Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Episode Transcript

Transcript edited by Asher Sham, Nikhil Raj Mehrotra, and Miri Stalions

Introduction and Content Warnings

Miri: You¡¯re listening to Let¡¯s Talk! This episode was originally broadcast live on KBOO 90.7 FM. Tune in every first Friday of the month to catch our live shows, featuring special guests and pertinent topics, and remember to check out our previous broadcasts online at KBOO.fm.

Michelle: You’re listening to Let’s Talk! Let’s Talk! is a space for students from Portland Community College experiencing disabilities to discuss perspectives, ideas, and worldviews in an inclusive and accessible environment. We broadcast biweekly on our home website Pcc.edu/Dca, and bimonthly right here on KBOO 90.7 FM. Okay, today’s the first Friday of the month, so we’re having a live round table discussion. As a reminder, the views and opinions expressed during this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of Portland Community College PCC Foundation or KBOO FM. With that in mind, today’s topic will be centered around sensitive subject materials, including potential stories of sexual assault, relationship violence, abuse and rape. If you are sensitive to these topics or not in a mental state to listen to them, please change the channel now. My name is Michelle, and in the air room we have Mary and our producer, Amanda Board oping for us. In honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, we have PCCs Outreach and Advocacy program. Caroline Bartlett, the Outreach and Advocacy Project of Portland Community College provides support, information and resources to students who have experienced relationship abuse, sexual violence, or stalking. Caroline is here to talk to us about the warning signs of abusive relationships, what healthy relationships should look like, and the importance of self autonomy. Whether or not you’re dating someone, in a situationship, or single, no one has the right to put their hands on you without your consent. The importance of this message is why we’re talking about it today. So welcome, Caroline.?

Caroline: Thank you.?

Michelle and Miri’s Conversation With Guest Speaker Caroline

Michelle: So what is your role at PCC Outreach and Advocacy Project, and how long have you been in this profession??

Caroline: Well, I wanna begin with just expressing my gratitude for being here. I’m excited to have the opportunity to talk with you all about these issues. I’m the project director of the Outreach and Advocacy Project. I’ve been here at PCC for almost six years, and I’ve been in this field for almost 20. I started with, the opportunity to work in domestic violence shelters, and then all the way through the Oregon Coalition of Domestic and Sexual Violence to really think about statewide approaches to anti¨Cviolence work. Here at PCC, my focus is on supporting our confidential advocacy staff and our preventionists. We’re a mighty team of four, um, who used to be two. So we have doubled in size, I’m very excited to share. And our role really is both providing that direct support to students, thinking about culture change, supporting our PCC community and how they support survivors, and then systems advocacy. So, I have a really big role in systems advocacy. What that means is working with PCC programs and systems to help identify ways to be more trauma informed, so that if a survivor is navigating that system, they’re gonna have better outcomes. The goal being that all students will also benefit from this. I’m gonna take a moment here to talk about terms for a second. ’cause I already jumped in. I’m often gonna be using the term survivor today. That is speaking specifically to someone who has experienced relationship or dating, abuse, sexual violence or stalking. I wanna honor that. People choose the term that’s best for them. Some people prefer the term victim, survivor, or a variety of other terms. So I just wanna honor all the identities of folks listening today, and their experiences with violence. That’s why I’m using that term.

Michelle: I like the word survivor. ’cause it’s empowering. Absolutely.?

Miri: Much more so than “victim.” You never wanna be called “victim” of something.?

Caroline: There’s been a big movement around shifting those terms. And depending on the system, right? Law enforcement still uses the term victim and what we’ve heard from survivors, ’cause survivors have been involved in leading the anti ¨Cviolence movement, we’ve heard that survivor tends to be a much more empowering word. And it speaks to their experience and overcoming their experience. You’re actively surviving when you are experiencing things.?

Miri: It puts you much more in a heroic light of, this is something that you have dealt with and have overcome, as opposed to victim, which is a diminutizing word. If people feel like that more accurately represents themselves, then that is their choice and that is the right word for them. Outside of the individual, in the broad cultural view, survivor is this big heroic champion word.?

Caroline: I absolutely agree.?

Michelle: Also every situation is different. So, how does the outreach and advocacy project help and how can students reach out to you to find resources?

