The Baldy Center Podcast

The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy at the University at Buffalo
Episode #44
Podcast recording date: 10/23/2024
Host-producer: Tarun Gangadhar Vadaparthi
Speaker: Judith Olin and Jahna Mott
Contact: BaldyCenter@buffalo.edu

Transcription begins.

Tarun:

Hello and welcome to The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy Podcast produced at the University at Buffalo. I'm your host and producer, Tarun Gangadhar. In this week's episode, I'm joined by Professor Judith Olin and her student Jahna Mott to discuss the recent Domestic Violence Summit held on October 15. Professor Olin joined the UB faculty in 2016 to direct the Family Violence and Women's Rights law clinic. Her legal career has been dedicated to advocating on behalf of victims of family violence. Jahna is a third year law student at UB law, who recently graduated with a master's in social work and is actively involved in the UB law Domestic Violence Task Force and the Family Violence and Women's Rights Clinic. She also works at Haven House and is interning with the immigration and asylum program.

Professor Olin, before we dive into the specifics of the summit, could you share what inspired the creation of this event and what were the main objectives this year?

Judith:

What inspired the event was we received some grant funding through Erie County legislator, Jeanne Vinal, and we wanted to have a community training where community members got the opportunity to meet experts in the field of domestic violence and learn about the resources that were available for survivors of domestic violence. And we also wanted to have the opportunity for people to meet one another. We're providing these services to build relationships so that we can work more closely and be more aligned.

Tarun:

Jahna, were there any particular discussions or moments during the summit that stood out to you as especially impactful from your perspective?

Jahna:

Yeah, so I think we had started with what's called the In Her Shoes simulation, and I think people found that particularly impactful. So what that does is it takes you through the experience of a survivor as they try to access resources. And I feel like a lot of the time, even if someone has been working with domestic survivors, domestic violence survivors and victims, for a long time, they haven't necessarily had to look at their client's case in a holistic way. So the opportunity to go through a victim's story and make choices in their shoes and really experience how tough things can be, it really puts into perspective all the issues that a client could be dealing with. And I think a lot of people were impacted by that exercise in a way that will hopefully impact their practice positively, allowing them to consider other factors and challenges that are facing their clients as they interact with them.

Tarun:

Professor Olin, one of the panels addressed cultural sensitivity in serving domestic violence survivors. Could you share some insights on the importance of this topic and how service providers are being trained to respond more effectively?

Judith:

Well, we were very fortunate that we had Dr. Noelle St. Vil, who is an associate professor at the UB School of Social Work, moderate this panel, and she does research in this area. And we had a panel of six different providers who deliver culturally specific services in the African-American community, among Muslim women, disabled survivors. We had someone from deaf access services, from Hispanics United, and someone who represents foreign born survivors of domestic violence. So we really had a very rich, diverse group of panelists. And I think understanding how different populations, different underserved populations have not felt well served by our institutions like law enforcement and the courts and the need to, the fact that we have these culturally specific services now will allow these populations to be served in a much better way than we were able to do in the past. And so everybody there and we have about 175 people there, we're able to learn about all of these services so that they can make appropriate referrals for clients who qualify.

Tarun:

Jahna, based on your experience working at Haven House, how significance is cultural competency when supporting survivors and how have you seen it addressed in your work?

Jahna:

