SANDRA HARRELL: Good afternoon, everyone. This is Sandra Harrell, I'm with the Vera Institute of Justice and the victimization-- and the Center of Victimization and Safety. We'll begin the webinar shortly. And if you have any questions or need any assistance, please send us a message in the Q&A pod at the bottom of the screen. I just want to make a few housekeeping notes for everyone, we do have captions for this webinar today. If you would like to turn the captioning on, please go to the closed captioning symbol at the bottom of your screen and select the arrow to the right of that icon. 

The words underneath the icon should say live transcript. You can either select Show Subtitle, or View Full Transcript. Once you do so, you will see the words I am speaking appearing below my video. Or to the right of your Zoom window, if you've chosen Show Full Transcript, please note that if you choose Full Transcript view, it may obstruct your view of the chat. Another note is that we are hosting a multilingual space today, we have American Sign Language interpretation and Spanish language interpretation available today. 

If you requested spoken language interpretation, you should have received an email with instructions about how to access interpretation from a Vera staff member. My colleagues will also be posting that information in the chat shortly. We will be pausing every 20 minutes for an interpreter switch, this will just ensure the highest quality of interpretation. So you'll notice during our conversation today, at the 20 minute mark, I'll say OK we're going to pause briefly for an interpreter switch. If you have any issues with the interpreters or captioning today, please let us know in the chat. 

Another note is that we really value complete access in our virtual sessions, if we have a technical problem we will pause to address the issue. If the issue cannot for any reason be resolved, we may have to cancel the session. If that happens, we will send an email to you with further information about when we're going to reschedule, largely that never happens. But should there be some meteor shower or some other major technical issue that disrupts our webinar today, will cancel and reschedule for future-- a future date. Feel free to use the chat function to communicate with each other. 

But if you have a question for the presenters, please use the Q&A pod. So it doesn't get lost. If you're in the chat right now, you're likely seeing a lot of trafficked there. As the webinar goes on there's more and more traffic in the chat pod. And so it's hard for us to keep track of all of the questions that are coming through if you're only putting them in the chat. So please use the Q&A pod. 

We will likely hold most questions until the end of our discussion today, unless the question is very specific to something that was just said and it's natural for us to go ahead and answer it then. But for the most part, we're going to hold all the questions for the end. And right now, you should be seeing all of our panelists in gallery view. If you are having trouble with your view, please let us know in the chat box. We will be recording today's webinar. 

The webinar recording and materials will be posted on the End Abuse of People with Disabilities website within about two weeks. And a record of attendance and materials from the session will be available for download via a link in the chat pod at the end of this webinar. And then we'll also be posting answered questions from the Q&A parks and any chat resources on our End Abuse website, along with the recording of this webinar. So I want to welcome everybody to our webinar today. 

My name is Sandra Harrell, as I mentioned, I'm with the Center on Victimization and Safety at the Vera Institute of Justice. I am a white woman with Brown hair with some highlights in it right now, it's pulled back. And I am wearing a black blazer over a blue shirt. I am wearing glasses and I am middle aged. 

I'm very excited about our panelists today. We have Cathy Saunders from Illinois. Sierra Oliver from Indiana. And Heidi Sue both from Massachusetts. And I want to ask Cathy to please introduce yourself as well. 

CATHY SAUNDERS: Hello, everyone. My name is Cathy Lynn Saunders, I'm a published author of a book of poetry entitled, My Name is Cathy Lynn, A Love Letter From Me to You on Amazon. I am a female from birth, my pronouns are she and her. I'm a Black complexion, Black woman with braided shoulder length salt and pepper gray hair. I identify as a person with cerebral palsy. I am a self advocate in Illinois. And I've worked with Vera Institute of Justice on a number of projects, including Self Advocate Leadership Curriculum and the Nova coalition. 

SANDRA HARRELL: Thank you so much Cathy, and welcome. I'm so glad to have your voice with us today, Sierra. 

CIERRA OLIVIA: Thank you, Sandra. [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] Cierra Olivia Thomas-Williams. I use and she/her pronouns. But if you want to refer to me in northern New York dialect, you can call me [INAUDIBLE] which means that one. I am a fat and sassy, [INAUDIBLE] 

And that just means, I identify as a disabled person, and a woman. I have survived poly violence starting from childhood. And I'm also a member of a community that experiences intergenerational trauma. I've been working in the anti-violence movement for 24 years and practicing sexual violence prevention since 2005. So that's about 17 years. 

And I've been doing all that work almost exclusively with the Rape Prevention and Education Grant Funding. I used to practice in local rape crisis centers in Oregon and in Indiana. But for the last seven years, I've been a prevention specialist at Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Since 2018, I have been co-leading Indiana Disability Justice. And I just saw some of our friends, high Cat [LAUGHS] in the audience. 

I have had the awesome opportunity to work with Vera on a number of webinars as part of the Nova coalition. And a member of the BIPOC Affinity group. And right now, we're working on a really interesting law enforcement needs assessment with curriculum development and training project. Thank you so much for having me, [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]. 

SANDRA HARRELL: So excited to have you here, Cierra. And thank you so much for lending your perspective to today's webinar as well, Heidi Sue. 

HEIDI SUE: Thank you so much, Sandra. And Cathy and Cierra, it's an honor to be up here with you both. My name is Heidi LeBoeuf, my pronouns are she and me. And I have here heavy set wonder, but I like fat and sassy better. Can I borrow that? I'm fat and sassy, silver Brown haired woman. 

I have bangs and shoulder length hair. I'm wearing a purple turtleneck with an orange sweater. It looks much nicer than it sounds. Behind me is a bright Green wall with a bulletin board with a map of Massachusetts on it, because I always need to know where I am. And next to that is a painting of a butterfly with the phrase, if nothing ever changes, there will be no butterflies, which is the motto I like to live by. Because I love change because, change means good things are happening. 

I'm the Counseling Director of Pathways for Change, which is the rape crisis center in Massachusetts. And I've been at this agency for over 20 years. And our agency has been on the OPW grant since 2017. And I've known Sandra that long because she's been a fabulous support to our agency. So thank you everybody who's out there, who I know are my friends. And all of us will be friends together by the end of today, I'm sure. So thank you very much. 