Caroline: Yeah, so I named it a little bit before, but I’ll go a little bit more in depth about the work that we do. We have, Four to five, Areas of focus number one, we do one¨Con¨Cone support to students who have been harmed by gender¨Cbased violence. I use the term ¡°gender¨Cbased violence¡± because it’s an, umbrella term for dating, relationship abuse, sexual violence, and stalking. I wanna honor that, internationally gender based violence typically speaks to violence only against women, and that’s not the context we’re using here. We know that anyone, regardless of gender, can experience this type of violence, and anyone can perpetrate it as well. I just wanna make sure that as I use that today, folks know that all gendered folks are eligible for our services. So, number one, we do one¨Con¨Cone support to survivors. what that looks like is it can be safety planning, around an experience someone has had or actively experiencing. It can be emotional support, help navigating PCC systems, exploration of resources, and then really anything the student is looking for. We try to be ¡°student centered¡± in our work. So, based on what the student is naming for us that they’re needing, we’re gonna help them navigate that or help get them to someone else who’s more expertise in that area. We can be a bridge and also that emotional support, or regarding their experiences. We also do a lot of training; both for faculty, staff, and then student staff at the college, specifically within the division of student wellbeing, engagement and belonging that work for our identity based resource centers, which include our Multicultural, Queer, Women’s Resource, Veterans Centers, and student life and engagement, so that they are prepared to respond in a way that’s gonna promote healing if a student does name they’ve experienced harm. So, that’s where trauma, trauma¨Cinformed training comes in and what we really focus on, ’cause we know that students who have been harmed by this type of violence disclose their experience to folks when they need help. They’ve missed a lot of classes because of the harm and now they need help navigating that or, they’re trying to find some other resource. Right. So, it’s really about making sure that when a student does share their harm, they are believed. Validation and then connection to resources. We also focus on awareness building on this issue. We can’t prevent it if we don’t understand it. So we wanna make sure that more and more people are aware and know they can talk about it. The systems advocacy, which I named before and then we’ve been able to grow in prevention and education to the community as a whole around what does culture change actually look like? Okay, so ideally all of these things benefit all of our students. Both from that lens of support, but then also that empowerment that we can shift the culture that perpetuates these issues if a student would like to, connect with us about their experiences they’re having, we have our website, which is: pcc/advocacy. That’s a great way to learn more about our program. It’s a pretty robust website. Hopefully it’s not overwhelming, but we wanted to share a lot of information and all the contact information for our confidential advocates. We also have an email. Which is advocacy@pcc.edu. We do have cell phones that our students can reach out to directly, and that’s on our website. A lot of students reach us after they talk to a faculty member and share what they’ve experienced. Then a care referral is made to the Office of Student Conduct and QME Support. We have a wonderful relationship with this office. This is an example of systems advocacy we’ve participated in. So, because of Title IX, if they’ve experienced any type of sexual misconduct, which is the issues we’re talking about today, a faculty member has to make a care referral to the college. So that they have access to support. Those referrals actually come to us. So we’re able to provide a confidential outreach the student is able to explore what their options are before navigating a larger system that they might want information about first. That’s another way a lot of students are connected to us.

Miri: So what is the tangible difference from a student’s perspective between your organization and a traditional Title IX intervention??

Caroline: Absolutely. So what to highlight about the outreach and advocacy project is we are confidential. That means that we are able to meet a student where they’re at, really create space for them to share as much as they wish. We have some limitations that I have to name. We are mandatory reporters of child abuse from being employees of PCC. And if we receive a signed subpoena, we do have to share information as well with the courts. But that’s it. we can have a soft approach. The philosophy of our work is we’re really survivor centered, we’re trauma informed, we really center on what that student wants.?

Miri: Title?

Caroline: IX approach. On the other hand, it’s an important system that was developed with the goal of access to education. I wanna honor the importance. It’s also a challenging system that is rooted in legal systems. Whereas that office, the student conduct community support who oversees Title ix, they are an amazing team of folks whose goal is to support students in their healing and accountability. They are also a system where they have to maintain neutrality.

Their role is to navigate these systems To ensure students have access to education. So they are able to talk them through what to expect. The office of student conduct community support will also back up and share more.

We often team up to provide interim support measures. That means an extension on exams, financial aid, appeal, support and so forth. But it can be complicated on their side when there’s an active investigation. That’s when that different role is really important.

