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Scott Webb: Welcome to Hally HealthCast, the monthly wellness podcast from Hally Health, your partner in helping you live your healthiest life. Every month on our podcast, we address a new topic important to your health and well-being, bringing in expert doctors, therapists, and specialists who offer advice and answer your most pressing questions.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. So today, we're addressing this very important topic, giving you vital information and letting you know where you can turn for help, resources and more. And with us today are two guests. Cher Pollock is the Director of Y Programs at CrossPoint Human Services in Danville, Illinois, and Elaine Schlorff is a licensed social worker and senior care coordinator at Health Alliance based in Champagne, Illinois.

Welcome to you both. Thanks for being with us today. Let's begin. Domestic violence, like a lot that we talk about on this program, is a very serious subject. I think it's probably best to start by defining exactly what domestic violence is. So Ms. Pollock, can you perhaps provide a general definition for our listener?

Cher Pollock: Fundamentally, domestic violence or what's known as intimate partner violence is a pattern of behaviors used by one person to maintain power and control over another person in an intimate relationship. And domestic violence doesn't discriminate. People of any age or race or gender or sexuality, religion, education, socioeconomic level can be a victim of domestic violence or a perpetrator of domestic violence.

Basically, one in four women and one in seven men will be abused in their lifetime. And that use of power and control is steeped in their thoughts and their attitudes and their beliefs about the role of men and women, what a marriage is like, what parenting is like and the right for one person to have control over another.

Scott Webb: Thank you, Ms. Pollock. And Ms. Schlorff, turning to you, why is domestic violence such an important issue, and maybe perhaps more now than ever?

Elaine Schlorff: In the past, domestic violence was often seen as a way for a man or a husband to legitimately "correct their wives." Now, if you think of a cartoon where a caveman is in his furs, dragging a female by the hair, that could be now construed as domestic violence. And wife beating was made illegal in all states in the United States by 1920.

And with modern attention to domestic violence, and that began in the Women's Movement of the '70s, particularly within feminism and women's rights. So now in 2021, we are dealing with COVID and COVID has put some restrictions on how we do things at times. So there are social distancing, sheltering in place, restricted travel and closure of key community foundations, which is likely to dramatically increase the risk for family violence.

On average, there's nearly 20 people per minute that are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States. And on a typical day, there are more than 20,000, 20,000, phone calls placed to domestic violence hotlines nationwide.

Scott Webb: That really is a staggering number. Thank you, Ms. Schlorff. And all of this, I think truly shows why it's such an important issue to address. And Ms. Pollock, can you tell our listeners a little bit about your organization, CrossPoint Human Services, and what you do to help those dealing with domestic violence?

Cher Pollock: Our domestic violence program is under the umbrella of CrossPoint Human Services, which provides an array of services to the community. In our organization here, we have a variety of services available, starting with our 24-hour hotline, where 24 hours a day, seven days a week, there is always a trained advocate ready to answer your question to provide crisis intervention to bring you into a safe shelter if that's what you need.

So in our program, we start with our hotline and that 24-hour access. And then we also provide crisis intervention, information and referral. We have emotional support, a lot of domestic violence education for adults and children. We have care coordinators who will assist a survivor in developing a service plan and helping them as they make the decision, whether they're going to leave or stay or get some help to try to put their relationship back together.

A very important piece that we do is our legal advocacy, because of major protection under the Illinois Domestic Violence Act is the Order of Protection. So we have legal advocates who can assist survivors with acquiring an Order of Protection and follow them through the court system, which is also oftentimes a very scary process. And it's often a time when an abuser will try to contact the survivor and convince them not to go forward.

We have our children's programs staff that work with kids because kids are those silent victims in the household that are observing what's going on. They need a lot of special care. Another important program we have is our partner abuse intervention program, which was developed initially to help provide safety for victims and survivors.

So this is a program, a group program, and we offer this for men and for women who are using violence, where they come into a group format and they learn healthy ways to be in a relationship. They learn about different attitudes. They learn about how to express themselves. They learn how to stop the violence in their relationship. We also have our shelter where someone can come in for 45 days and receive all of these services. They can attend groups and they can go to classes.

Scott Webb: It's such needed work. Thank you for all that you do. And Ms. Schlorff, same questions for you. How is Health Alliance able to help those facing domestic violence?

Elaine Schlorff: Thank you. Well, Health Alliance, we do not have a domestic violence program per se. But our nurse care coordinators, our social workers and our social service support specialist when working with a member and they mention that they are in that kind of a situation. Our nurse care coordinators and other staff can help provide resources and they can give numbers. They can provide the hotline. They can give numbers for shelters, food pantries, housing, and other needed resources. And they can also provide those members with information in regards to possible counseling and benefits for counseling so that they can get the help that they do need.

Scott Webb: Yeah. And thank you for all that you do as well, Ms. Schlorff. And turning back to you, Ms. Pollock, if someone is facing domestic violence, who should they reach out to? You know, who can they contact?

Cher Pollock: Well, of course, if they're in our area, we would like for them to contact us. But there are domestic violence agencies across the state and a good place to start to get that resource to find out what's near you is by calling the National Domestic Violence Hotline. And that's at 800-799-7233. There's also the Illinois Domestic Violence Hotline at 877-863-6338. And they can direct you, they can assist you, they can patch your call through to the Domestic Violence Agency that's in their area. And so that's a good place to start, that gives you direction about where to go and who can help you.

Scott Webb: It's such important information. Thank you. And Ms. Schlorff, anything else to add? Where else can people turn for support?