SANDRA HARRELL: Thank you so much Heidi Sue. I'm very excited to bring this panel to you all today because as we were planning our sessions for this year, obviously April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. And so we really wanted this webinar to focus on sexual assault in the lives of people with disabilities. And in our planning and discussions, we knew that we really wanted to center the voices of survivors with disabilities during this conversation just because when we talk about the different barriers that people with disabilities face when they're trying to access services. 

And we talk about those things in the abstract, we can lose sight of just how much of an impact those barriers have on people with disabilities. And so we reached out to our friend Cathy, who we've worked with for a very long time, as she mentioned. And she was brave enough to offer to share her story as a way to ground this conversation. And the survivors-- the experience of one person, one survivor in this space. I do see a message in the chat asking whether we'll be recording this, yes, we will be recording this session. 

So today we're going to get started with Cathy's story. Her story is a story of sexual assault and survivorship. And badassery, I would say as well, along the way. But if you feel like you're just not in the space today to be able to hold a story like this, or if you feel like you need to step away during the sharing of that story for any reason, I would say that her story will take about up to 10 minutes. So if you want to step away for 10 minutes and come back, feel free to do that. 

And this would be your opportunity to do so. Because in the next few seconds, I'm going to invite Cathy to share her story. So I'm going to give you all about 1 minute to decide whether you want to step away. And then we're going to move on to Cathy's story. And Cathy, just keep in mind that if you have a natural breaking point in the first five minutes of your story, we do want a break for interpreters. 

So if you see me trying to get in there, it may be that I'm trying to get a break in there. So that we can switch interpreters. All right, well, I'm going to turn the mic over to you Cathy. Thank you again for being so willing to share. 

CATHY SAUNDERS: Thank you for having me. My story begins at a program designed to teach people with disabilities, and older adults and youth, computer skills. So they will be more competitive in the job market. One of the people there offers help to me with my home computer. And at that time, because he seemed to have faith based values similar to mine, reading and sharing Bible scriptures, because I also identify as a believer in Christianity. 

I took him up on his offer and thought I was safe. But every time he would come over to work on my computer, I noticed that's something else would go wrong with it. And he would have to come back. I didn't recognize at this time about grooming. So also, when he was coming over to work on the computer, I started to notice that he was also pushing boundaries. 

He was suggesting that we can have a sexual relationship. Now, I have been taught that when you tell someone no, they need to respect that. So I told him that pre-marital sex, because of the Christian values, was not part of my value system. And I thought he would respect that but he did not. 

Also, I was not aware at the time, and this is just for safety reasons. So it doesn't happen to anyone else, always leave your apartment door open slightly so you can yell for help if needed. I was not aware of that at the time. So one afternoon when he was coming over to work on the computer, I offered him a glass of lemonade as is customary to be sociable when someone comes over even there working, in my culture, to at least offer something to drink. 

But even at that time, the intuition said don't get too close. I was feeling that intuition. I was hearing that. So unfortunately, he did pull me out of the wheelchair. And unable to balance myself because without the support of the four crutches, due to the cerebral palsy, I fell on top of him and that is when the assault happened. Now, I'm going to say, for educational purposes, that there is such a thing called rape trauma syndrome. 

Rape trauma syndrome, RTS happens when trauma happens. And it changes the survivors brain. So I noticed that because the door was closed, I didn't think I could yell, because I didn't think anybody would hear me. In this case, the victim does not think help will come. Because you recognize that you've made the mistake of not having the door ajar, so that someone can hear you. 

That's why I would say, if you're living in apartment dwelling as I have been, always leave the door slightly open so you don't feel trapped. When it was over, I realized that I was bleeding from behind. And I called the hospital to ask for help. But when I told the nurse I was bleeding from behind, she just told me that people have sex in different ways and didn't offer any help. I realize now that she thought I had given informed consent, which I had not. 

I did not get the help I wanted because the purpose of the call was not clearly understood. And I was thinking, if the sex is consensual, why would I be calling for medical help. At that point, and what I really want to stress here, I did not have the words to describe what's happening to me. But several days of bleeding, I called friends and talked to them. And they suggested that I call the police, which I did. 

Fortunately, I was lucky enough to have a very caring police woman who helped me file a report and go to court. But it had been over three weeks since the assault happened by the time I was in the right frame of mind to call friends, keep asking for help. So without the rape kit being done and without it being done by a SANE nurse. And SANE is an acronym for a sexual assault nurse examiner. They were not able to charge the offender with rape. They were able to charge him as a sex offender though, because I did not miss any court appearances. 

Things that I want people to understand, even though I was brave enough to report, I did not get the medical attention needed right away because I did not know the proper language to use. Also, when I decided to report the process-- when I decided to report the person and go through the legal system, I was not aware of what would happen. What the police told me what would happen, and me actually reporting the issue. And going back to 555 West Harrison criminal courts building was two different things. 

So the person I was reporting to while trying to check on my paperwork was angry with me. And that was re-traumatizing. So you never want to re-traumatize a victim because that makes it difficult to go from being a victim to a survivor. What I also want people to know is that this man groomed me. I had not been taught about grooming and how this happened. But when they're constantly coming back to your home, under the ruse of your computer needing more repair. 

They're actually scoping out your apartment waiting to unfortunately victimize you. I was only taught that saying no would be enough and it wasn't. And that's the end of my story. 

SANDRA HARRELL: This is Sandra. Thank you, so much. We're going to take a brief pause for an interpreter switch. [SHORT PAUSE] And Cathy, we have some folks sharing in the chat that they're very grateful for you sharing your story. I think your story is so impactful. And it just highlights so many different things that we have seen in our work with survivors with disabilities. 

I think it's the fact that we don't talk about the way that grooming can happen in the lives of adults with disabilities. There's little ways that people push through boundaries and begin to-- really begin to, as you said, scope out your space, your privacy, your life. And then find different ways to exploit what they know about your life. I think it also really demonstrates your story about calling the hospital is one of the things that has stuck with me over the years since the first time I heard you share that story. And because it really shows how important it is for our systems and our advocates to be more curious about what somewhat-- it's what you said, that you called, if it was a consensual act, why would you be calling for help. 

And I think there was just a lack of curiosity there from the person who took your phone call and just a little more questions could have gotten you help a lot sooner. But the thing that I wanted to check in with you, Heidi Sue about is just how you're seeing that particular piece play out in your corner of Massachusetts of having systems and advocates, starting to become more curious about people with disabilities. And the language they might use. And sort of the experiences they have with sexual violence. 