Miri: Yeah. I’ve heard a lot of people be worried to bring up abuse in their life because they’re worried that it will affect their financial aid in some way. So it’s good that you guys alleviate that and make sure that doesn’t happen.?

Caroline: Well when someone is in school and they experience this type of violence, it does deeply impact their education. Both Title IX and us, we’re here to mitigate that. Our roles are different, right? Yeah. So we support in those different ways and we know that when someone is connected to resources that can support them in their educational journey, and doesn’t wanna be brought into a system that they’re not ready to be involved in either.? That’s why confidential advocacy is important. they get to decide who has their information if an investigation might go forward or not.?

Miri: Yeah, definitely.?

Michelle: so what are some previous projects that you’ve held on campus to make people aware of your existence, aware of dating violence or sexual assault?

Caroline: Historically, over the years, we’ve focused a lot of our attention on faculty staff and then our student leaders, our student staff at the college, educating them to share more information out. Recently we’ve had the opportunity to do a lot more tabling events. So during weeks of welcome at the college, we do something called Consent Cupcakes. Everyone loves cupcakes. It gives us the opportunity to invite people to come get a cupcake we share about our program, and then we get to plant seeds around consent culture, which has been really, really fun. We have done a red flag, green flag relationship campaign that was both a visual campaign with posters around the college to help people understand unhealthy and healthy characteristics of relationships. Then we also had tabling that promoted this further. Something we’ve been able to grow into this academic year, which is super exciting, is that we now have student peer educators. We have five amazing students who work for our program, but then also work within our identity based research centers that I named before and multiple campuses around the college. They’re able to really bring in messages of anti ¨Cviolence into the centers, do some informal training with each other, and think about the intersections of identity and violence. So they’re able to build this into programming. We’ve had students put on events that were art focused while then talking about unhealthy and healthy relationship characteristics in a low stakes, relaxed environment for exploration.

We’ve had a student put on an event around how to support a friend. So if a friend shares they’ve been harmed, how can you respond in a supportive way? And also, what if a friend has caused harm? How can you hold them accountable in a loving way that might change behavior?

Miri: That’s always the scary thing from a friend’s perspective. My friend might be unkind in a more severe way than is normal to, this individual’s partner, this other friend or this person they have to take care of in some way. So that is incredibly hard to broach, much more than, oh, my friend is being harmed, I gotta do something. It’s like, my friend is doing something really bad. And I don’t know how to stop that. Having training on that is awesome, and I’ve heard of that almost nowhere else.?

Caroline: Well, especially if you’re not sure, right? I saw my friend hit my other friend, it’s easier. But if you’re not sure and there’s these things coming up, what do you say? What we know is that we can lovingly hold someone accountable in the sense that there’s accountability where we just say, you don’t get to be here. There’s times for that. I don’t wanna say there’s not, but if we love someone and see their full spectrum of an amazing friend, and they do these things that hurt their partner, or hurt someone they just met, we can help someone grow and change. I say that with the caveat it’s not our responsibility to make people change.?

Michelle: They have to see what they’re doing is wrong.?

Miri: There’s always a breaking point too, where we have given you more grace than you’ve shown you deserve. Finding that ability to put the foot down and say, I’m sorry, we can’t help you anymore. You have to figure this out yourself is very difficult. I had a situation like that a couple months ago with somebody in my friend group. So that’s a lot harder than just reaching out and helping a friend who’s being hurt.?

Caroline: Absolutely. I will take this opportunity to note too, though, that when we wanna help a friend who’s being hurt, maybe in an abusive relationship, or they’ve been sexually assaulted and we wanna help them, I encourage all listeners to really consider asking what someone needs.

And if someone is experiencing a violent relationship, leaving isn’t easy. Not only financially, but there’s real emotions involved, right? Someone doesn’t start dating someone and they’re abusive right off the bat. It builds over time, oftentimes there’s manipulation and coercion, so it’s not as easy as just leave because you might really, love this person. Not the entire relationship is abusive. So instead it’s asking our friend what they need. Having open dialogue and respecting their choices while also letting them know you’re there for them.

It might also mean setting up boundaries because it can be hard to carry the weight of knowing a friend’s being hurt. and maybe continuing to hear about it if your friend isn’t able to leave. There is that important piece of both honoring what they want and honoring your own boundaries so that you can still be a friend, stick around.?

