about this serious critical issue that we're talking about and the awesome services that you're building so let's get right into it tell me about the services tell me about the organization well jersey battered women service is located in morris county new jersey and we are the domestic violence provider that provides services to victims their children men women anyone in need of domestic violence services so it consists of a twenty four seven helpline transitional living facility safe house shelter bilingual services children's program we do a lot of community counseling vocational training dating abuse prevention and we're out in the community just raising awareness about the issue of domestic violence law services you name it so first of all that you're heading back it's such a pleasure to see you again always wonderful you know as a divorce attorney i unfortunately see domestic violence issues all too often and and as i was saying before we went on the air i lobbied on this for two years to join this amazing board which is i was twenty two or twenty three minutes from all different sectors of of the workforce but it was important to me because not only did domestic violence impact my family in a personal way but i see what it does to my clients and you know as helen was saying people may think that this doesn't happen in our neighborhood this is happening more scouting just happened in short hills it absolutely does and the abuse sometimes doesn't come to the forefront until divorce happens there's and there's an input is there something that's life changing  family's life and women start realizing that what was going on for five ten seven eight years to them in their children that this is abuse whether psychological physical you know long term abuse and my role as i see it in my professional life and on this board is to help navigate and explain the process how scary is that for a woman that's going to be changing her life where she lives who hurt spouses her friends to now also realize that she needs all these supports to identify what's been happening and get to the next stage so it's the educational piece it's the getting rid of the shame piece it's connecting these women with the resources and it's resources across all spector spectrum right it's the where are you going to live what you're going to w training do you need some money to get you started if we don't do that where are not helping our next generation in our society and this is what i love about what we were talking about earlier when you explain this to me that it's a one stop shop verses i think you are sharing what happens outside of this organisation someone can show up and be sent to fourteen other places so how scary it is to make this decision and then know you have a place to turn when  profound i think experiences a victim of domestic violence is going to go through taking that first step and going to a courthouse is scary what if you don't have money to retain an attorney what if you're just showing up what do you do with your kids how do you get there or what if you don't want anybody you know you're going so there's so much to it but then there's so much beyond that so now you get the t r o now white where do you stand what do you do where do you turn for services and our family justice center which i will talk about in a moment which is one of the major part accomplishments of our board opening up  shortly or the ribbon cutting short when it's actually already open is addressing a problem so if you could just get sort of you have a wonderful program yes so the issue of domestic violence is really all about power and control it's one person's power and control over another  o there are statistics that tell us that absent of services so this is why opportunity like this are so important for us to talk about services that are available but absent services it takes a victim oftentimes seven to nine times to actually take that first step to lose to leave her abuser and that's the most dangerous time if you can imagine that's when violence might escalate that's when something if there's you know something major that might happen and oftentimes of it some will find herself or himself figuring out where do i need to go you know so they might call into our helpline they might find out about us through law enforcement they might find out about us through their health care provider or their clergy right and they take that first step and then what happens  so there is this whole process of working with the client to find out really what their needs are is it is it shelter is it community counseling jus need help with the legal system do you need some resources temporarily you know financial assistance because of the situation and so traditionally what happens is the domestic violence agency gets and involved and we try to help the client navigate through that all the systems that's what's exciting about the morris family justice on our that we've just opened and we are having the ribbon cutting ceremony next week but the have all of those support services absent actually and see the process through because how frustrating is that or how scary is there are some as you just of the means to follow through get the t r o and then you just kind of give up because you don't know what else to do when you realize that you've been frozen out of a checking account your credit card doesn't work your car's going to you know it potentially the kids are gone or repossessed or whatever happens and you're like oh you know i can't do this right here but once they're in there they're going to be able to really feel i think powered yeah yeah stay the course and get the help they need for shirt jersey better when service has been around for forty years we're so excited to be celebrating our fortieth anniversary this year and opening the family justice center is the single biggest program development that we've undertaken in ten years and through the board support support of our community members and certainly our partners at the f c c what we're able to do is open up this center family justice center open their doors to clients and it is a proven department department of justice best practice nationally so to be the only only the second one in the state  and it's really exciting times for our clients now what predicated this i mean obviously everything that we're talking about predicated him but was there you know any event driven or you know anything they can of finally put the to say this is what we need to do well i think it's you know if you can imagine i am right so a client she comes she finds us she gets on the bus she is able to to get some counseling and and find daycare for children or take time off of work right so  she finds out she's got to go to the court house and she's got to go out to the county building and she's got to go somewhere else right so now she's got to take additional time off of work find childcare perhaps navigate public transportation right so what we were finding in collaboration with our partners is sometimes our clients were getting lost quite frankly and then what