welcome to beyond my crisis i'm your co host ron ross like and i'm giving gasp are we are here to inspire you to understand that if you become a victim or someone you love becomes a victim you can turn it around and do something charity founder and entrepreneur who's devoted to honoring her beloved husband's wonderful legacy all that she does she's a survivor of violence twice in a lifetime and she's on a mission to end all violence to honor all those who served our country and to help so many welcome arista it's really wonderful to have you here and i'd love to hear a little bit would help you understand would devoted your life to this mission that you're so driven by thank you it's such a pleasure to be here i'm very grateful especially to talk about all of our charity work at the maurice chase bank on a foundation which i founded in two thousand and fourteen after it took me a few years to get on my feet after my tragedy as well i care for my only child who is now twelve but was six at the time of my what the press calls these fascination of my husband who was really the love of my life so what inspired you to create this foundation was the assassination of your husband that sounds dramatic and tragic is there anything you want to tell us about how you segue from that tragic event to creating a foundation through my auctions for charity and now my online company we already have two boutiques and basically we sell hand their eggs accessories jewelry and gift items and one hundred percent of our net profits go directly to our foundation and then select charities to pursue my dream and now it's the collective dream of many to end violence as well but we pick specific charities everything about our charity mission is about not only charity but volunteer is them every year we're adding charities we've added several years ago the p chambers school in cedar knolls for disabled children this past year my daughter had a very tough year and being at morristown pediatric hospital often we are so blessed we are now giving checks to goree ab and the expansion of that pediatric hospital in memory of my husband and i just this one it is unbelievable good is contagious i want to be the voice for crime victims in this country and i'm so in  program and helping people to stop their crisis and really when you are a crime victim your you need to move in stages of moving from a victim to a survivor and maybe one day i will be thriving again with that new type purpose of our show beyond my crisis this is show that your immediate crisis was twofold it was you daughter's sickness illness and the tragedy that happened with your husband being assassinated that is an enormous crisis that you had to suffer through now we wanted you here to show how anyone who goes through a major crisis can go beyond it can as you're saying can go for the victim to survive and thrive but the main way you're thriving is by leading by example an amazing example that people can take it a crisis like that such large magnitude and it's not just if you have a religion it's my faith in humanity my faith in everyone who serves this country the final charities that we choose are to honor my husband's case is blessed to be a federal case but anyone who serves this country how can we again i'd like to focus on prevention coach our youth and a young age to be able to deal with crisis and overcome so one thing that you said is having faith which is like hope right so when someone's morning with someone suffering where do they go to get hope in my case i was very isolated and still am if you look at the nine eleven  widows many of my friends there was a group if you look at las vegas i am very isolated in my case and i was not going to be the victim pursuing justice for my husband is everything now i'm an outgoing person but there are there are just there's organizations so here's ways to seek help right so as a people do in moorestown ok there is an organization called good grief it's available to anyone in other situations people have lost every day through sickness through tragedy through violence how do you seek out in my case i had the support of my family my friends but it was really strangers i didn't know vivian until today that i meet who say will stand with you mersa we will do this to gether and i try to tell people that in that connectivity is where hope is to me the end result we need to have action in this country action what can you do to get better at public speaking what can you do to learn a new skill how can you sort out a job a centering right so it's like having a reason why so i mean one that morning or grieving or having some suffering they need to reconsider why would they want to improve themselves what motivates them for example you said that your daughter is part of your inspiration why you're doing things right that's because you want her to have the best chance and success at life i want her to understand that the love that our family share is greater than the evil that killed him i want her to be positive i want her at a young age to learn how to give back and care while also pursuing her own dreams and developing a sense of identity so to me the as i said it's faith it's hope it's love it's support you had mentioned earlier there one of the ways you want to reach out is not just through your organization your foundation but you also help with others and to give is your own time not just money you mentioned that you work with not for profit that helps domestic violence victims can you tell us about that well  i love my former employer crowd who are after i was a marketing director but years into it i had gone a big promotion i had to go into new york city i started to talk about changing careers and of regionally i wanted to be a marketing director for a nonprofit so the inspiration comes from your interest in helping other people helping your community and that's what we hope that any viewers here who have depression who have lost who have grief they have to stand up and say who can i help what do i want to contribute to the world today and we take action my family volunteers my daughters and several organizations one third of all here you are in this country because we're right now  many stations are fifty stations that you not only are all over the country so i want people to remember just because we're sitting here right the second in new jersey there's always we volunteer opportunities where we're you live and it's so important to give back it does so much for yourself it takes on who a leadership opportunity to show your children how you can do things to change your society and your community around you and that's what you're doing you're setting will your daughter is now going to carry on the tradition because she sees what you're doing so that's how we can change our communities and our children and the you know the examples for them and i learned about all volunteer  friends back they call that a marriage they call it modeling by example which is a great way for parents to teach their children not telling them what to do but by being the person they want their children to be and i am undergoing the process in the state of new jersey eighty hours of domestic violence and sexual assault training and i have been in the shelters and i have been in a state house and it is life altering where you volunteer is that always mandatory to have that extensive training and safe in hunter ten you need the eighty's hours of training to be in the safe house to be at the safe house or at the shelters we have volunteers that just help with our events whatever time you can give you know find an organization call the mob email them get on facebook and ask them what their needs are and that's how i really started to find this passion