Miri: And that is a very difficult line to walk. It’s like, well, I want to support this person with everything I have, but also everything I have is everything I have I have and I can’t give that all to someone who, to anyone, let alone to someone who’s not in a place where they can accept it.

Michelle: Yeah. So in your experience in advocacy and supporting victims of relationship violence, what are the most common signs a relationship is becoming abusive or has the potential to become abusive??

Caroline: Absolutely. This feels like a really big question, so I’m gonna do my best, so I’m gonna honor that. It’s so big and it’s also in some ways simple. I’ll start by highlighting that abusive, what what we characterize as an abusive relationship is one where there’s a pattern of coercive behavior that is meant to control another partner.?

So I say that because as we talk about other characteristics that might be unhealthy, they might just be unhealthy, not abusive.

Michelle: Yes.?

Caroline: And, I also wanna say this because there might be listeners who say, “Uh oh!, I’ve done that. Does that mean I’m abusive?” And it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re abusive. It might mean that you’ve done some unhealthy things in your relationship. And we all have. It’s part of the learning.?

Miri: We definitely all have.

Caroline: Yeah. Right. Yeah. It’s absolutely part of learning to be in a relationship. I’m guilty of it. We all are. But it’s about learning. So really what we’re looking at is behavior that is meant to diminish someone’s autonomy, their ability to make choices for themselves, and control someone else’s behavior. So this, and I’m like looking for my list. And I …My mind of course is drawing a blank. Um, so it includes physical violence. It doesn’t start there typically, right? But it’s gonna be things that might belittle someone else, not taking responsibility for their own actions, blaming someone else for getting angry or for how someone else’s actions are impacting their emotions. It typically is gonna be really small signs that might isolate someone from their friends and family. Rarely is this seen as, you just aren’t allowed to go see those friends. Eventually it might get there, but in the beginning it might be, “Oh, your friends don’t like me, so, I don’t wanna hang out with them, but if you go hang out with them without me, what does that say?” Right? So it’s this manipulative conversation that can impact oftentimes making survivors world much, much smaller.?

Michelle: Yeah.?

Caroline: It is behavior that is ultimately gonna be disrespectful, lying. cheating. Once again, all these things can happen, in a vacuum, happen one time, but it’s when it’s used to control someone else. That’s when it becomes really problematic.?

Miri: When it’s a system.?

Caroline: Exactly. Yeah. Exactly.?

Michelle: So what are some key steps that our listeners can take to protect themselves or form escape plans in case a relationship sours, or maybe just even recognize patterns before it gets to a certain degree of violence??

Caroline: One thing I think is so important is to, as much as you can, really think about what you want out of a relationship first. It makes me think of, we live in a society that romanticizes romance.?

Miri: Yeah.?

Caroline: Romanticizes relationships, right? Yeah. And one, it puts us in position to oftentimes feel that if we’re not in a relationship, then maybe we’re less than. And we know that’s not true. The more we can be aware of what we really want out of a relationship, and what we wanna put into a relationship, that’s gonna set us up for the most success. That includes what are my boundaries in a relationship? Making sure I know what those boundaries are, so that if I set them and someone doesn’t respect them, that’s a red flag for me, that this might not be the right relationship for me. Right? Things like that. What are my expectations on communication? And then you can see someone who maybe is like having a hard time but trying, versus someone who’s refusing to really learn and be in that. Or multiple partners. I wanna honor that. All shapes and sizes, right? All relationships, all shapes and sizes. Someone can experience abuse or not experience with very healthy relationships. So I think number one is knowing what you want and need out of a relationship, knowing what you want to give. Some red flags really are like jealousy, that someone is unwilling to kind of navigate and work through. It is someone who’s not, taking accountability for their own actions, being mistrustful. So it is really about, are you able to then talk to your partner about this behavior and feel it ¨C or your partners ¨C and make sure that they are responding in a way that’s meaningful to you? Or are they brushing it aside? Those are some of the really early signs that are important. Some other things are love bombing. That’s a term often used in our society, where someone comes on with that love so fast and so strong and it feels so amazing because that’s what media tells us love is.?

Miri: Yes.?

Michelle: Yeah.?

Miri: Yeah.?