Elaine Schlorff: Along with the National Domestic Violence Hotline, there are several other hotlines that are national and they can also direct victims to a source in their area. One is the National Center for Victims of Crime, and that's at 1-202-467-8700. And another one is a National Resource Center on Domestic Violence. That number would be one 1-800-537-2238. There are also hotlines out there for dating abuse and national resources for teens that might be in a domestic violence situation. And those are easily obtained. If you have access to a computer or if you have a friend that has the computer, it's just a matter of looking them up and those numbers are readily available.

Scott Webb: Yeah, they are. And it's just more great advice. Thank you. Ms. Pollock, what other actions can someone take if they're facing domestic violence?

Cher Pollock: Part of what they can do is develop a safety plan. And one of the things that the National Domestic Violence hotline does is it has a safety plan step by step for someone that ends up with them having a safety plan. But in our case, a safety plan is a set of actions that can help lower the risk of a family being hurt or a family member being hurt. They should be developed and can be developed when someone is living with the abuser and they're still in that environment. And that helps them develop what they should do that would help keep them safe, their children safe, their pets safe, when they are planning to leave, when they have left. And very often when they have an Order of Protection, a safety plan can come into play and can include things like who to call, the resources to call, the phone numbers, who are people that I can trust to confide in? What do I need to take with me? How do I keep my children or my pets safe? Who do I tell? Who would I go to?

Some of it are things that you think, "Oh, that's common sense." But when you're in crisis and things are occurring quickly, it's hard to think of all the things to do. So making a good plan that covers you and your children, helps keep people safe. So that's one of the things we help do. And also, as I said, if you call any of these hotlines that have been mentioned, they also will help you walk through developing a safety plan to help keep you safe.

Scott Webb: Very helpful information. Thank you. And switching gears a bit, Ms. Schlorff, can you tell us a little bit about the wider impact domestic violence has on families? For example, how does it affect children?

Elaine Schlorff: Well, certainly, children who would grow up in abusive households, they're actually more likely to experience abusive relationships as adults and may even become perpetrators of domestic violence. Those children and youth who are exposed to domestic violence, they can experience things such as emotional, mental, and social damage that can affect their developmental growth. Some children lose the ability to feel empathy for others and others feel socially isolated, unable to make friends as easily due to social discomfort or confusion as to what is acceptable, because they're not seeing acceptable behavior.

Scott Webb: Thank you. That's so important to know. Finally, I think we need to address the question you often hear from those fortunate enough to have never experienced domestic violence in their own lives. Why doesn't the abused person just leave? Ms. Pollock, can you explain what's often called the cycle of violence? And also your advice on how to deal with it.

Cher Pollock: An important part of understanding domestic violence is understanding the cycle of violence. It isn't always an easy thing to understand how a family can get caught in this cyclical cycle of violence and tension, explosion, and honeymoon phase that occurs in the cycle.

So we have a tension building phase where things begin to get tenser and tenser. There's nitpicking, there's yelling, there's put-downs and this gets more and more tense over time. In the beginning of the tension building, some of the family members and the victim may be able to exert some control over what's happening, but that becomes less and less over time. And pretty soon the victim and the children and the family really just begin to withdraw in order to stay safe. This usually goes into some kind of explosion. If there's physical violence in the household, this is going to be where there's physical abuse that occurs, sometimes severe and sometimes increasing over time. Or it may be a very severe verbal and emotional period of abuse.

Immediately following this explosion is what we call the honeymoon phase. And this is really where a survivor becomes really trapped, because this is what they think is how life could be. This is really true and what life could be like. And so the abuser is very apologetic, promises it won't happen again, does try to justify the behavior, may do projection of blame, but may buy gifts, promises to get help, promises to go to church, makes many promises that it won't ever happen again. But all of this is steeped in denial. And unfortunately soon, that kind of respite from the abuse that happens in the honeymoon phase goes right back into that tension building phase, the explosion, the honeymoon, and that happens over and over again. It can be very unpredictable. And it has a devastating effect on the family.

Scott Webb: It definitely does. Thank you so much, Ms. Pollock. You know, we're almost out of time, but I have one final question. And I'd like both of you to answer and provide your expertise. What do you consider the most important takeaway message from today's discussion? What one or two things should our listeners make sure to remember? Ms. Schlorff, I'll start with you.

Elaine Schlorff: My biggest takeaway would be break the silence. And that means if you're a victim of domestic violence, tell someone. Tell someone what you're going through. Someone you trust, a friend, a colleague, a doctor, a nurse, a coworker, a parent, but let somebody know. The other thing would be that if you are the friend that is told about your friend's domestic violence situation, be supportive. You have to be encouraging, you have to be empathetic and don't judge or criticize. Your support can make the difference to break that silence.

Scott Webb: Yeah, it really can. And last word today for you, Ms. Pollock.

Cher Pollock: I would say my last word is that you are not alone. There is help out there. Reach out. Tell your family, tell your friends. The more people that know, the safer you are. Call us. Call one of the hotlines we talked about and reach out, even if that's just to hear right now what your options are. You're not alone and help is out there.

Scott Webb: Such important information and advice. Thank you so much, Ms. Pollock and Ms. Schlorff, for joining us today and for all that you do everyday at CrossPoint Human Services and Health Alliance. You both helped so many individuals and families through your work.

And that concludes today's Hally HealthCast. Tune in next month, as we tackle yet another topic important for your health and wellbeing. And remember, Hally Health is your partner in helping you live your healthiest life. Visit hally.com for resources, information, tips, and much more. Let us help keep you and your family healthy and well. Thanks for listening. We hope you tune in next month.