Domestic Violence Awareness Month
Join us this October in recognizing the impact of Domestic Violence
Domestic Violence Awareness Month (DVAM) is a time to remember those lost to domestic violence, celebrate progress in ending it, raise awareness, and connect with those working for change.
Throughout the month of October, the Missions Inc. Programs campus will feature a display that shares the impact of domestic violence. New this year, we are introducing white flags to honor individual victims and survivors. If you would like to dedicate a flag to a friend or family member, please contact Kaylie Burns Gahagan at kburnsgahagan@missionsinc.org. NOTE: White Flags will also be available at our Walk with an Advocate event.
Get help
Only you know what is best for you.
You can call our confidential 24-hour crisis line: 763.559.4945, where advocates are available to listen to your concerns and offer information on domestic violence, options, and resources. We support the decisions that you make and work with you to meet your goals. Learn more about our services here.
If you’ve been assaulted or are in immediate danger, you may decide to call the police. Our advocates can walk you through what may happen when the police are called.
Walk With An Advocate
Join us for our Walk with an Advocate event to see our display in person. During the event, walk the length of our display with our experienced advocates to learn how domestic violence affects your community and how substance use intersects with domestic violence.
Where: 3409 E. Medicine Lake Blvd
Date: Thursday, October 3, 2024
Time: 12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
This event is a great opportunity to learn more about Missions Inc. Programs and the services we provide. After your walk, you can take home an "I believe survivors" sign to display your support.
Photographs
Missions Inc. Programs takes photographs and videos during public events and uses these photos and videos for distribution on this website, social media, newsletters and for other means. Photos and videos are taken in public settings during public events. If you are included in a photo or video and would prefer that it not be distributed, please contact Missions Inc. at giving@missionsinc.org and let us know which photo and where you saw it and we will do our best to remove it.
Community Engagements
Community Satellite Sites
- Spangler and de Stefano, PLLP (law firm)
- Plymouth Library
- St. Barnabas Lutheran
- New Hope Police Department
- Mission Heights
- Hart House
Presentations
- Oct 11 – Fridays in the Valley – Concert with Metro Brass Band – Valley Community Presbyterian Church
- Oct 12- Empowerment and Rise – St. Paul for fiercelyembraced.org
- Oct 14 - St. Joseph the Worker on Maple Grove – Pack with Purpose Event
- Oct 20 – Valley Community Presbyterian Church - Adult Forum on DV awareness
- Oct 27 - Advent Lutheran
- Oct 28 – New Hope Women of Today
Reading List
The Plymouth Library is featuring our DVAM reading list all month long. Please see the list below:
- In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
- Unheard Witness by Jo Scott-Coe
- Crazy Love by Leslie Morgan Steiner
- Goodbye Sweet Girl by Kelly Sundberg
- Monsters by Claire Dederer
- Imperfect Victims by Leigh Goodmark
- For the Love of Men by Liz Plank
- No Visible Bruises by Rachel Louise Snyder
- Truth and Repair by Judith Herman
- Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft
- The Revolution Starts at Home by Ching-In Chen (Editor); Jai Dulani (Editor); Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (Editor)
Domestic Violence and Substance Use Disorder
Definitions
Domestic violence: A pattern of behavior intended to gain or maintain power and control over another person in a current or past intimate relationship.
Substance Use Disorder: a treatable mental disorder that affects a person's brain and behavior, leading to their inability to control their use of substances like legal or illegal drugs, alcohol, or medications.
Where do they intersect?
Many survivors of domestic and sexual violence are exposed to substance use, either through their own use, the use of a partner or ex-partner, or both. Substance use can be used as both a coping mechanism by a survivor and a method of coercion by the abusive partner.
As an organization that provides supportive services to domestic abuse survivors and those seeking recovery from substance use disorders, we are in a unique position to address both for the individuals we work with.