Caroline: So it’s hard to not want that. And typically love bombing can be a sign that, there’s someone’s moving too fast, too quick and it might become controlling. So those are just a few very small things for folks to look for. And then on top of, as far as leaving an abusive relationship, we already named that can be really, really hard. If someone’s lives are wrapped up together, they live together, if they have children in common, one partner depends on the others for their finances, that makes it harder to leave. Accessing resources and support is really important. At Portland Community College, as we name, we have the Outreach and Advocacy Project. Folks can reach out to us directly. If we’re not the right resource based on what people are looking for, we will help them get to the right resource, right.?

Miri: Okay.

Caroline: There’s wonderful hotlines to just start a conversation. So it’s always important for me that people know that, regardless of if you want to leave a relationship that’s unhealthy or unsafe, or maybe you don’t know if that’s what you’re experiencing, you can still reach out for support. People can reach out to our staff. There’s called a safety, which is a wonderful 24 ¨C hour hotline where someone can call anonymously and just start to explore what they maybe they’re experiencing. Or start safety planning. Maybe they know they can’t leave an unsafe relationship right now, but they can start exploring what safety planning is and getting a plan in place to leave, if that’s what they choose to do. Not everyone chooses to leave, or can! I wanna put that real, emphasize. They can’t. Not everyone can, and it can take a long time. And for folks who really wanna explore options, it can feel really difficult and it can take time, and there’s absolutely a lot of support out there. In Portland, I just wanna name, too. We do have a lot of great culturally specific programs for folks too. So UNICA is like a culturally specific program for Latinx survivors, and we have other programs as well that are really supportive to all survivors in our community.?

Miri: Awesome.?

Michelle: Wow.?

Miri: So one thing I want to ask about real quick: You mentioned both coming into a relationship with expectations, and how media portrays relationships and romantic love, and I think a lot of people don’t know that you can enter a relationship with an idea of what you want. ‘Cause in movies and books and everything, when someone has an idea that’s always, like ¡°The Bad Idea¡±, that turns out they actually love this other person just for this magical reason that they have to, you know, sell a hundred thousand copies. so I want to ask a little bit more on that. About how to explore yourself in a way that you can not necessarily make a plan on how to enter a relationship, but, how to come up with those mental checklists of like, “What do I want? Do I want someone who can cook for me when I’m tired? Do I want someone who will eat my food that I cook and not complain about spice or flavor or texture, that might be important to me personally or my culture or whatever.” So how should someone who hasn’t thought about this go about starting this?

Caroline: Oh, that’s awesome. I love this question. One, I love that you brought up culture. So, I wanna make sure that we really think about this conversation through the lens of culture and community identity. So what one person’s idea of a healthy relationship is, there’s gonna be similarities with others, but they might not look the same. Number one is you get to choose what you want in their relationship. So with your partner or partners, right? That’s really important. For example, for myself, it’s important to me that I am able to work, like that’s a huge part of my wellbeing, but not everyone feels that way. And finding a partner who is gonna be a breadwinner and allowing one person to really just, their work is the household and making it beautiful, like all the variety of things. That’s wonderful too, it’s about people getting to choose what’s best for them, right??

Miri: Yeah.?

Caroline: And cooking and the wide variety of things, especially when we think about some communities and some individuals prescribed to more specific gender norms than others. But it’s about finding someone in a relationship who’s going to meet you in those and respect you in your choices. I think that some tools to explore what you really want, there’s these cool resources. You can just Google it. Um, Relationship Bill of Rights is a great way to start to explore some ideas about what everyone deserves in a relationship that tends to cross all communities. The opportunity for respect, a variety of other things, right, to really help build you up as a human, as you build your partners up as well. So I think part of it is that, I think part of it is, explore jealousy. Jealousy is something that is, can be romanticized again in our society.

Miri: Definitely.?

Caroline: And, um-?

Miri: I think there’s a pretty famously terrible movie that just came out about that.?

Caroline: Exactly! So if we feel jealous, explore where those feelings come from. If we’re with other people who are feeling a lot of jealousy, explore that. Is that because I have a partner who makes me, gives me reasons to be worried about their behavior? Or is it because I’ve maybe been taught that I’m not worthy enough, right? So exploring that, ’cause we are gonna show up as our best selves when we are able to love ourselves, and trust that people are gonna treat us well. And that we deserve to be treated well. I think boundary exploration and value exploration is really, really important when we think about healthy relationships. As we understand, like we can’t set boundaries if we don’t understand our values. So understand, “what are my values?” And know that they might change over time. It’s very likely that your values at 12 is gonna change at 18, change at 35, et cetera. Right??