happened was the center started on the west coast this family just centers the department of justice said you know what this is a great model and we're going to identify this as the department of justice best practice across providing domestic violence services and edgy bit of us we've we've prided ourselves to stay kind of front of the trends in serving our clients  throughout the years and so we started working internally our executive director patty sly has been our biggest champion and together with members of the board in leadership and working with our community partners prosecutor's office the county started to really work two years ago to say you know what we need to do this and you need to join us because this is what's best for our clients and you know one in four women you know it's it transcends and it's an important issue and so we need to do this and and one by one our partner started getting involved we started to get some funding and we were able to open our doors just a couple weeks ago and we've already seen clients come in and you know you can just see their faces a sense of relief coming into a secure location and they're getting the services they need that they need in works i did about our ribbon cutting ceremony next week yeah i act like you know with with any projects that we plan together and try to develop platforms on it it's important to collaborate it's important to have people with different areas of expertise come together for one common cause so when a person is going through a life changing event or their death disability divorce or abuse there are so many different tend to is that are needed to come together and work together so this is just such a brilliant concept i think that it's going to be you know an avant garde type of change to addressing the issues of domestic violence and then more people are going to feel secure to come forward and all that it's going to take a divorce for people to come forward and ever stay in the system because the system is going to be friendly right well and you know you brought up a good point earlier we were talking about you know certainly transcending financial model or you know hey it doesn't happen in this neighborhood you know that's only over there one in four women statistically speaking it's rabid absolutely and so we were you know you brought up a point earlier about you know women in corporate or you know leadership executive balls one of four women sitting there at their desk thinking about what i'm going to do with this and the confidentiality involved in making that decision to take a step forward to t alk with someone about it sure and it so is that a helpline is that calling into the justice center what is you know what kind of course to someone take when they want more information by they may not be ready to show up with their children in hand absolutely and i think that's what's so important about communication and getting the word out about to massive violence about the issue and that our services are available right so we need to spend a lot of time working with our corporate partners our community partners groups service organizations just to talk about the issues domestic violence right we have a professional team that is working with law enforcement clergy health professionals so that they can help to identify when they may need to you know bring up the fact that services are provided right so we have a twenty four hour helpline as i mentioned so a lot of times family members friends co workers will call and say you  think there's something going on and we'll have clients them selves call and see service say you know i don't really know if i'm an abused person or a battered woman but here's what's going on and he help me with a black and you know they have the newest cars and you see them on the field and you think everything's great and what a wonderful family in the children are well adjusted but you don't know what's happening behind closed doors and that might be the same woman that for many many years has been you know controlled every aspect of her life so her personal relationships have been eroded she's no longer in contact with her siblings and her family and she has been living on a you know twenty dollar a week allowance and maybe not because there's no physical abuse but certainly financial emotional and verbal all she doesn't identify as a battered woman per se and so that's why so many of our clients quite frankly don't need emergency housing but they certainly need communicate how slimmed down they certainly need the support services they coming into the family the children could be poster children you know and harbors of gerber and everything else and yet they're such suppression and such psychological and control control abuse going on where they don't realize they don't want to realize if you know there's a stigma or what will my country club friends think how can how can this be happening to me when you peel the layers back and empower somebody to go through a process of change they not only feel more comfortable in talking about it in the talking to someone and getting the supports but they then become a new human being better parent better contributing woman to society more in control of what's going on but it takes a lot of work and this is kind of you know even before joining the board what i do and what i find so meaningful to what we it's your entire contribution to the marriage so if you only have twenty dollars a week as you were saying and that's what you have in your pocket do you think that your partner probably not so start the conversation and if you're free to have the conversation there is resources because that could be indicative of an example of potentially some abuse going on right like hell was i doing there's no black guy and you have been driving across the floor doesn't mean that you're not in need of services and asked to talk to someone i think it's an important message because i do think that there's more than you would believe in terms of a woman in those situations and then thinking ok well if i make this move you know i  literally have no money forward and that's where i think your council is critical because you know especially if there is you know healthy income and a family there's a way to manage that you know not knowing or saying i don't know i didn't bother to look it's really an excuse you know people have to in all sorts of situations and it's so much harder when your an abused individual not even knowing that you're abusing their self esteem issues there might be some depression issues and maybe some substance abuse issues so there may be things for hitting you firm really looking and putting together financial documents or being that fifty percent member but if you get yourself involved with the right support system in the right group to help you get there that's the first step everybody should know how their bills are paid right everybody should know if there's a mortgage on their home right or second mortgage on their home yeah everybody should know if they're if they have health insurance yeah you know