Youth Voice Initiative (YVI) is a registered 501c4 to make the social changes necessary to stiffen up on those who abuse our children. There is always a need for more involvement, in various ways, both "behind the scenes" as well as to put forth the effort to get more awareness that we are here for the purposes of protecting our children. For more information, please visit our website: https://sites.google.com/site/youthvoiceinitiative/home
Currently, we have a few things going. Here are the minutes of our last meeting.
Youth
Voice Initiative March 18, 2017 Minutes
Call
to Order: 3:03pm
Present: Courtney, Jonathan, Shawn, Mike, Lika
Old
Business:
1)
Background
story and petition wording voted:
Unanimously passed
2)
Study
on Trauma Informed Care & childhood trauma affecting brain development:
A)
Courtney
brought important articles regarding Trauma Informed Care, and how it is
already implemented other places, and how trauma could come from anywhere, such
as divorce, loss of employment, becoming homelessness, etc. She will be looking up information on who
gave the training on this for prison & parole staff.
B)
Shawn
will be looking into the research done by the Blue Knot Foundation, whose
mission is to empower people who suffered from childhood trauma. They have research going back 150 years.
C)
Jonathan
will be looking into the Help Guide Organization which offers self-help guides
put together from professionals for survivors of childhood trauma and abuse, as
well as to offer help to those who support survivors of trauma.
D)
Mike
will be looking into Healing Resources Info & the Dana Foundation about how
childhood trauma & abuse is directly tied to the actual physical brain
development as well as how it affects how information is processed.
E)
Lika
will be looking into Healthland, a branch of Time Magazine and NCBI/NIH on how
survivors of childhood trauma can be more prone to various mental health
disorders. It would be good if survivors
of abuse had services paid for.
F)
Barb
(not present) will be offering her editing services for when we are ready to
have an educational guide put together to teaching materials for the people
working in the process leading up to incarceration as well as school
counselors, and other personnel who deal with counseling survivors of violence.
New
Business:
1)
How
to pursue more awareness to get higher involvement and/or future fundraisers
has been tabled until future notice.
2)
No
other new business.
Discussion:
1)
Next
meeting will be on the 4th Saturday, April 22, 2017 @ 3pm, due to the
3rd Saturday being Easter weekend.
2)
Those
wanting the informational articles regarding the Trauma Informed Care and how
it is implemented should message Lika, to be able to get a copy sent.
3)
For
those who have experience with studying issues and making input into making
educational information, please speak up to help out, having 2 or more people
per topic would be helpful, to get a fuller perspective to go into the
education packet. Your name will be
listed as an author for this information.
Adjournment: 3:53pm
Here is the information about Trauma Informed Care and how childhood trauma affects brain development, and we need people to help study each of these sections to be able to come together to make an education packet to give to Law Enforcement, Court System, School Nurse/Counselor's office, and other segments in social services to teach them about the effects of childhood abuse and how the brain does not develop the way it normally should. This is important to address, since there are certain checkpoints that may not be attained to bring into the real world as an adult, to be successful in relationships, higher education, and careers for the rest of their lives. Here is the info, and please help us round out each section, so we have at least 2 people studying each topic, to have the most well rounded education package to bring to the floor.
1)
According
to Blue Knot Foundation, whose mission is to empower people who suffered from
childhood trauma, the research documents 150 years’ worth of studies regarding
this topic. There are many psychological
and psychiatric issues that may come up, due to enduring child abuse through
the young, formative years.
2)
Healthland,
a branch of Time magazine, talks about how child abuse sets up the brain to be
more susceptible to future mental illnesses and disorders.
3)
Healing
Resources Info has at least a couple of articles out about how early childhood
trauma can affect developmental issues, such as the fact that children’s brains
have plasticity that is still flexible, where it loses it as time goes on. This
will affect how stress is handled, because the normal attachment and emotional
bond that happens from infant with primary care taker is not present. Those who grew up with abuse in their homes
are at greater risk of entering other traumatic situations as adults.
4)
The
Dana Foundation, which is an organization that is dedicated to bringing, “your
gateway to responsible information about the brain” talks about the
neurological effects of childhood trauma and abuse, which affects people a
whole lifetime.
5)
The
National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), a branch of the National
Health Institute (NIH), talks about the broad range of abuse, neglect, lack of
income, etc. takes a toll on the psyche, and does indeed make a correlation
with future health issues, from immunological to pain, to poverty issues. This shows that even the federal public
health sector understands the issues with these disorders.
6)
Here
is a link from Help Guide Organization, which is a self-help guide for those
who are survivors of childhood trauma and abuse. This may be helpful for those who support
those who have lived through this type of abuse. Our entire legal system needs to keep this in
mind, when creating, enforcing, practicing, and interpreting our laws.
Trauma Informed
Care – A packet for therapists, counselors, & general public:
Studies
show that childhood trauma leads to brain anomalies, where proper development
is hindered, altered, etc. and how
therapists and group leaders can assess if a person has had abuse issues. It is used in prisons, to determine the root
of prisoner behaviors.
Trauma informed care
is grounded in and directed by a thorough understanding of the neurological,
biological, psychological, and social effects of trauma and the
prevalence of these experiences in persons who seek and receive mental health
services.