Miri: That’s another thing I was thinking about, like, ’cause you get into a relationship and you often have no idea who you are going to be in five years, let alone who your partner’s gonna be in five years or 10 years, or 35 years. So,?

Caroline: Yes. So it is, right? It’s that create opportunity for exploration, exploring that with your partners, like that’s gonna be an important part of what you do together. And then you can develop boundaries based on that. So, boundaries as far as like, it’s just really important to me that I got 15 minutes when I’m done with work to do my own thing. Two, actually, it’s really important to me that we don’t talk about the following topics during certain times of the day, or around religion or the, the wide variety of things, right? So knowing what those are means that you can have important conversations with your partner. If you’re scared to communicate, because of just fear, literally fear of your partner.?

Miri: Yeah.?

Caroline: Or because it feels really scary practicing those communication skills, because that’s an important part of relationships, healthy relationships, is being able to talk. I will always say during these type of conversations, if survivors of violence, if they’re actively experiencing abuse, most of these things they’re not allowed to participate in, right? So I wanna honor that, when there’s no abuse present, that’s when we talk about these things. But for a survivor who’s actively experiencing abuse, setting boundaries can actually become very, very unsafe. So I really wanna make sure to take a moment to name that in this conversation, and then hopefully folks can, in a safe way, explore what these things are, but not if you’re actively in an abusive relationship.

Michelle: That’s very true.?

Miri: Yeah.?

Michelle: I think also just like thinking about like, if there’s like odd behaviors, just like kind of questioning like, why does this feel off to me?

Caroline: Absolutely. So trusting instincts.?

Michelle: Yeah. Trusting your instincts.?

Caroline: Absolutely.?

Miri: We have 2 million years of those for a reason.?

Michelle: Yeah, really.?

Caroline: Also for some folks, if they haven’t had the opportunity to witness a lot of healthy relationships, either in the household or around them, that does make those instincts harder to feel. And this is where creating the opportunity to explore what someone really wants and slowing things down. I know it’s hard in our society to slow things down in relationships sometimes. And that can help.?

Miri: I know some people who haven’t grown up around good relationships, and anytime that they’re presented with what is traditionally thought of as a healthy relationship, they are untrustworthy of it. And also, to some extent, worried that they are going to mess it up, so that they will kind of take steps to do that, whether actually intentionally or not, but they will sabotage themselves just because they don’t have these good experiences prior. They’re only used to bad things, which is, your brain is comfortable with what it’s used to, whether or not that’s actually a comforting thing. So.?

Caroline: Absolutely. So supporting your own self¨Chealing and growth is an important part.?

Miri: Yeah.?

Caroline: Yeah.?

Michelle: Yeah. I also think, I have some friends who are like, “oh, well, like the relationship gets boring.” So I think like maybe just, not able to like find your own boundaries, and like understanding what you want and that’s why they don’t see like a healthy relationship as like a place that they can survive and, yeah.?

Caroline: Yeah.?

Miri: I also think, and this will sound weird, especially since I’m very happily married and plan to be for a long time, but I think breaking up is underrated. I think more people should break up more often. Like, don’t be with someone just ’cause you have been with them and are with them now. If you are bored in a relationship, you can, you can break up. Like sometimes it is difficult. You know, if you’re married, then divorce is expensive. If it is also an abusive relationship, then that adds issues. And breaking up itself is just hard. But I think more people should just break up if they aren’t getting what they want from a relationship, instead of trying to mold the other person into whatever it is they want. Especially because, if they are bored, there’s a good chance they don’t know what they want.?

Caroline: Absolutely.?

Michelle: That’s true.?

Caroline: And setting clear expectations for what you do and don’t want. It makes me also think about how we explore healthy breakups. Like how to do it in a respectful way. Like, yeah, it’s super hard. It’s super uncomfortable.?

Miri: Oh yeah.?

Caroline: And it’s respectful to tell someone that, that you just don’t wanna see them anymore. Like regardless how hard it is.?

Miri: It sucks.?

Caroline: And not be mean. No. You know, there’s no reasons to become abusive or mean during that process.?

Miri: Yeah.?