Substance Use and Coercion
- Types of Coercion:
- Generalized: Controlling access to substances, coercion into engaging illegal or unwanted activities, initiation into substance use, forced use
- Leveraging: law enforcement systems, leveraging child protective services, leveraging immigration
- Recovery: by controlling access to services, weaponizing “romantic” jealousy, or sabotaging
- Enforcing social isolation: using stigma to isolate persons, controlling survivors access to supports
- Economic stability: regulating persons access to employment, keeping survivors from obtaining educational goals, prevention from services/benefits/programs, jeopardizing housing, threatening connections to children
- Barriers: Sobriety requirements, lack of training, staff attitudes or stigmas, limited resources.
The Power and Control Wheel & Domestic Abuse Relationships
The Original Power and Control Wheel was created by the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project (DAIP) in Duluth, MN in 1984 as a way to describe abuse for victims, those who use violence, those in the criminal justice field and the general public. DAIP interviewed groups of survivors of domestic abuse and documented the most common abusive tactics and behaviors and created the wheel using the most universally experienced tactics.
Domestic violence is a pattern of actions that an individual uses to intentionally control or dominate their partner. This is why "power and control" are at the center of the wheel. Threats, intimidation and coercion are used to instill fear in a victim - these are the spokes of the wheel. Physical and sexual violence hold it all together - this is the rim of the wheel.
The Immigrant Power and Control Wheel.
When DAIP created the first wheel it was gender-specific. Today, DAIP has expanded its library of Power and Control wheels to better serve the variety of people impacted by domestic violence. Missions Inc.'s Immigrant and Refugee Program (part of Home Free Community Program) created the Immigrant Power and Control Wheel in our work serving the immigrant survivors of domestic violence.
Domestic Violence Awareness Month Proclamations
City of New Hope
City of Rockford
City of Plymouth
City of Champlin
State of Minnesota
Homicide Report: Relationship Abuse in Minnesota
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 1, 2024
Contact: Meggie Royer, Communications Senior Manager
mroyer@vfmn.org, 651-646-6177, ext. 116
VIOLENCE FREE MINNESOTA ISSUES 2023 HOMICIDE REPORT
40 Victims of Intimate Partner Homicide Remembered During Domestic Violence Awareness Month
SAINT PAUL – Violence Free Minnesota, the statewide coalition of nearly 90 programs working to address relationship abuse, released the 2023 Homicide Report: Relationship Abuse in Minnesota this morning in a press conference on the first day of Domestic Violence Awareness month.
“To every person who lost a family member or loved one in Minnesota in 2023: we believe you, and we want to achieve a safer, violence free Minnesota together,” said Guadalupe Lopez, Violence Free Minnesota’s Executive Director. “Our communities are closely interconnected, and we need to support each other through surviving violence and losing community members to intimate partner homicide. We also want to uplift that domestic violence advocates were essential workers during the pandemic, and yet they still have not been granted adequate recognition, nor funding that acknowledges the need for advocacy services to support survivors.”
The 2023 Homicide Report provides an overview of Minnesota’s 40 known victims of intimate partner- and domestic violence-related homicide alongside policy recommendations to end relationship abuse. Violence Free Minnesota has published its annual documentation of intimate partner homicide for over 30 years. The 40 known victims in 2023 are the highest number of victims the coalition has tracked since documentation began in 1989. Thus far in 2024, at least 12 people have been killed due to intimate partner violence in Minnesota.
The report states that of the 40 known victims, 29 were killed by a current or former intimate partner. Twenty-six of these 29 victims identified as women, and three identified as men. Eleven intervenors and bystanders are included who were murdered in intimate partner violence-related situations. At least 47 minor children are now left without a parent due to relationship violence.
Minnesota’s programs working with victim/survivors of domestic violence will host awareness events throughout the month of October to draw attention to the issue.
The Homicide Report: Relationship Abuse in Minnesota is the only document of its kind in Minnesota. A copy of the report can be found at www.vfmn.org.
If you are experiencing abuse, please contact DayOne at 866-223-1111 to connect with services.
Did you see one of our yard signs?
How YOU can help
Invest in domestic violence services in your community
Missions Inc. Programs relies on our community to help us provide free services to those escaping abusive relationships. With your help, we provide shelter, support, legal aid and more to more than 1,000 people escaping domestic violence each year - adults and children. Click the button below to donate.