of so am i feel so lucky that you could take the time to be on the show you're so busy thank you so much for being here yeah and we want you to realize that you can help others and getting beyond their crisis by getting involved it helps you lift your spirit and helps you become a mentor for not just your own children or even if you don't have children those around you or three point four million children are investigated by child protective services annually of the kids in foster homes seventy five percent were neglected seventeen percent physically abused and over three hundred thousand sexually molested i decided to dedicate my practice to helping people parents who've lost their children attorney  steveston has brought thousands of families back together he will fight for yours welcome back to be on my crisis i'm your co host ron ross night and i'm vivian gaspar stream li fortunate to have with us today karen carbonell she is the director of safe in hundred ten and they empower victims of domestic violence and sexual assault as well as they improve their lives through counseling and legal services to help them heal she also currently is a what kind of services are available to help victims and how the system itself can actually refit demise in some circumstances how would a system reeve victimize someone well by asking someone who's a victim to repeat the trouble that they've been through or the services that they've been through over and over the at the victim's choice yeah and the most important thing to remember is that philosophy applies very much to adults not children we want to just have them get through it move on and leave the life of what they want in the future always what we want so we were here today to specifically focus on helping children who've witnessed domestic violence yes and that's normally between their parents is there ever any other circumstances where there's other types of caregivers like if they were adopted  grandparents what's you know what's common certainly well it can be any kind of domestic situation where they could be living together just intergenerational how homes living together for example but yes also where it's not a biological parents actuation so  tell us everything you've witnessed in your scoping of being a scope of being a director how does this lead you to focusing on children well first of all when you look at the numbers the magnitude of the problem of domestic violence it's incredible approximately five million children a year witness domestic violence and if you're looking at the number of adults in the united states in the united states and the number of adults that are living in a household where they had experienced domestic violence as a child we're talking forty this across the board that you've seen it's truly across the board but remember who becomes visit and that's the way i would explain it and we talk about this in class all the time the people that are visible are the people that are using services so if you're using services and you're on unemployment and you're on social services you may be more visible in the unemployment situation may cause people to notice the black eye or the ear or the issue that has caused the domestic violence and you become more noticeable when it's in a more private upper class neighborhood where the homes are five and six acres apart you don't know are the noise so it's different it's just it exists but it just is not as easy to write well that's why i think it's important to dispel these m people realize that anyone can truly be a victim man or woman different classes different levels of education and all their children can witness this regardless if they're in a public school private school any neighborhood or anywhere between claire absolutely are our viewing audience wants to help one of their children frame a scenario well first and foremost if you're in a domestic violence situation i went on honestly think that you need to first and foremost safety plan safety plan for yourself and your children because if you're in a crisis situation you need to think about how to get out what you would do when it's right for you when you can make that eight hundred call for example what if they're too afraid i mean we all know that people stay in these circumstances wait too long if there are ramifications that could happen if an adult the person being the victim doesn't get themselves and their children out of that circumstance that can happen as a result of that we say all the time that really it's the victim themselves that knows when's best to escape what i mean right what if they stay home for years they may know they were here but statistics show the average woman the average woman has seven times been a victim before she leaves seven times but they do eventually leave statistics show they leave it's just a question of when they're ready when they're able so how do we help our children well one of the things we have to remember is that children see things differently than adults and they try to connect the dots differently so depending upon the development of their brains so if you are only five years old and you see mommy and daddy fighting you little brain has to look at this as affection and love for that person who is also perpetrating a crime against the other the parents are modeling the way for the child to behave we got to break that so now as a now they become single parents and one of the parents becomes the caregiver part of it is to establish safety in the home that's first and foremost because there has been no safety no stability no predictability in the home before most children have been abused they feel on watch all the time w of news yes they're watching trying to see is this going to be the day they hear the garage door is this is this going to be the fight that happens when when daddy or mommy comes home they're always on watch it's called hyper vigilance and they never feel at ease so if you have left the home and you're starting a home of your own opposite you know opposite what you experienced before with the child you can start with small routines predictability family meals things that make the child feel safe to talk about it most of the time a lot of ways that we help children to tell their stories actually is through art therapy music therapy dance their beat the whole idea is to meet a child in their world of peer and play so if you meet them in their world  play sand tray art therapy music therapy it's fun and they can tell you their story at certain piece i see so are there certain questions that you would ask a child while they're playing with their sand tray room for example all the little figures are staged by age and stage of development so a five year old a certain height and three year olds a certain height and certain kind of characters are there and there's a blank tray and they take them and they make their story many times they bury the people they don't want to see while they kill them off and you never make assumptions about what a child is creating that world is narrative the content of it is narrated by the child so the child can tell you what that story is about and that's what i mean by you never force the issue you never force it how would that apply if a child like nine ten eleven years old naca well to many times yes in that each group many times art therapy music therapy dance there the movement therapy really helps drama when you're not going it may sound silly to be playing with puppets but you can see through a puppet something different than what your mouth can so what do you call a therapy i some kids think therapy is taboo yes so how do we break their ideology which was really the ideology when i was a kid but now it's still prevalent i'm go