Caroline: But that’s really respectful when you go to someone and say, “I’m just not interested in this anymore.” So really, really thinking about healthy rejection. Like, I wanna, we we’re talking right now about what folks can do for other folks, right? That healthy breakup, but it’s also helping understanding healthy rejection, and just ’cause it hurts to be rejected, it hurts to be broken up with. And if someone does in a way that’s respectful, that’s actually a gift to you. So you can go find other folks as well. But there is a lot more concern. There’s rising concern in our community a bit around those, what happens when someone’s rejected. Will they become violent, be it rejection on the street, when someone says something, versus in a relationship. So it’s that opportunity to, for individuals to explore what does it mean to be broken up with, or if someone doesn’t want that drink I’m offering them at the bar, or that dance, or what have you, and explore what does that really mean and that it’s okay. It’s just not the right person and that’s okay, right??

Michelle: Yeah.?

Miri: Which is hard, and almost never portrayed. Like,?

Michelle: That’s true.?

Miri: I mean, I think the statistic is, it at least used to be true, but where just most, most violent crimes are perpetrated by the boyfriend, the husband, that kind of thing. often because of-or, more on the point of immediately prior, is the ex-boyfriend or the ex-husband, because they have that sense of rejection and that sense of ownership over this person. So learning how to be broken up with well is also an important skill.?

Caroline: Absolutely, yeah. So, what we know, and based on what you were just saying is that the most dangerous time for someone who’s been experiencing dating relationship abuse is when they’re leaving the relationship. Because the person who has been causing harm is now at a sense of loss of control, and they’re trying to get that control back. And that can become very, very dangerous. When we think about violence against folks, especially violence against women, trans folks, and gender non ¨Cbinary folks, the folks who are causing the most harm, typically, especially around relationships, is the partner. When you think about sexual violence, it’s more often, either someone, a intimate partner, an ex-partner, or an acquaintance that is causing this type of harm. A friend or acquaintance. Right? So it is the people in our lives, which is where, I don’t want people to be scared of the world around us. I don’t want us to be scared of our relationships. And this is where boundary setting, values, how we’re exploring our relationships with different people. Once again, though, this isn’t the person who’s been hurt’s responsibility to change. It’s us as a society. This is where the prevention work comes in, is so important. It’s us as a society to help our friends and family and children and so forth, to be able to handle rejection. It’s about really talking about consent, and how important consent is, from children from a very young age. When we think about who you’re asking them to hug, to like. you know, seeing a friend that I haven’t seen in five years, and still asking if I can hug them, right? Like it’s, the consent is one of the most important things we do, regardless of being within a relationship, regardless of being, if a sexual relationship or not. It’s just how we interact with each other. And then we can build a culture of consent, which starts to, in some ways, break down this system that continues to perpetuate violence.

Michelle: Yeah, absolutely true. So I guess you are talking about consent, but what are some other steps in maintaining healthy relationships? For example, what are some strategies in which audience members can practice healthy communication??

Caroline: I don’t know if I have more to share based on what I did already. Part of it’s practicing communication, right? Right. I ¨Cmessages like that, the non, um, uh, what’s the right term? Nonviolent communication. Just really thinking about what you need in communication and vice versa. There’s lots of amazing strategies out there, and I’m worried I’m gonna say them all wrong, so.?

Miri: That’s fair.

Caroline: I wanna pause there. I guess I just wanna reiterate again, like, part of it is how we keep ourselves safe. Part of it is our responsibility to know ourselves well and what we want, and even more important is that culture change around us. I know we’re talking about what people can do right today though. And part of that is we’ve talked about trusting instincts, understanding the issue more, learning more about red flags. So considering what you want and then what it means if someone’s, your world’s starting to get smaller based on your relationships, right? A big piece is knowing yourself, loving yourself, and surrounding yourself by a strong community. That’s not easy for everyone. I wanna honor that for listeners out there. Um, and then it’s, you know, if you’re a PCC student, check out our identity based resource centers. We have amazing programmings and clubs around belonging, and engagement. We have amazing programs in the PCC community as a whole, or I meant Portland community as a whole.?

Miri: Both! Both are true.?

Caroline: Yeah, exactly.?

Michelle: So, um, you can also find groups to meet up with on Facebook, on meetup.com. And I’m sure that there’s more social websites out there as well.?

Caroline: Absolutely. But a strong community can go a long way to the language of prevention as a protective factor. It’s creating resiliency and protections against the harm that does exist in the world. So you’re more, you’re it’s decreased likelihood that someone might try to cause harm to you.?