HEIDI SUE: Thank you Sandra, this is Heidi Sue. Cathy, thank you for sharing your story. There are no words to express the strength and courage that you have. The glaring piece that's missing from Cathy's story is, where are rape crisis centers? As Cathy is telling her story, I'm taking note of all the different areas that rape crisis centers could have been called in. I mean there's the outreach that should have been done and the education that could have been done prior to, to help educate communities. 

But there's also the point when Cathy called the emergency room. Why didn't they recommend-- and again, if she was calling about consensual sex, then why is she needing to call the emergency room for support. So there are multiple areas that a lot of people missed-- missed that point there. And why is that? Because the outreach and the work isn't being done. For far too long, unfortunately communities with disabilities have been left out of the conversations, have been left out of the education, and the outreach. 

And we haven't done a good job in connecting with our community partners, like the hospitals, like the police and say, hey, folks with disabilities deserve our free support that represses provide. So it causes me great concern. And I'm very grateful that in Massachusetts we're making progress there, we've been working for over four years on developing programming. And it's not easy and It takes time. 

It takes collaboration, you have to build bridges with organizations. You can't do this alone and it costs money. And so where do you find that money. But it starts with an idea, it starts with having the conversation with the agency saying, how do we do this. I had the fortune of connecting with mass advocates standing strong very early on, even before we started doing the work. 

And it was going through their trainings, as I was supporting them, and people in the audience who are taking the trainings. Then I realized that this is a huge missing piece in rape crisis work. That we are not doing a good job at filling that gap. And so working with the same folks who created this training have been invaluable for Pathways for Change in developing the program that we have. Because our goal is to make sure that folks who have experiences like Cathy don't get left out in the conversations. 

That every step of the way somebody is like, but did you call rape crisis center, a nurse says did you call rape crisis center, SANE nurses did you call rape crisis center, police officers did you call rape crisis center. Every step of the way, there's got to be opportunity to make that connection. So people with disabilities, survivors with disabilities get a chance to work on their healing. 

SANDRA HARRELL: This is just saying, I really appreciate that Heidi Sue. And I think that the thing that stands out from me and what you're sharing is, had there been adequate outreach, that maybe the first place Cathy would have called would have been a rape crisis center. And that her story might have been a little bit different. She would have gotten help sooner, Cathy. And it wouldn't have had to be friends. 

And maybe wouldn't have had to be re-traumatised by having to move through that legal process by yourself. And getting information from one person that then when that didn't happen for you, and you asked and questioned it, they got mad at you. So I think rape crisis advocates are just so critical to the healing process. And when we look at the fact that for people with disabilities and people with cognitive disabilities specifically, we are seeing incredibly high rates of specifically sexual violence. 

And so this isn't like working for survivors with disabilities and making your programs more accessible to survivors with disabilities, isn't something that is like a small part of the work that you're doing. This is a significant part of the population that you should be trying to reach. And this is why-- this a starting point here. I've just started to talk through some of the problems that we see in our rape crisis movement so far and some of the promising solutions. And I wonder Cierra, Heidi Sue talked about what she's seeing in Massachusetts. But I'm wondering if you can share, what you're seeing on more of a meta theme, things that you're seeing across rape crisis programs. 

CIERRA OLIVIA: Absolutely, Thank you Sandra. And Cathy, I really appreciate your story. And Heidi Sue giving us what's up with things that are going on the ground. Everybody, this is Cierra. What Heidi Sue and Cathy said resonates so deeply. And I feel moved to point out that the outcome of the barriers that both Heidi Sue and Cathy talked about, they contribute directly to social isolation. 

And social isolation increases the likelihood of experiencing harm but also choosing to harm someone. So to connect back to what Cathy said about not knowing the proper language, I think this is also true for practitioners in sexual assault services who feel like they lack cultural understandings of disability and the appropriate language to use. In 2009, when I learned about the gap in our field and practices, I caught on fire. And I also spent the first 10 years terrified every single day that I would hurt someone with my words and my actions and I did. 

And I do, because mistake making is part of the growing pains, it's necessary as part of the growth process. And I just want to say that mistake making is a antidote to internalized ableism. Most disability serving organizations and RCC's, rape crisis centers are not in collaborative relationship like Heidi Sue said. And they, in fact, may not be aware of your programs. 

Sexual assault programs and services across the country, may also actually not think about people with disabilities, unless they have a specialized grant to do that. And in those grants, we are asked to think about "underserved populations". So this grant language displaces the responsibility off of us and on to no one. And what this does is it shores up the status quo. 

The responsibility is ours. People with disabilities are underserved by the anti-violence movement and our practices. And it's so interesting to me that we seem to need specialized funding to serve people with disabilities. Because disabled and neurodivergent people are in every single population that we segment by race or gender, or religion. Disability isn't a separate issue, it is not special or a separate community, we are integral. 

We have always been there. So see us. And I understand that we don't know what we don't know, however that is what upholds complicity. I'm going to move to some specific organizational barriers that I've experienced working in the movement and from interviewing practitioners and people with disabilities all over the nation this year. And you will get a copy of those findings. So don't worry about notes, I don't think. 

So some of the organizational barriers that I have seen myself and heard about is, disbelief of survivors with disabilities. So often, disabled survivors are accused of so-called attention seeking behavior. So rather than applying trauma informed practices, people with disabilities who experience trauma are dismissed and ignored. And there's no restoration of choice. And I want to refer back to Cathy's point, actually I'm not sure she mentioned it this time. 

But when we talked about this earlier, she talked about the impression of the person doing the intake. That person seemed very angry and irritated. And warmth in the reception means everything to the survivor who's reaching out. And Cathy is exceptional that she continued the process, many survivors will give up, which leads to another service barrier. And that is, survivors with disabilities are sometimes not understood or trusted by service providers and law enforcement. 

And our definition of communication, especially in criminal justice field is so narrow. For example, a person who does not speak still communicates. However, not speaking may actually exempt a person from being able to testify in court. And Additionally, not speaking may actually withdraw the legal right to consent, to make choices about one's sexuality. I've actually served many people with disabilities and neurodivergent people throughout the years who were threatened with false reporting as a crime. 

So this is a deterrent for reporting that strangely conflicts directly with the mandatory reporting laws one survivor, a friend of mine experienced sexual assault when she was at a conference out of town. And she reported it and within a matter of two hours, law enforcement decided that there could not have been sexual violence because they determined that my friend was much smarter than the person who caused her harm. And therefore, sexual violence was not a thing that happened. 