people get just notion of her usual about empowering women that's i talk don't even talk about her as a checklist correct if you are not you know involved in this part of your marriage right you said start a conversation ask yourself why is that right yeah and it's not just your divorce isn't a friendly word it's a scary word it does you know just like a maxence happen all the time whether it be a heart attack that leaves you unable to work the spouse or something where you know more severe than that you know or divorce so you need to be prepared for all three situations will lead to the same need for the same information how do i like into the account what money is available what do i do so it's not something that any woman should ignore absolutely at any level it is any inkling of that you might need some help counseling or support you feel that there might be some abuse going on this resource is inevitable in an article and i think that's why it's important that we really do provide comprehensive services to our clients again whether it's women men and children and the program because we do look at the entire picture right so during an assessment we will ask about you know financial resources we will ask about if there's weapons in the home we'll ask about you know safety planning first we will ask about you know what do you think your plan is what do you want your next steps to as you think you want to go back to school what is the profession all your professional capacity or what are your goals and dreams and we're helping them to achieve those goals and dreams on a path of self sufficiency so that they don't feel that they need to go back to a their abuser or that as they move into their next relationship that that is a healthy relationship as well exactly right the patterns and continue back to that pattern continue this is a point that really stuck with me when i was in the process of getting involved with this board for any woman out there that is listening and for any person that thinks there may be an abusive relationship if you don't want to do it for yourself do it for your children be there were little art projects that these kids put together and one of the places that i visited and every single little pouch had an escape ladder these children when they were putting together these projects were already programmed to think that they need an escape plan that was the most monumental moving experience for me and i said to myself my god we have to help make change because our next generation is they're growing up little girls and boys growing up scared hard with our children whether it's an art therapy or in counseling to help break that interest an intergenerational cycle of violence so we do do projects with them like they worry be where we talk about what's worrying you or we're when you feel safe what does that look like and when you're unhappy what does it look like and we hear things back from our children that you know i wish mommy and daddy when yell at each other you know i miss my daddy but i don't want him to hurt my mommy any more you know it heartbreaking and so whether it's like this telecommute that we exist or being in our schools to talk about dating abuse prevention and bystander intervention or it's just getting out in the community it's so very vital because it's an issue yeah well you know obviously we've painted the picture of how far reaching and acting is so you brought up a good point so for a woman listening and watching this program right and that event is really fantastic i mean corporate representation but also just community members board members donors but we bring together more than two dozen of the state's best chefs and alcohol right exactly one hundred people that are committed to the cause and passion about supporting we will hear from a client and she that her story that that is just worth the price of admission yeah if you have any any feeling in your heart for this cause and you'd like to get involved at any level this is the event to attend it's going to be a life movie experience to hear these you know whoever or person is your whoever that person is because every single person is an amazing story of survival to to get up there and share with people that four hundred people room ordered strangers to be to be so confident to finally stand up and share that story you don't walk away with a dry eye it's interesting very few speaking agents that i go to where there are multiple people in the room it's do i not have someone come up afterwards and disclose self disclose yeah you know i was a victim i was i am a survivor my sister is a survivor so many people have connections everyone knows someone right so we know we have a client speaker four hundred professionals and you know last year we had a speaker that said i had to master degrees and i was very neck of the church how could i be a victim of domestic violence and so many people can reach her afterwards said thank you so much for sharing your story well and you know when you think about gathering like minded and like hearted people together for a cause i mean this is it for now it's really amazing to see is still mention the corporate representation and what corporations are doing about these issues we had a board member that shared just out of work meeting this week that policy on used a vacation or sick days can be used for a time off when you have a family member that's going through an act of domestic violence so hostile for her for banks and other corporations to recognize that this is of a family problem and that people need support to maybe stay home from work to help somebody get through the process is monumental so it's things like this that we discussed at our board meetings that we bring together that we're trying to know share with workplace workplace safety considerations i mean this is not just a financial issue it's an h r issue it's a gray issue it's a well your statistics to start this off alone the one in four i still i i'm i'm blown away  idea but you know our goal is to create a kinder more compassionate more caring world where we see these things and the only way that we can see these things is to be present and to be talking about it and and to shine a spotlight on absolutely because all too often i think people not only just think it doesn't happen here but they see it happening and they don't know what to do and how to help yeah yeah it gets their fault and then they internalize and they shut down i mean there are so many there that the psychology of domestic violence is just so broad that's what we need everybody to come together in the kind of working together to help where the should and you know the shame and as we talked about that's not only with the individual going through it but the children carry that shame as well  so we need to break break the cycle break the patterns well you know what i think you both so much for being here today we're going to continue this conversation and this is not the end of the conversations the beginning so i thank you both again and thanks her body for being here and make sure to check out the