“[A]s some are reflecting on those we love and appreciate this month, this is my love letter to all the volunteers out there participating in acts of kindness. Infusing joy, community-led contributions, and deeper connections to those around us.”

World Elder Abuse Awareness Day (WEAAD) is observed on June 15 each year. The purpose of WEAAD is to provide an opportunity for communities around the world to promote a better understanding of abuse and neglect of older persons. In truth, there are organizations, agencies, and people in our community who work every day to raise awareness about elder abuse, financial exploitation, support for older victims of crime, information on how to pursue civil or criminal action if appropriate, and on finding safe housing for those who need it. However, without the support of friends, family, clergy, community, and YOU, prevention of elder abuse is just out of grasp.

Whilst many people are aware of trauma caused through harm or extreme situations, not everyone is familiar with vicarious trauma. Vicarious trauma (also known as compassion fatigue) is an occupational hazard for people who work with survivors of trauma and violence. Vicarious trauma refers to experiencing negative symptoms due to exposure to another person’s trauma. Anyone who works with survivors of trauma or violence can be impacted by vicarious trauma.    

Teen dating violence (TDV) is especially harmful, particularly because many teens who experience it do not identify as victims/survivors, do not know they have autonomous legal rights as victims/survivors, and do not know where to turn to for help. Teens are also at an impressionable age, their minds are still developing, and in these formative years the abuses they may encounter are likely to instill long term and lasting effects that will shape the way they see themselves and how they get involved in, interact in, and maintain future relationships. Because of this, it is very important for teens to learn, as early and from as many adult sources as possible, what a healthy relationship is, how to model it, and where to get help if they are being abused by someone they have developed a relationship with.

[In the Epstein and Maxwell trials] what was often lost was the victims, both known and unknown, whose collective stories were silenced for decades. Their traumatization and re-traumatization whilst seeking justice relied on a form of societal complicity bound up in how we choose to see the most vulnerable among us, who we grant the status of “victim”,  and how these value judgments warp our legal systems as they make decisions on behalf of said victims, often to the benefit of the accused; often without their consent.

“Aren’t we aware by now?” Someone recently asked me this when I mentioned Domestic Violence Awareness Month was coming up in October.  Obviously not.  My acquaintance, like many people, imagines a younger woman with children when they think of domestic violence or abuse.  However, abuse can and does happen across a lifespan.  As people age, the abuse in a relationship may evolve and the needs of the survivor may change but the abuse is still there.  We just don’t see it, think about it or can’t believe it still happens as people get older. The knock on effect is that certain groups are excluded from research and prevention campaigns.[1] With education and awareness comes opportunity to change that narrative.

Domestic violence is a reality experienced by many and understood by few. As an advocate and survivor, I’ve faced an alarming degree of misinformation and misunderstandings about domestic violence.

Given that domestic violence homicides accounted for over half of all mass shootings in the United States over the last decade, understanding – or misunderstanding – the realities of domestic violence, can be a matter of life or death. 

As such, being asked to write about domestic violence for the sake of public awareness feels like an enormous responsibility. There is so much essential information to share. I’ve done my best to do so with as much brevity as I could responsibly afford. 

Elisa is a Senior Advocate who has been with NVRDC since June 2019. In 2020, Elisa, along with the rest of our advocacy staff, supported 462 survivors and spent over 1,100 hours in the hospital accompanying them during medical forensic exams.

NVRDC is excited to expand our advocacy response for sexual assault survivors from the hospital to the community at large. Community Response Advocates are now responding in person to sexual assault survivors seeking to report their victimization to MPD's Sexual Assault Unit. Under DC’s Sexual Assault Victims’ Rights Amendment Act of 2019 (SAVRAA 2019), sexual assault survivors have the right to an advocate at any interview with a District Agency, including the police.

January 2021 is National Stalking Awareness Month (NSAM). It is a yearly reminder that education and outreach is an important part of recognizing and addressing criminal stalking, or to Know It, Name It, Stop It.

The National Center on Elder Abuse and the Keck School of Medicine USC have recently updated their “Research to Practice Briefs” on this topic. These briefs offer new information on mistreatment of cultural subgroups of older adult survivors.

As a result of systemic racism, oppression, misogyny, and classism, many formalized systems, such as the criminal legal system or campus sexual misconduct proceedings, are inaccessible or undesirable avenues of justice for marginalized communities.

In March of this year, DC entered a state of emergency due to the global COVID-19 pandemic and drastically reduced or outright ceased most operations. Almost all pending cases, civil and criminal, were impacted in the form of postponed and rescheduled hearings or trials. Around the same time, criminal defendants who were detained pending trial, as well as inmates currently serving prison sentences for a previous conviction, began filing motions for release. Generally speaking, these motions based the request for release on the health risks posed by COVID-19, the risk of contagion while incarcerated, and other arguments about the specific health risks of the defendant or inmate seeking release.

June 15, we marked World Elder Abuse Awareness Day (WEAAD). The year’s theme was Lifting up the Voices of Older Survivors. NVRDC endeavors to provide outreach and education throughout the year, but WEAAD allowed us to highlight the issue, assess how far we’ve come in combating elder abuse, and where we need to focus in the year to come. The new year brought a new virus. As the novel corona virus spread through communities and long-term care facilities across the country, we saw some disappointing ageist rhetoric about the value of older adults and the expendability of their lives to save the economy. We have also seen how racism has impacted older adults from attacks on Asian Americans to the higher mortality rates of older American minority groups as a result of systemic racism. And we know there is a correlation between ageism and abuse.

On May 6, 2020, I joined countless advocates, survivors, administrators, and activists in feeling deep disappointment that the Department of Education (DOE) chose to release new, confusing, and potentially harmful Title IX rules in the middle of a global pandemic. Student-survivors who are in the middle of their schools’ current processes feel the added uncertainty about what will happen if their case isn’t concluded by the new rules’ August 14, 2020 implementation date.