It was very confusing. It was terrible for her to go through. So this is ableism at play in both directions for my friend. Law enforcement decided that day that my friend wasn't disabled enough and the person who harmed was too disabled to know. What an awful experience. 

And I want to talk about something that is going to probably be difficult to hear. It's somewhat of an electric fence. I want to challenge us to consider something different. I want us to change the narrative about how we talk about sexual violence prevention. Because our programs, like nationally, the national narrative largely focuses on information delivery, knowledge change, and attitude change, rather than on primary prevention. So the issue with attitude change or knowledge, like the delivery of knowledge is that, knowing something is not a predictor of doing a thing. 

And individual level strategies do not address population level problems. And consent has been used as the platform for sexual assault awareness and prevention months for as long back as I can remember. I know that the focus this year is on digital safety, which I think is interesting take on creating protective environments. But I want to say that consent is an individual level risk reduction strategy. Setting boundaries is so important, it's so important. 

However, my consent didn't protect me. It didn't protect my daughters. It didn't protect Cathy. It doesn't protect people. Boundaries, like the presumption there is that sexual consent allows for safety against sexual violence and that is destructive, that is dangerous. 

Boundaries are great, they're necessary, they're helpful. But they do not stop someone from causing harm. And nor, does consent guarantee good outcomes in a legal investigation or during court. It can be used against the person who is reporting sexual violence. So consent as a solution does not align with the scale of the public health problem that we have. 

And it has very little chance of being effective on the national level. In addition to that, there is this assumption that consent-- I already talked about the safety thing. So another presumption is that sexual harm is based on a lack of understanding about what constitutes consent, and that's false. The problem is not that the person who does sexual violence does not know the rules. The problem is that person is using power over to control another person, like we heard in Cathy's story. 

And all of this really points back to the deficiencies in our movements stock responses to harm through this mandatory reporting process. But also through law enforcement. And I'm wondering if the interpreters would like to switch now. I just have a few more things to share. 

So when we bring law enforcement and mandatory reporting into this argument, for many survivors with disabilities there is a very real and justified fear that if law enforcement are involved, the person who does harm will increase the violence, or that the person with disabilities will be removed from their home. And often, the alternative here is a nursing home. And this increases a person's harm, a risk for harm. Sending someone to a nursing home increases the person's risk for harm by both increasing isolation. 

But also, exposing a person to organizational level risk factors, like high staff turnover, or a lack of resources, or lack of institutional responses to harm that are beyond this thing called incident reporting. The people who work at disability services, who are in the audience know what I'm talking about. This is the mandatory state reporting process. So I've heard also from many survivors with disabilities that a nursing home is much worse than staying with a person who causes harm. 

And these are just not choices. This is how oppression shows up. Other oppressive practices such as racism and ableism, these lead to high turnover rates in our field. And this actually eliminates the establishment of historic institutional knowledge that we need in rape crisis centers. One person that I interviewed said, if programs aren't accessible for staff, then they are not accessible for survivors. 

And then they connected this practice back to the fact that many rape crisis centers cannot afford to provide health care for the people who work there. And another person with chronic illness pointed out to me that quite often, they will never ever get a vacation because they use the entire two week block on like taking care of their body when they are not feeling good. So one of the cool things about that though-- well, it's not cool. But a solution is that organizations can-- individuals could share back their time and put it in a bank for use and drawing out of their other colleagues. Because in this field people do not seem to like to take vacations, which I feel is pretty ablest on ourselves just by the way. 

In our field, we really embraced martyrdom in the pursuit of perfection. And these are ablest practices that ignore our bodies, it ignores our needs. And this contributes to the high turnover rate both in disability serving organizations, but also rape crisis centers. And finally, one of the drawbacks of this movement moving from grassroots to professionalization to partnerships with the state is, we are required, if we receive state or federal funding to have liability insurance. 

And I think that's what it's called. And so what this means is that organizations are protecting the corporation over and above what survivors need. And I'm just going to put it out there, that is not ethical. That is not what this movement is about. 

And I don't know how to undo that, because it's required, and we need the money. But it's really important to remember that the survivor is the one who is the priority, not the corporation. I have so many additional barriers to share. I'm wondering if I should just pass the mic, I can talk about some of the structural actual things, like inaccessible buildings, if you want me too. I'm not sure if I should. 

SANDRA HARRELL: This is Sandra. I wonder Cathy, if you want to share a little bit about what physical barriers you experienced even through your process of seeking justice in this one case. But also, I mean, you and I have been at a lot of in-person meetings together. And I mean, I know that even at in-person meetings, or just moving through these spaces of being a leader in the rape crisis movement as a person with a disability, what physical barriers are common to your experience? 

CATHY SAUNDERS: The physical barrier that I think is most common to a person who has a physical disability is when we report that something has happened. OK, we know that we need medical help. But given the systems that are in place, and I'm going to give a specific example, most of us who have physical disabilities use the paratransit system. Pays paratransit, I'm located in the city of Chicago. So that is how the majority of the people with physical disabilities get around. 

But if you are-- say you've been assaulted, you can't get an immediate trip to the hospital because you have to give 24 hour an advance notice to schedule the ride. So my biggest problem with the physical barrier in terms of a sexual assault is, you don't get the immediate physical care, you don't get the rape kit done by the SANE nurse because you're still struggling with how do I physically get myself to the hospital. Now maybe, yes, you could probably call an ambulance. 

But the ambulance is going to take you to an emergency room. But when you get to the emergency room, one of the problems with the ambulance is that, they take you out, it doesn't have space for the chair. So you're put on a stretcher. So if you get to the emergency room, in order to get-- let's give an example, to get the rape kit done, now you don't have your wheelchair. How are you-- and you don't have a PA with you, how are you going to get up on the examining table? Because any time a person with a physical disability has, let's say for example, women when we get our pap smears done, I normally call ahead let them know I'm in a wheelchair. It takes two techs to physically assist me to the table and then put me in the proper position, because every person with a physical disability has a different position that makes medical examinations comfortable. 

So all that needs to be done. But you don't have your equipment, you don't have anybody with you. And you have a nurse but she's not trained in how to work with the person with a disability. And there's more than-- just for example, in my disability, there's five different forms of cerebral palsy. So just because a survivor has cerebral palsy and they want the rape kit done, there still needs to be knowledge of how do we examine the person, what's comfortable for them in order to get it done. How do we physically assist them in getting on the table to get the exam done and then making sure that we're getting the proper physical evidence in order to have enough physical evidence for the rape kit. Because there may be certain physical positions that's needed for the physical evidence to be available, that the person can't physically get into position on their own without assistance. 

