This story includes themes of domestic and sexual violence. Contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline if you need help at 1-800-799-7233.
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and the need for helping hands is brought to the forefront. And for some organizations, a shortage of resources led them to look for new solutions.
Freedom House is a domestic and sexual violence service center. Domestic violence is defined as intimate partner violence that takes many forms including, but not always, sexual abuse. Freedom House’s service area stretches across five rural counties in northwestern Illinois, including Bureau, Putnam, Henry, Marshall and Stark counties.
It’s been led by Michael Zerneck, the executive director, since May 2016. He’s got a bird's eye view on what Freedom House offersand what the state of domestic violence, in the form of sexual assault, is like today.
“If you look at the [Uniform Crime reports] for sexual assault, for example, maybe in the five counties, it's 50 [reported cases] over the course of a year or two, which is relatively nothing,” he said. “And yet, we serve hundreds of victims every year, because especially in sexual assault, most of it is not reported.”
Amber Killian is the domestic violence coordinator of operations. She said forms of abuse are changing as new technology is created.
“Abusers are getting more and more clever as to how they can maintain power and control over their victims without going to the extreme of the physical violence,” she said. “So we see a lot of stalking, we see a lot of technology use in that where they're using different tracking apps, where they can send messages to a victim, but it's technically coming from an anonymous number,” said Killian.
Freedom House also connects people with resources for mental health and addiction. Killian said many people are referred to Rockford’sRosecrancefor detox or a non-profit called Perfectly Flawedin LaSalle County.
“So for drug and alcohol abuse situations, we would just try to encourage them to maybe use a little bit less than they normally would, so that they're more alert and aware of what's going on,” said Killian.
Nationally, 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men have experienced some physical violence by an intimate partner. That’s according to statistics from the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Partner and sexual violence disproportionately happens to women.
Zerneck said Freedom House is focused specifically on outreach to let people know they’re there.
“A parenthetical to that is there are a lot of obstacles to victims seeking services in rural areas. Transportation is one, fear of loss of confidentiality is another. In small towns, everyone knows everyone else's business,” he said.
But October marks a special anniversary for Freedom House too, and not just because of its focus on awareness. Last year, Freedom House received a federal grant of nearly a half million dollars through the U.S. Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women (OVW).The City of Rockford was also recipients of this same grant. The City is using funds from the grant to create their Family Peace Center.
In Bureau County, grant funds sowed the seeds to build the area’s first Sexual Assault Response Team.
“We are the lead entity in a grant with 10 partners -- 10 sub grantees -- and they submit reimbursement invoices to us for time that officers spend investigating a case or answering a call. And we then pay them and then the government pays us,” said Zerneck.
That includes county and municipal police departments, two state's attorney offices and Perry Memorial Hospital in Princeton.
Response teams generally regulate the experience for survivors by making uniform protocols that encourage teamwork and trauma-informed procedures.
“And each law enforcement agency has one or two officers who are who respond to those kinds of things the same thing with the state's attorney's office,” said Zerneck.
The grant will last until 2021.
The Putnam County Sheriff’s Department is part of the team. Sheriff Kevin Doyle has been in law enforcement for 27 years and he also sits on the Freedom House board.
“We're kind of a referral source to Freedom House in a way like to gain clients. Because they really need it,” said Doyle about his experience returning to homes for repeated domestic violence-related calls. “I just see a lot of multiple events before [victims] seek the help they need,” he said.
He said his department has a staff of just seven deputies and significant need for resources like time -- and money.
“People don't understand, when you're dedicated to your job, how much time you really put into it that goes unrewarded financially, a lot of times,” he said.
That’s why team members said this new grant system makes a difference for multiple groups.
“I feel that it's made it a lot easier. In an ever changing world, usually things don't get easier,” said the Sheriff.
This financial partnership between a non-profit shelter and law enforcement is uncommon. Freedom House's Amber Killian says there’s a historic distrust between some survivors and the criminal justice system. Many reports of abuse don’t end up with charges and policing without training in trauma can lead to misunderstandings. Killian said they make an effort to regain trust.
“And I think too, often times victims haven't had may not have had good experiences in the past in their domestic violence situations. And so we really try to facilitate building a good relationship with officers to change that experience that they may have had in the past,” she said.
There are no official databases tracking domestic violence or sexual abuse cases alleged against police.Limited research suggests having a weapon, a badge, and knowledge of the criminal justice system makes an abuser in law enforcement harder to hold accountable.
The Department of Justice provides the grant dollars Freedom House distributes. In an emailed statement, the Department's OVW said: "Grantees are expected to follow their own policies and protocols when misconduct by an employee or a subrecipient agency’s employee is alleged. Anyone with information about potential misuse of grant funds is encouraged to pass that information along to OVW."
Bureau and Putnam County Sheriff’s Departments are the two county-level law enforcement agencies Freedom House works closest with, according to Zerneck. Reimbursements to Bureau County measured to around $4,700 in total from October 2018 to March 2019,according to public documents. County documents show reimbursements measured to at least $830.14 in 2019 to Putnam County.
Putnam’s Sheriff Doyle said the Illinois State Police would usually take over for an in-house allegation. Doyle said their policies didn’t change when the Response Team was formed. Bureau County Sheriff James Reed didn’t respond to requests for comment on his department's policies.
Work continues forFreedom House and their partnerspast this awareness month.
Amy Brandon, Freedom House’ volunteer coordinator of the sexual violence program, said the biggest need the organization has is for volunteers. Brandon said Freedom House aims to send advocates to the hospital whenever a survivor comes for help, in order to walk them through what will happen in the future and support them emotionally. Freedom House isn’t the only agency looking for more of these hospital advocates. VOICES, in Stephenson County, is also in need of more volunteers.
In an email, Zerneck said they’re trying to bring photographic evidence software to Perry Memorial Hospital. They are also working to support its 24 hour Victim Service Center.
“It may be foolish to wish, but my hope -- my goal -- the thing that I keep focused on is that we serve every victim who needs us in the five counties,” said Zerneck.
The logistics of shelter operations might be changing but problem solving that goes hand in hand with helping survivors? Well, Freedom House said that’s simply business as usual.