Yeah, so one thing that I did want to say before I answer your question is that in my experience, I use the phrase cultural humility instead of cultural competency because some of the conversations that I had in my undergraduate degree in social work was that to claim cultural competency kind of assumes that you know everything about a culture. And using the phrase humility kind of acknowledges that the client knows themselves and their culture the best and allows us as professionals to take their lead. So in terms of cultural humility, I think it's incredibly important, especially in my work at Haven House. So Haven House is a residential domestic violence emergency shelter. So with a residential setting, we're essentially that client's home. So for a client to feel comfortable at home is just, I think, incredibly important for them. And without that comfortability, clients can't be productive, and they can't heal from their trauma. And they also, I think with cultural humility, it allows that client to feel seen and heard and understood by their service providers. So by taking into account a client's culture, we are able to make them feel more comfortable and they are able to tackle their challenges in a productive way. So one of the things that we do at Haven House is that we provide meal alternatives for people based on their culture. So like providing meals with no pork. We have a client who we provide rice with every meal because that's her culture, and we do our best within our confinements to provide our clients with meals that match their culture. We also provide private spaces for prayer, and we are trying to seek out donations for culturally specific clothing and hygiene products, like more conservative clothing and also black haircare products. A big challenge for us at Haven House is that a lot of our products and resources that we have are donations based, so we can kind of only provide what we have and what we're given. But I will say with our administration, when they're alerted to shortages in these culturally specific materials, they do work hard to kind of ask the community for those specific donations and also to try to when we have the funding to purchase those as well.

Tarun:

Thank you, Jahna. It's great to hear how cultural awareness is being applied in practice.

Professor Olin, the submit featured a panel on legal resources available to survivors, including contributions from UB law alumni. What were some key strategies discussed and are there gaps in legal support that still need attention?

Judith:

Well, we had a very robust panel there. Also, we had individuals who practice civil law for survivors of domestic violence. We had an assistant district attorney who prosecutes DV cases. We had an attorney for the child who represents children in family court and Supreme Court cases. We had a Town of Tonawanda police detective, and last we had a probation officer who specializes in supervising individuals with domestic violence convictions. So I think people were really able to get a sense of the breadth of the different types of professionals who are working on these issues. As far as gaps, I think it's well known in our community that there is a shortage of attorneys, divorce attorneys specifically for survivors of domestic violence and others who cannot afford to hire a divorce attorney. That’s very well known. I think one of the points that the prosecutor made was when survivors may be reluctant to cooperate, shall we say, with the prosecution, that they have a lot of services, victim services to support that survivor to give them the types of support that they need to work with the DA's office. But I think there's also an acknowledgement that survivors need more access to resources like safe housing, for example, to be able to break free from these relationships. So that's certainly a gap.

Tarun:

Jahna, in your role as an advocate, how do these legal resources align with what you've seen in the field and how are they making an impact on the ground?

Jahna:

So I think the work that nonprofit legal organizations in our community do is extremely valuable for domestic violence survivors. I find that often DV survivors have faced isolation, which can result in a loss of their jobs. Financial abuse is also common where either domestic violence survivor is completely dependent on their abusive partner for financial support, or their abusive partner has been controlling and withholding any money that the survivor has earned through their employment. So being able to access those legal services without having to worry about the finances does take a huge weight off of the survivor and allows them to take legal action against their abuser and reclaim some of the control over their lives that they might feel was lost to that abusive relationship. But I would agree with Professor Olin that we do face a shortage in nonprofit legal resources. So I think they're doing a great job with the resources that they have, but I mean, always more is needed.

Tarun:

Professor Olin, with the support of legislators like Jeanne Vinal the summit received crucial funding. How does this legislative backing impact the work of Family Violence and Women's Rights Clinic?

Judith:

Well, it allowed us to be able to sponsor this major community event and gathering, which hopefully gave people knowledge and more connections that they can use going forward to strengthen their representation of their clients. But also the funding allowed our law clinic to hire another staff attorney so that we are able to represent more clients now and help more clients specifically in the area of divorce because as I said, so many of those clients go unserved. So without that critical funding, we wouldn't be able to help as many survivors as we are now.

Tarun:

Jahna, how have you seen this legislative support translate into tangible actions or changes in your work at Haven House?