So then you say, OK, perhaps if I call and ask for a SANE nurse. But even when you do that, they're still not going to know how to physically handle you. That's just a short example of-- And then psychologically, I have to say this, even if you do-- say for instance, you wait a day, you don't go right away. So you schedule a ride to go to the hospital to get the rape kit done. You schedule it through paratransit, you're 24 hours late from the time that you were assaulted. 

But you don't have the privacy because it's a share a ride. So if you haven't bathed, you're not clean, you're actually having the physical trauma still happening to you, psychologically it's upsetting because you have no privacy. You don't want other people to see that you're bleeding from behind, or if you're a victim of domestic violence that you've been physically hurt or bruised, you don't psychologically have privacy. So those are two physical barriers, just getting to the transportation and getting to the exam. And then being able to execute the exam. 

And then just psychologically having your privacy. And I'm going to state that-- and I'm going to make this very quick because I don't want to take up a lot of time. But when I did go to court, when I finally got to court I finally had my say, I was so happy that I got there. But one of the things that re-traumatized me, I had a paratransit ride to come back home. On the way home, the driver who was supposed to pick me up to take me from the criminal courts building to home made a sexual advance at me. 

So therefore, I'm re-traumatize again. But I was able to ask him to drop me off on the corner. I didn't allow him to drop me off by my building. But as soon as I got out the van, it was a flight or fight response, because he made a sexual advance to me without knowing that I was a sexual assault survivor. And then based upon my reaction, all I wanted to do is get off the van and get out of there. 

So I had him dropped me off a block away from my house. So I could just get out. I knew my way home. But then he says, are you going to tell on me. So you know that he knows that he did something wrong based on your reaction. But once again, you are re-traumatized because the bus driver that's supposed to take you home has now asked you for sex coming back from your court appearance. 

SANDRA HARRELL: Yeah, this is Sandra. Cathy that, I mean, just the examples as you were listing them out, there just-- boy, they feel really overwhelming. And I am not using a wheelchair to get through this world. So it's just incredible the way that you just laid it all out from the beginning to the end. The lack-- like there's just-- I say this a lot, but it feels like our we've only developed one tool to respond to a multitude of issues in our world. And it's the same, I think, about, OK, we want parity, you want some accessible transportation. 

We'll create this paratransit system, which seems like a great solution until you need a private option because you've just experienced a sexual assault. And you need a timely option. So you don't want to wait 24 hours. You don't want to have to explain why you need to be where you need to be within the next hour. Just everything that you talked about with the sexual assault forensic exam, I think is just so powerful to think about. Are these incredible SANE nurses trained to work specifically with people with disabilities that limit their physical-- like their physical mobility. 

And I would say the same is true about working with deaf survivors and survivors with intellectual disabilities. We can't use the exact one tool for the same-- for a multitude of issues there-- we need to be able to tailor and nuance those. I also think about just the policies and procedures that could come into play. Because I think part of what you were just sharing with us is like, you might contact the hospital and say I want to talk to a SANE nurse because that's what you know. You know that a sane nurse is supposed to do this. 

I can't imagine that the policies and procedures within that hospital would automatically link you to a SANE nurse, everything is different in situations like that where there are different processes. So thank you so much for sharing all of that. There's a lot of traffic in the chat saying how helpful it was to hear from both you and Cierra about the knowledge drop. Heidi Sue, I wonder from your experiences, what are some of the most common barriers that you see just generally in working with survivors with disabilities? 

HEIDI SUE: This is Heidi SuE Thank you, Sandra. Thank you, Cathy. Cathy's story is heavy with retraumatization after retraumatization, every point of the way. This is sadly not an uncommon story. And I have to say, is ignorance a barrier? Because lack of understanding-- and we forget that people with disabilities are people with hearts and souls. And our words and our actions hurt them deeply, just as they would any other human being. 

And so even if we don't know how to work with somebody with disability, ask questions, give them power over the decisions that are being made. You know say, can I put you in this position? do you know a position that's best for you? So if we don't know, we can be asking questions, we can come at the situation with compassion and empathy, caring type of support. A gentle tone in our voices, be very aware of our facial expressions, because we people read our body language. 

I can't tell you how many times we'll get calls from professionals that says, I have a survivor here. Can you come, and I don't know if you can do anything with them, they're unmute, they can't talk. And we'll get there, and they're talking with us. And they say, that person was mean to me, or that person had had an ugly tone, or I didn't feel safe with that person that's why I wouldn't talk. And I absolutely get that, who would talk to somebody who's not a pleasant person, especially after you just had this traumatic event. 

And so we've got to remember that we're all human. We've got to remember all the different areas where somebody can be re-traumatized. And one thing that-- we know a lot about trauma these days. We know how trauma sets in the brain. And we know a good way to combat that trauma is to come at somebody with empathy and compassion, give them empowerment over their situation, let them make decisions. Ask them questions. 

And that's a great way to start somebody on their healing journey. Otherwise, the traumatization after traumatization is just sadly sinking them deeper and deeper into that trauma. And I'm so worried that people are going to shut down. And I'm so worried about long term support for them, because unfortunately some people may become suicidal if they feel that there's no place to turn. And we don't want that, we have a role as rape crisis centers to make that change to educate all the different systems along the way that survivor might be able to intersect. 

And then get the word out there, we can be an advocate to be on the journey with them. So they don't have to go to court alone. They don't have to go to the hospital alone. They don't even have to go to their doctors alone, we can do that at Pathways. And I think if we ask the right questions, a lot of rape crisis centers will be able to offer that too. I know these services are free. 

So why are we keeping them all to ourselves, we need to spread the word and get the word out there that there is support, there's support for people with disabilities. There's support for their caretakers. There's support for professionals working with these communities. And we can, as a rape crisis center, be part of all those intersections. 

SANDRA HARRELL: This is Sandra. Thanks so much, Heidi Sue. The other thing that, as you were talking, that occurred to me is just like, I was a rape crisis advocate for many years. But never once did people-- was I told-- I was told that I could go with folks to the hospital, to their court cases. But was I told, hey, there might be somebody who's using paratransit and they might just want someone to ride along with them on the way. And be a comfort there. 

