates. JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: I also did an elevator speech at the beginning of this branch, which will be included in your packets. SUE MORIARTY: Yeah, that's right. You've created that to get the word out and to do it in a short way that everyone would understand. JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: Yes. SUE MORIARTY: , John I just wanted to say one thing that you said before. And you said if you don't include us, then we all miss out, right? JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: Yes. They have to include us to get thoughts known. SUE MORIARTY: That's right. PAULINE BOSMA: And that's why we have that saying nothing about us without us. And that's why we use those words a lot. If you're going to do something, do with us, not without us. Because if you're doing it without us, then what's the point of doing it if you're not going to have self-advocates or anybody to at least give you input on how the wording, and the languages, and the pictures, and videos, or whatever else you might need down the line? INGER RILEY: This is Inger. I was just going to add exactly what you guys are talking about. It's not just being present at the table or invited. It's about you leading, about you having the voice and making sure we hear it now so that you're leading, not just being included. And I want to make sure that we highlight that people with disabilities need to be at the forefront along with survivors to help survivors with disabilities get the help that they need. But on that vein, I want to bring in Nora because besides listening to each other and getting full respect and having everybody at the table being equal, we also want to talk about accessibility. And Nora is going to go through some of what that looks like. NORA GRAIS-CLEMENTS: Thanks, Inger. This is Nora. I'm just going to sort of breeze through. This is in your packet. One of the things that we've talked a lot about in the creation of all of the things that we've worked on together as a team is the language that we use when we're putting things in writing. So we've, at the Victim Rights Law Center, spent a lot of time evaluating our website, our brochures, our releases of information, and other client-facing documents that we might have been using really complicated legalese, legal wording. And so we've spent a lot of time trying to modify those documents so that they are accessible to all of our clients. We know that plain language is more accessible to clients with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities. And we also know that plain language is more accessible for folks who have experienced trauma. So some of the things that we keep in mind are using icons and pictures to communicate, not just to add on at the end but actually using the icons as part of the communication. Short sentences rather than compound sentences. Paying attention to fonts and size of the font and the color of the fonts of the writing that we're using. So making sure there's contrasting colors. We avoid italics, avoid underlining, avoid all caps. Use headings. Don't rely solely on color and use an accessibility checker if all else fails. So we're checking for accessibility generally, but we're also checking for accessibility for a screen reader. So I think those are just some things we wanted to highlight. There are a lot of other ways that we've been talking about accessibility, but this is one that's particularly important to our work. So I think they'll hand it back over to Ashley. I know we're going to pause for interpreter break, I believe, soon, and then have some questions. ASHLEY BROMPTON: This is Ashley. Thank you all so much for sharing. I think that I've learned a lot about the ways that you all have been able to do this. And we've gotten some really good questions. I do want to, if we can, pause a little bit early for an interpreter switch, do our last interpreter switch now just so that we can then dive into questions. And I know that John has a closing exercise for us. OK, great. Thank you so much. So we did get some questions throughout the session. One question that we got was, this is so impressive, how did you accomplish all of this during COVID-19? INGER RILEY: Hi, this is Inger. And I will just start. We, all of a sudden, like the entire country, had to figure out how to start working remotely. Brian, I see you on camera. Do you have something to add there about how we did this with the pandemic? BRIAN KELLY: Thank God for Zoom. We had to do it by Zoom. INGER RILEY: We had to do it by Zoom. Absolutely. And to get everybody up and running on Zoom, and then our meetings were on Zoom. And how did you guys create the videos? PAULINE BOSMA: This is Pauline. We created the videos by having the person do it for a while. For me, it was done through like a Zoom meeting or something through questions and everything like that. And I had my computer down on my chair. And I had Snowball in the foreground there. And it was very good and everything like that. I enjoyed it. But it was hard during this whole pandemic to do it because we had to think outside the box and everything like that. But we did, and we got it done. INGER RILEY: And it was a real collaboration, right, you guys? BRIAN KELLY: It was. INGER RILEY: Everybody brought their own skills and added to the packet to make sure that we could give the best options we could. Yeah? PAULINE BOSMA: Yeah. BRIAN KELLY: One more thing, Inger, is that-- INGER RILEY: Yeah, Brian. BRIAN KELLY: I had to get an iPhone to get mine because I'm legally blind. And there's some people like that. I'm sure. INGER RILEY: Yes, yes, you want to talk a little bit about that? BRIAN KELLY: Very interesting because I'd use an iPhone because I was having problems with my iPad at the time. INGER RILEY: Right. You had more access through your phone in the end. BRIAN KELLY: Yeah. INGER RILEY: Yeah, I remember that. ASHLEY BROMPTON: Great. Thank you so much. We did get some other questions about whether you all have used either this entire packet or pieces of this packet with survivors and what that experience has been like. PAULINE BOSMA: I don't think-- we haven't used it yet. I known for MASS, so far everything is strong, and we're going to put it up on our website. And then I believe we're also going to use it for the DPPC. The Disability Protection Commission is going to use some of that [AUDIO OUT] have the access to it, I believe, too. Your mic is off, Sue. SUE MORIARTY: As I said before, we also have used the trust cards. And we do find people and their housemates wanting to have some of those trust cards to have handy. So a lot of people do have supporters who help them fill those out. And we use scripts typically, but again, we're just going to roll out this packet now. INGER RILEY: I was just going to add-- this is Inger. I was just going to add that it's been approved now so that it can be put up on the website and start to be used. But some of those tools, MASS has been using for a while, but now it's going to be in the context of the survivor support packet. ASHLEY BROMPTON: Great. Another question that we got was, how do you imagine some of these resources being used with survivors with different types of disabilities or different types of communication challenges? So one person asked about what if the survivor doesn't use spoken word or what if they can't read or other things. Do you all have any ideas about how you would imagine people using this packet in those cases? JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: Maybe you can do braille sometimes, or but you need to give