Here is an article from a psychologist about how
trauma affects behavior, trust issues, and how human relationships are also
negatively affected into adulthood, so, the thing of being told, “You’re an
adult, now”, is of absolutely no use, what so ever. It can take years to overcome a single
trauma, depending on how bad the PTSD sets in.
We need to assign people to a group, to look more
into this, to come up with an education packet to give to the legal system
before incarceration, as we can learn from the Menendez brothers who killed
their father for beating their mother, and threatening to kill her. They were tried as cold hearted killers, when
it was trauma from domestic violence.
Since the prison system already is putting this into place, and the
lawyers, especially DA’s and Public Defenders, judges, and civilian therapy places
that need to learn this process.
If anyone knows any teachers who can help develop
this, it would be great, but, we can put this together by brainstorming, but,
everyone needs to be willing to do their part to learn about how this relates
and how it will affect people. This
needs attention.
This is a lot to take in, but, it is important. Now, here is a push we can all do. This is a petition to stiffen up on those who sexually prey on our children, and all too often, the sentencing is way too easy, and the children get returned to the very environment they were abused in, with the perpetrator still able to get easy access to the children, to keep the sex abuse going. If they do not go into an in-house treatment program immediately, the consequences can be devastating to more and more children.
I need as many people IN WISCONSIN as possible to print one copy of this petition, and get it signed. When finished, please mail it back to me through snail mail. I will reimburse you for postage, if you need it. Please copy this into a word document, and print this, below. It will be a 2 page document, the 1st with the background story, and the 2nd being the actual petition. We are in dire need of Wisconsin residents to sign this.
Background
issues to support stiffer punishments on those who sexually perpetrate our
children:
As
advocates who make hospital visits for those who go in for E.R. for sexual
assaults, we see that way too often, the male perpetrators of female children are
let out way too easily by the judicial system.
Those who perpetrate our children need to be kept away from not only
their victims, but other children as well, to prevent future child victims by
the same perpetrator, especially if the offender is a classic pedophile (no
gender preference).
Case
#1:
A
man was charged with a sexual assault on a child back in 2005.
In
2013, he sexually assaulted his 4 year old son.
He served 1.5 years.
He
then went to live with a friend in 2015, and subsequently, sexually assaulted
his friend’s 5 and 6 year old children.
These
children were threatened, forced to use sex toys on themselves and each other,
then forced perform sex acts with him and with each other.
He
was set to serve a life sentence, and only served 2 years.
His
most recent victim is a 16 year old girl, who he strangled her during the rape,
and is looking at 9 counts of felony charges.
Although
he was ordered to stay away from all minor children, since he took both male
and female victims, he violated this grossly.
This
is not the only case, it’s just one of many examples of those who perpetrate
female children, already do not get stiff enough sentencing, as described
above.
Case
#2:
We,
again as advocates, understands that sexual abuse by a teacher or other person
of power is damaging, and is just as if not more damaging to teenage boys.
Because
of the the maturity and understanding of this type of relationship has negative
consequences on our young boys, since it is assumed that all boys want and
enjoy sex from teachers or other leaders of groups they participate in.
There
are also few supports in place for the male children to get support, therapy,
and long term help to get through the situation.
As
if the sentencing on those who perpetrate female children isn’t strong enough,
there are even fewer sentencing among female sex offenders who target our
children.
This
is why we demand that upon the first arrest for sexual assaults on children
must go through a 2-3 year in house therapy action for sex offenders to be let
out into the public, upon being deemed low risk (not safe) by those in charge
of the programs. If they do not complete
this program in house, there is a great likelihood that they will not do it on
their own, just to assault more child victims, which is why it needs to be
in-house. If they refuse, the clock
keeps getting reset until the offender cooperates and starts the anti-abuse
therapy sessions and finish the program successfully before they get out. They must also be mandated to stay away from
minor children, and if a parent, have placement/custodial rights removed,
permanently. If visitation is allowed,
by case by case situation, the visitation must be supervised by a trusted adult
who will protect the children and not let the offender out of their site while
the children are present.
We,
the undersigned citizens and residents of the State of Wisconsin, urge your
support of Lika’s Law, to put in stiffer penalties in place for all sex
offenders, both male and female, who perpetrate our children. The psychological and emotional damage to
their child victims are too great to keep allowing these perpetrators off with
little to no consequence. As our elected
officials, we urge you to support these measures:
A)
A
2 – 3 year in-house therapy program to instill in them the reasoning to why
their actions are/were wrong.
B)
For
refusal to go through the program, the sentence will not be counted until they
go into the program.
C)
Strong
mandates keeping the released perpetrators away from children, to prevent
further victimization from happening.
D)
If
they are a parent, lose placement/custody with only supervised visitations, to
prevent repeated offenses on their children.
Print
name Sign
Name City,
State
______________________________________________________________________________
As a measure to get signatures for those who may want to support this issue, but don't want their name to be public, please encourage them to sign the e-petition, where the option is there to keep their names anonymous, so their signatures will pop up as "Anonymous, WI" - Not even I can view their names, if they choose the anonymous option. Here is the link, and please, I encourage everyone to search to get at least 5 Wisconsin resident signatures for the e-petition. Here is the link:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/367/880/690/
Thank you in advance, for your help. Every little effort counts. Please feel free to email me with any questions. Please put YVI or Lika's Law 4 Wisconsin in the subject line, to make it pop up.
Let's make this trend: #LikasLaw4Wisconsin