And I don't even know if paratransit has the flexibility to allow a person to accompany somebody and something like that. But it's stuff like that when we start to really center the needs of survivors with disabilities. We start thinking about the services that we provide. And whether or not we're providing the full range of services that might be needed when it comes to serving survivors with disabilities. I want to take just a second here to pause for an interpreter switch. 

OK, it looks like we're all set. So I know Cierra that you also identified across different rate prices programs, some of the barriers. Were there any that you had identified that Cathy didn't touch upon that you wanted to share? 

CIERRA OLIVIA: Well, my mouse suddenly got so slow. I just want to mention some of the things that I think people don't realize is, the ADA. Like when our RCC's and our buildings follow the ADA, it is not enough. Because I actually don't know who did the measurements. And I wonder if it was people who were not using power chairs, who back in-- when was that, like late '90s, were establishing all of the bottom-- the bottom of the barrel things that we have to have in order to be "accessible". 

So one of the biggest lessons, most painful lessons that I learned is that, our so-called accessible stalls at the coalition, actually are not accessible for people whose chairs are a little bit larger than a manual chair. And so what this meant was, my friends had to be exposed to use the restroom. And so this happened in real time. This is what I talk about when I say mistake making, and learning in public, and it being painful and embarrassing. So what we did was we bought-- we bought barriers to put up around it. 

And that is not a great solution. The owner of the building was not interested in paying for what it actually takes physically to change that. Another thing that I wanted to bring up is being fat and going into places that are not accustomed maybe to people with larger bodies. One advocate who I interviewed about two weeks ago talked about how she was sitting with a boss. And it was a chair, that it was probably just a regular chair that had arms on it. 

And she was so uncomfortable that she was like, she had nowhere to put her arms. And her supervisor accused her of being aggressive and angry. And all she was doing was trying to be comfortable. And so it's really important for us to be looking around at the furniture that we have. And thinking about the different bodies that might be using that furniture. 

So you're going to want-- you're going to want chairs with arms, sometimes people need that stability. You're going to want chairs with a wider bottom for us voluptuous humans. You're going to want chairs without armrests for people with lovely hips like mine. Another thing that I learned from a really amazing SANE nurse was that exam kit clothing is often one size or maybe XL. And in a three XL body, what do I wear when I go in there, or a 4 XL, or whatever. Then there's nothing for that person to cover themselves with and of a little bit of dignity there. 

And so it-- also people talked about crisis shelters being on the second floor and having elevators broken. Difficulty finding secret buildings, which can deter a person from actually going in and getting services. Lack of ramps, stairs all the time. Inaccessible websites, that's not something that we talk about often or think about. We have a lot of, what I like to call, legal ease on some of our websites. 

Another thing that I have seen is the mischaracterization of service animals as pets. And therefore, refusing a person coming in because they have a pet, and the shelter, the rape crisis center actually is not set up to have pets in them. And there are a lot more. And it is in the handout. So go ahead and just look at the handout. [LAUGHS] Thank you for asking, Sandra. 

SANDRA HARRELL: I did post the handout in the chat and I'll do it again towards the end. But I also want it-- and I'm wondering if my colleagues Kaitlin or Leslie can maybe link to our interviews of people with disabilities courses, because a lot of what Cierra, Cathy, and Heidi Sue are covering, we actually have courses designed for direct service providers on conducting safety and access reviews. So this gives you the opportunity to actually look through your program. We recommend doing it on an annual basis because I know when I worked at a shelter, we tried to make the shelter as lovely as possible. And so we bring in rugs from home and plants from home. And all of these different things. 

And if I'm sure, if I were to conduct an access review of that shelter, it would have had all sorts of-- we were just creating barriers by trying to make it pretty. Because we were probably making the already narrow hallways a little more narrow. We were putting rugs down that were trip hazards, that sort of stuff. So we just recommend doing it on a regular basis that you're looking at your space. And like moving that, if I could plant over, or whatever those trees are called. 

And then, maybe when you have somebody from an organization in town that wants to donate, you can ask for, hey, you know what we need, we need different sized chairs. We need chairs that have arms and we need chairs without. And we need larger chairs. And we just, we need that. So it just gives you an option to do that. 

And then we also have a course on accessible materials that will also cover the website. So how to make sure that your websites are baseline accessible, that your print materials are accessible. And then we also have a course for you to be able to look at your policies and procedures and address them for access concerns, meaning, are you accounting for service animals in your policies? Are you as a rape crisis program, grappling with the fact that you may also be a mandatory reporter? 

And what does that mean for your values around confidentiality when you're met with somebody with a disability who is subject to a mandatory report. These are all critical components of providing really good rape crisis service. And we-- in the same way that the ADA establishes the floor for accessibility when it comes to access, we lay that foundation for you to be able to begin to build accessible services. And then hopefully, you can continue to build on those. Because one of the things that I will say often is that, you can be ADA compliant and still inaccessible. 

You can provide an accommodation that doesn't meet someone's needs. We really encourage you to reach for the stars. And reaching for the stars isn't necessarily-- it doesn't mean we want you to do the most expensive thing. We want you to do the thing that's going to work best for the survivor that's the recommendation. So that is my opportunity to pivot over to start talking about solutions that we can put in place. 

And I want to start Cathy with just asking you about, what would you like to see advocates do better? What are some of the shifts that can be made that would make rape crisis services better for survivors with disabilities? And then the order we'll follow after that is just Heidi Sue and Cierra. And the only time I will pipe in is for an interpreter switch. So Cathy. 

CATHY SAUNDERS: OK, before we go on to that question. I don't want to leave accessibility without saying something that I think will be helpful to the audience, or to the listeners. I'm also a curvaceous woman. So oftentimes my wheelchair is a little bit larger than most. And there are privacy issues for instance when needing to use washroom facilities. But what will help, if your wheelchair is a little larger, rather than having a door that you have to open or can't close properly without exposing yourself, just the curtain rod with the very heavy duty. But large enough curtain that will go around your wheelchair, completely giving you privacy, will be helpful to the more curvaceous or plus size lady. 

So that she can have that option to privacy. So that was just something I wanted to say before we get off of the area of accessibility. Now, what I think will be helpful to people, survivors, what I think advocates can provide is, first of all, as I've stated previously, knowledge of the language. Not just for sexual assault surviving, but when you're dealing with agencies, with jargon. For instance, when we had our preparation meeting for this webinar, Heidi mentioned the word RCC. 