people a chance first. SUE MORIARTY: That's a really good point, John. You don't want to just assume that people can't-- that this won't work for people, right? JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: Right. SUE MORIARTY: You may have to adapt it for any person's needs. But let's give them a chance first. JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: You can even use sign language if you have to. BRIAN KELLY: Or have it written down. SUE MORIARTY: Yep. And also the pictures of the self-care. So maybe someone might look at a picture. And that would remind them, take a walk, paint, call someone. Go ahead, Heidi Sue. HEIDI SUE LEBOEUF: And we also have it designed so it can be read with screen readers. And keeping in mind support staff, we're hoping that support staff can also utilize this tool for themselves but also to help people that they're supporting get the information from it. NORA GRAIS-CLEMENTS: I just want to add-- this is Nora. Add quickly, I believe part of this question came up when we were talking about the script for calling the Victim Rights Law Center. And while this is a tool that we hope will be helpful, and like John said, we want to give folks the opportunity to use it, we do recognize that there are people for whom this will not work. And we are already making accommodations to sort of circumvent or avoid our regular intake process to make sure that we're accessible to folks who can't either read something or leave a voicemail message for us and who need to meet, for instance, for the first time in person. So that is something that we are doing. We're just hoping that this provides a tool for those who can use it to make it a bit more accessible. ASHLEY BROMPTON: And this is Ashley. Thank you all so much. We are running close to the end of the time that we have for questions. If you have questions that we didn't get to today for whatever reason, please do email them to us or put them in the Q&A. And I will make sure that they get to the team. And I want to say thank you so much to the team for sharing this resource with us. I think us hearing about how it can be adapted in so many different ways and how you all can take some of the principles that they used and apply them in your communities and your organizations was really great. And with that, I want to pass it back over to Inger and John to close this out with an exercise today. INGER RILEY: Hi. Thanks, Ashley. This is Inger. John, welcome back. So we're getting our PowerPoint set. And John, you're going to lead us in a breathing exercise to help close us out. JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: Yes. INGER RILEY: Excellent. And why do you do this? JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: I do it because breathing is good to do. And if you can breathe, you can ask for help and-- INGER RILEY: Ask for help and-- JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: You can-- and we will believe you. INGER RILEY: Exactly right. So John, in your awareness and action training, you stop in the middle and help the participants do some breathing. So you're going to do that with us. And then you always end it with that statement, if you can breathe, you can get help, and we will believe you, which is hugely important for survivors. So let's do some breathing. JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: OK. Breathe in. INGER RILEY: Breathe in. JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: Breathe out. Breathe in and breathe out. Five of them, Inger. INGER RILEY: Oh, that sounds perfect. JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: Breathe in. Breathe out. One more. Breathe in and breathe out. And if you can breathe, you can-- and we will believe you. INGER RILEY: Yes, we will believe you. John, thank you very much. JOHN MICHAEL MULLALY: You're welcome. INGER RILEY: So I just want to say I highly recommend breathing. I think you should make it a habit. Seriously, we know how much breathing just in and out, diaphragmatic deep breathing can change your mood and can change your whole body. So I really appreciate John leading us in that breathing in and breathing out, especially after our webinar today talking about some hard topics. But I'm hoping that you can notice how you were before you-- if you joined in on the practice of the breathing, how you were before you were breathing and then how you feel afterwards. Because just taking a couple of minutes practicing self-care for survivors, for people working with survivors, for people who were friends or family of survivors can make all the difference in how you feel inside and out and how well you can do your work and even just you in the long run. So taking care of yourself helps you to take care of others. So now you can take all of this and go create some great supports for survivors with disabilities and those who care about them and work with them in your communities. So we have a contact page at the end here, which lists my name and email. In case you want to connect with any of our team members, you can contact me, and I'll get you in touch with them. We also have the website for MASS, Victim Rights Law Center, and Pathways for Change up there. It's in your handouts too. I think there's a larger sheet with more of our email information. But if you have any questions or comments, please contact us, contact me, or any of the agencies. And people at Vera as well we'll have that contact information. So thank you very much for coming. And I'm going to hand it back to Ashley for wrapping up. ASHLEY BROMPTON: Thank you John, and thank you Inger. That was a great way to end this session. It really helped me sort of center where I'm going from here. So I really appreciate taking some time to do the breathing exercise to close. As Inger said, full contact information for everyone that we talked to today is available in the participant materials section, which my colleagues have posted a few times in the chat, the link for the participant materials. Hopefully, they can post it a couple more times. In there, again, you will find the PowerPoint. You will find the survivor support packet. It is not up on MASS's website yet. To my understanding, it's going to be very soon. When it is, we will make sure that we get you that information. In the meantime, you can access a version of it that we are providing for you. Oh, it looks like it is. I am so sorry. It looks like it is up on the website. And Brian was so great to put a link in the chat to the survivor support packet from the wearemass website, which is definitely how I would prefer you get it directly from them. Thank you all so much to the entire team today. It was really great to hear from all of you. And I know that this was a lot to talk about. And I know that more things might come up for you all. If they do, again, you can feel free to email us or look up the contact information that we provided for our presenters today. We do ask in closing that you complete a brief evaluation. When I close the session today, it will hopefully pop up automatically. If you could take just a minute to select today's webinar and provide some feedback, that really helps us so that we can continue to make sure that we're meeting your needs in these sessions. As a reminder, the recording of the webinar and the materials from the session will be posted on our website soon. Thank you again so much, and have a great day. I'm going to leave this session open for just about a minute in case you want to click on the link to access the materials. And then I will go ahead and end it. Thank you so much for joining us today.