Jahna:

Well, I think the legislative support again allowed us more exposure and awareness about domestic violence. And I think the more exposure and awareness that we can raise, the more change that we can affect. Without funding, this event would not have even been able to be possible. So we wouldn't have been able to provide the experience that we did to all of our attendees. And so many professionals connected with each other at this event, which strengthens the alliances between community organizations and also allows for streamlined communication and service for providers or survivors because providers would be familiar with each other. So helping to foster kind of that relationship between different providers at different organizations so that instead of having to go through maybe a lengthy formal process to refer their client, they can just send an email over and ask someone who they're familiar with if those services are available for their client. And I think without the legislative support, we would not be able to affect change at a macro level, which in turn affects the local organizations providing services and the individuals receiving those services.

Judith:

Well, one thing I just want to add is that there was no charge for the Domestic Violence Summit, so the funds allowed us to have everyone come for free and they did not have to pay for their continuing legal education or social work credits.

Tarun:

Thank you, Professor for that addition. Also, as someone with extensive experience in the field, how have you seen the approach to domestic violence advocacy evolve over the years? What are the most pressing challenges that remain?

Judith:

The approach to domestic violence advocacy, I think is relying more on evidence-based processes. For example, the danger assessment, which is an evidence-based lethality assessment that is used to try to measure the risk of lethality in intimate partner violence relationships. The high risk team, which is another evidence-based collaboration where a multidisciplinary group of professionals meet and discuss cases, for example, that score very high on the danger assessment to try to keep those survivors, quite frankly, to try to keep them alive. The pressing challenges that I see in our community is that despite some of these processes, we still have very high numbers. In 2022, we had 15 homicides in Erie County that were related to family violence, and we had between 2022 and 2023, we had a 14% increase in the number of family violence related arrests. So these have to be our most pressing challenges. And again, as I indicated before, I think we have a much better cultural response than we did when I first got involved with this field, which is terrific, but we're still seeing very high numbers.

Tarun:

Jahna, as a student advocate, what role do you see for the future law students in addressing the systemic issues and supporting survivors?

Jahna:

I think the most important thing future law students can do is continuing to work on initiatives and raising awareness on these issues. So in specific, in our clinic, we are presented with some existing projects, but we're also encouraged to create our own project if we have something that we're passionate about. So with our current projects, we are continuing to address issues such as timely service of orders of protection and the notification service provided for those orders. Another project that we have is the DIY divorce project, which is starting in November, but we are also encouraged to pursue and develop projects that we're passionate about. So I would recommend that students continue to pursue things that they're passionate about and not let people discourage them from starting something because anyone can affect change, but you can only do that if you start. And then we also have a club on campus for students called the Domestic Violence Task Force, and they do an event every spring for survivors called Dress for What's Next, which allows survivors to participate in a lot of different activities like getting professional headshots and shopping our clothes closet for professional attire. So that event also supports survivors in their pursuit to move forward.

Tarun:

Thank you so much, Professor Olin and Jahna for sharing your insights and for impactful work you are both doing. Before we wrap up, is there anything else you would like our listeners to know about and how they can support the clinic's effort or engage with the initiatives highlighted during the summit?

Judith:

Well, the clinic, we are always delighted to accept monetary donations and anyone who is interested in making a donation can certainly call our clinic office at (716) 645-2167, and it is tax deductible, but that will support the work of this clinic and allow us to continue to serve underrepresented survivors of domestic violence in our community.

Jahna:

I think just sharing our clinic and the work that we do with your community, so just if you know someone that maybe needs services, refer them to call our office. If you see some of our events being posted on social media, repost them, just raising more awareness about our clinic and the things that we do.

Tarun:

Thank you so much for your time, Professor Olin and Jahna.

Jahna:

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having us.

Tarun:

That was Professor Olin and Jahna Mott, and this has been The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy Podcast produced by the University at Buffalo. Let us know what you think by visiting us at X, formerly Twitter, @baldycenter, or emailing us at baldycenter@buffalo.edu. To learn more about the center, visit buffalo.edu/baldycenter. My name is Tarun and on behalf of The Baldy Center, thank you for listening.

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