At first, I didn't get RCC until I saw the note, rape crisis center. I've heard called rape crisis center, I didn't know the acronym of RCC. So oftentimes, we who work in the field, we know our acronyms, we know what we're talking about. But realize, survivors or people that are first time victimize will not understand what you're talking about. So you have to take your language and make it simple, or just explain what the acronym is because some people might not be able-- they might feel embarrassed to say can you stop because I don't know what RCC is. 

They won't they don't want to appear like they don't know, people have shame in appearing ignorant. Although there's nothing wrong with not knowing, that's how we gain knowledge. But everybody's not given that supporting that way. So just knowledge of the language. And as I stated in my examples, knowledge of the systems and how different departments work together, what the policeman told me was one thing. But when I got to the actual criminal courts building, the whole language, the whole atmosphere, was different. 

So what she told me wasn't what I experienced. And then when I questioned it, the person didn't appear-- didn't like being questioned because I think, it appeared to him that I was devaluing his authority. And that was not my intention. I was just trying to understand what was going on. And sometimes when we're trying to learn something we tend to speak out loud because we're trying to process it. 

The other thing is that the victim might not always know the procedure to do when reporting a crime. I automatically knew to call the police because I am the daughter of a police officer, that's what I was told from day one when I was a child, if you're ever in trouble just call the policeman. But they don't tell you the entire process because back in the day, the policeman's job was to protect you. But they did not educate you. So moving on from that, if you have never been sexually assaulted before and unfortunately, it's your first time, you don't have the knowledge of what rape culture is. Don't 

You might not even know, is this rape, because sometimes it can be done so suddenly. You don't know the actual definition of rape is forced sexual activity forced on you, you didn't consent to it. That's the definition of rape. But someone with a cognitive disability or a more intellectual disability may not know that. Also one of the things that advocates need to work with or we need to assist with is that, oftentimes because the person has a disability, we have that issue that that person is a person who needs protection. 

Well, as children, we all do need protection. But as we grow into adult beings, we don't need just protection, we need to be taught to trust our instincts. We need to be taught how to do that, that is a skill. But when everybody does everything for you, nobody's teaching you anything, you don't get a chance to trust to learn the skills to trust your instincts. We're also not given a chance to make mistakes. 

Cierra just said, making mistakes is part of growing. But sometimes depending upon how overprotected you are, you're not even given a chance to attempt to do anything or ask a question. So you can make a mistake and say, well, no, that's not how it works, this is how it works. You're not given the opportunity to make mistakes. And there is a myth that no one will ever hurt a person with a disability, they're always going to be protected by authority. 

And because that authority is there, who will want to hurt them. But that is a myth. So education is of the utmost importance. And the last thing that I want to say before leaving is that people with disabilities are people. And we need and deserve full inclusion at all aspects of working with the criminal justice system. And we need a permanent seat at the table. 

And there should be permanent seats at the table for all types of disabilities. No one should be excluded because our acronym is PWD, people with disabilities. So we need to remember people with disabilities, always people first. And we as human beings and the ableism is that we are treated sometimes-- well, not sometimes, most times as separate but equal, that separate has to stop. In education for the able-bodied child, sexual assault education comes with sex education. 

If you grew up in special education, you just got the basic sex education. But you didn't get sexual assault prevention, that has to stop, that has to end. So full inclusion, permanent seat at the table, and equal access to all education. 

SANDRA HARRELL: Thank you, Cathy, that was wonderful. I think, the idea that you can create something for people with disabilities without involving people with disabilities is something that we've just got to get rid of. Because that's when the bad policies start getting created. That's when the let's do the very bare minimum around accessibility comes into place, because you don't have people with disabilities at the table. So thank you for that point. Heidi Sue, just closing thoughts before we turn to questions. 

HEIDI SUE: Sure, so beautifully put Cathy, thank you very much. And I keep resonating what-- in my head, what Cierra had said about making mistakes. Rape crisis centers need to get really good at understanding mistakes are a point of learning. And get really good at apologizing. And get really good at not making excuses. So at this point, I think there's no one in the world who thinks that these services aren't needed. 

There shouldn't be anybody in this room who thinks that sexual violence doesn't happen to people with disabilities, it happens at an alarming rate. In fact, NPR had called it an epidemic of its own proportions. Because depending on the age of the individual, they could be 2 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than a person without a disability. And for some youth five to six times as likely. And so how can we ignore those numbers. 

How can we not say we have a role in helping people heal, we have a role in educating people. So they know, if this does happen to us, these are the steps that you can take, very simply call the hospital. And that hospital should know to take over from there. I'm going to call the sexual assault nurse examiner. I'm going to call rape crisis center. I'm going to do this, I'm going to ask lots of questions, and we'll see what needs does this patient have in the moment, how can I help them ask all those questions. 

But how do we get that started in our own programs? You've got to start somewhere. We started because we had the fortune of being able to connect with nice advocates and strong and their peer to peer trainers. And that has been invaluable. You start doing this work and it's going to change your agency for the better, for all people. And because you're putting systems in place, you're cleaning up your forms. So they have plain language. 

So everybody is going to be able to understand that. And then, we also have to understand that by not seeing people with disabilities as human beings and as sexual human beings, then we're doing a huge disservice because we're setting them up to be victimized for not teaching people the proper body parts, because we think it's cute to call it something else. Then if they have to report, they may not use the right words and they may be misunderstood. They may not-- the fact that they've been just been sexually assaulted may not come across to the people that they're trying to talk to. But we also have to talk to our leadership in our agencies and paint a picture why we need this. 

That's what I did, I went to my staff once I realized how serious this issue is, how dire this issue is, that I went to senior management. I painted them a picture. I helped educate staff why we need this. We made a connection, we found the resources. We started dismantling things that were bad practices of our agency and rebuilding the things that we needed in place. 

And I had to point out, accessibility is not always in our control. Cierra talked about how the landlord doesn't see the value in investing in making their space more accessible. And our ADA requirements right now are not adequate, they're the low end of the spectrum of what we need to do to make changes. One thing that the pandemic has provided us as rape crisis centers is to start offering services virtually. We did that because it was safe to do, it was safe to provide that support and not be exposing anybody to a potential virus. So that has made our services far more accessible. 

SANDRA HARRELL: Thanks, Heidi. I want us to take just a quick pause for an interpreter switch, please. [SHORT PAUSE] OK, we're ready. Go ahead, Heidi, sorry about that. 

HEIDI SUE: Thank you so much. And so one thing we have to keep in mind, though, is virtual may not be accessible. So we may need to have to also help somebody create that space, it might mean working with a support person. But my goodness, rape crisis centers are like, how do I work with a school person, because we're all about confidentiality. And so you have to learn to get out of your comfort zone to make these changes, you have to learn to put solutions in place. 

And when we went virtual, we had to help people understand how to create that safe space that they would get if they were able to physically come to our agency, which means working with staff to help them set the camera up in a proper way. So we can see their face, to make sure they shut their door, to give them peace and quiet and don't keep coming into the room and asking questions that don't need to be asked right now. And so give that individual the space that they deserve. 

And so these are all the things that we constantly have to look at and evaluate. And sometimes when somebody gets really comfortable with us and we have to revisit that and say, OK, I'm so grateful you're comfortable, maybe let's have some privacy and shut the door. Because we can only protect someone's privacy if they come-- physically come to our office. We have to help put something in place for them to protect their own privacy when they're not in our space. And so these are all the things that we have to think of. But they're all meaningful, they're all of value. And they mean that our services are far more accessible today than they had ever been. 

SANDRA HARRELL: Wonderful Heidi Sue, and Sierra. 

CIERRA OLIVIA: I think that my favorite strategy for prevention actually can address the things that you just talked about Heidi Sue. And this is the strategy in Stop SV, Technical Package called creating protective environments. And it is so exciting. So what this can do for us is increase connections between people to create a shared sense of responsibility to one another's safety and well-being. And what that technical package shows us is connectedness and community support. Not only protect against the perpetration of sexual violence. 

But it protects against child maltreatment, youth violence, intimate partner violence, elder maltreatment, and suicide. So it is really to the benefit of everyone in your community to be looking at that strategy. And I just want to mention a few more things. I want to talk about what connectedness and community support look like. So I'll give you a few little examples. What this means is really following what Cathy said in terms of centering and uplifting the people who have been most impacted by the problem, because these folks essence can shape the programs that serve us best. 

And that cannot be for free, that permanent spot at the table needs to be compensated. And so paid leadership and budgeting for language access in every incoming and outgoing grant is something that you can start today. Or working with the people in your organizations to commit to moving resources to create equity, because the public health approach does not require equity. That is how we got to where we are today. That is the status quo. 

And we must choose to do it differently. And so we can also include people with disabilities on our boards. And in board leadership. And this is going to require you to shift the responsibility of the board maybe, possibly away from solely financial things and maybe toward looking at equity-- diversity, equity, and inclusion within our organizations. And doing that can help not only shift the environment to make it protective, but it shifts the narrative. It adds representation to everything that you are doing. And those things are so important. 

CATHY SAUNDERS: Excuse me, this is Cathy. May I cut in for just a quick second, I forgot something very important and Cierra reminded me of it. You said something about older adults. And that was one of the things I wanted to say. Different ethnic backgrounds have different cultures. And in the African-American community, a lot of us are raised by our-- not by our parents, but by grandparents, or older persons in the family. 

So a lot of times a victim may be raised with the values of an older generation. For instance in my case, dad was born in 1908, mom was born in 1929. I'm an adoptee. So that generation of people had a total different way of thinking about people with disabilities, of thinking about how to raise children, how to protect children. And in the African-American community historically, African-American people were taught to not speak about sexual assault like it was a private matter, it's a family thing, we don't take it outside of family. 

But even though we might have older victims or victims raised in a different generation, keeping it private, staying silent has to change. We now have the MeToo generation. So keeping it private keeps people in isolation which perpetuates abuse. So a lot of us have been raised by older generations. So it keeps us victimized because we're not taught to be open. 

That's one of the reasons that I do share my story so often. And I'm so open with how I share it, because I'm looking out for the other people like myself who might have been raised by their grandmother or their aunt, or maybe they were raised by their great grandma, who knows. But everybody doesn't get raised by a mother or father, there's not always a secular home. And a lot of times in African-American homes we're raised by extended family. So extended family has different values. I just wanted to get that in there because that's a big part of, at least in the African-American community, why we don't report, why we keep it quiet, and we stay [INAUDIBLE] 

SANDRA HARRELL: Thank you so much, Cathy, and Cierra, and Heidi Sue. All of what you offered today, as you can see from the chat is being received and taken in. And I'm hoping that our participants will go back to their organizations and figure out how they can make improvements, make changes, and make lasting changes within their organizations. I do want to adjust a few things that came up in the Q&A before we close. Really great point was made about me-- when Cathy was sharing her story she said, I called the hospital and she just assumed-- the nurse on the other end assumed that it was consensual. 

But it wasn't consensual, why else would I be calling. And then in my response I may-- I said the same thing when we had a great point in the Q&A that consensual acts can result in needing to call the hospital. And I want to just clarify that. I think what my point more largely was, is there wasn't enough curiosity to find out why it was that Cathy was calling in the first place. And did she need anything more than advice on how to make it not hurt as much the next time. 

So thank you for raising that. And then there's another comment about the use of the term SANE nurse. And as a matter of fact, attendee we have moved to saying Sexual Assault Forensic Examiners, SAFE nurse versus SANE nurse. I don't know if that was because of the stigma that came with the term sane, but that has changed. And then finally, there's a question about somebody who is going through a criminal prosecution right now. 

And that it's hard to understand because of the jargon that the attorney is using and whether or not we have anything in plain language. We have grantees who have created pictorial guides of the courtroom and the process. So if you contact me, I'm going to put my contact information in here, I can make sure that we get that to you. So you can just reach out to me. This is application season. So I may forward it to one of my colleagues to help me give you a timely response. 

But we'll get there. But thank you, Cathy, Cierra, and Heidi Sue. This is a wonderful conversation. Thank you for everything that you brought to this conversation today. And everyone have a great rest of your week. 

And thank you for your time and attention. And for trying to improve services for survivors with disabilities. Thanks, everyone. 

CIERRA OLIVIA: Thank you so much for hosting us. This was so fun. I could talk for hours with you folks. [LAUGHS] 

SANDRA HARRELL: Did you see it? We were up to about 354 participant's. 

CIERRA OLIVIA: That was so cool. 

SANDRA HARRELL: So your voices, your strategies, your ideas got out there. And I think that's what's important, that people get to learn from all of you. Cathy, thank you so much.