Michelle: So what would you think is the most important thing you wanna say to the audience regarding relationship violence? I know you’ve said so much.?

Miri: In case none of that was actually important.?

Michelle: Yeah, I know.?

Caroline: Um, number one, the person who’s experienced harm, victim, survivor, it’s never their fault. It’s never their fault, the abuse they’ve experienced. I would love for folks to really consider the, the question that is often pervasive in our society, about why does that person stay? Oftentimes they say, “Why does she stay?”, right? Because oftentimes we talk about this violence as a gendered violence, which we know it’s not. But why does someone stay in abusive relationship? We have to start changing that question to why does someone hurt their partner??

Miri: Yeah.?

Michelle: That’s absolutely true.

Caroline: Yeah. So if people can think about that, take that away with them, next time you, there’s a famous person or something in media about violence, think about the questions you’re asking yourself. What you say aloud, the friends, conversations you have with friends, and just think about switching that narrative a little bit. ‘Cause that goes a really long way as far as us shifting the environment that once again allows violence to perpetuate. Listening! Listening to people. Yes. Um, a lot of folks who’ve experienced harm, they just wanna be believed and heard. Like how often someone shares they’ve experienced relationship abuse or they’ve been sexually assaulted, they’ve experienced stalking, and people don’t believe them, or they say, “It’s over now, get over it.” Or, ” Is it really that bad?” Or, you know, all the questions; instead, listen. Believe people, believe the impact. If you can’t believe everything they say Believe the impact of the harm. And it’s really hard. And people can heal, and they can be safe, and we really can support an environment where we all can really thrive.

Michelle: Yeah.?

Miri: And abusers can get better.?

Michelle: That’s true.?

Caroline: Yes! They can!?

Miri: It’s very difficult for them, especially in the same relationship in which they were abusive. But having that happen, having being an abuser happen to you in your life isn’t an eternal curse of you are now the scum of the earth. Like, you can take steps and heal, make sure that you aren’t going to do it again and recognize it in yourself. Which I think is weird and hard, and people are like, “Oh, well I can’t be abusive because I’m a good person.” And unfortunately, both those things can kind of be true. Like there isn’t just a black, white moral, there’s not a, a D&D morality chart in real life. Like you can be a real problem in some areas, but also volunteer at a soup kitchen, do things that are traditionally thought of as good. So being able to change yourself as the abusive person, I think is, like you said, that the question needs to be why do people hurt their partners? Also, the question is, why do you hurt your partner??

Caroline: Thank you for naming that. ’cause people really can change. Yeah. . It’s really easy to demonize folks who have caused harm. And accountability is very, very important, community accountability. I wanna be thoughtful of how we use that term. Accountability and, um,?

Miri: Yeah, it just has 800 definitions.?

Caroline: Exactly. Exactly. But once again, as a community, we can do this together. I’ve had the privilege of hearing men speak, in many different ¨C in a couple different variety of ways of really owning their responsibility in an abusive relationship, and what impacted their change. And typically what has been shared, is people that really mattered in their life that was not the partner that they hurt, said, “We love you. You can’t do this anymore.”?

Miri: Yeah.?

Caroline: Not everyone’s gonna change. Sometimes it can take a long time. We’re talking about some pretty significant change someone can go through. And getting help in the way that’s meaningful to you, right? For some people, that’s therapy. For some people that’s religion. It’s a variety of things based on who the individual is. But really holding oneself accountable, and being in an environment where other people will hold you accountable. Because if you’re hurting the loved ones in your life, you’re not happy either.?

Miri: No, yeah. Happy people, with everything figured out, do not hurt their partners.?

Michelle: Hurt people hurt people.?

Caroline: Exactly.?

Miri: Yeah.?

Caroline: And someone who has experienced violence, a survivor, they can’t make someone change, right? Like, uh, some things to think about. We always warn people against couples therapy when they’re in a violent relationship or abusive relationship, because it might suddenly feel safe to tell the therapist everything that’s happening that’s wrong.?

Miri: Interesting. Okay.?

Caroline: And it’s not safe. Or you don’t say anything at all about the abuse, and therefore the person causing harm looks great and wonderful. Right??

Miri: And maybe even gains confidence.?

Caroline: Exactly.?

Miri: Because they’re like, oh, whatever I’m doing must not be that bad if they didn’t bring it up.

Caroline: Exactly. Yeah. It reinforces their own beliefs.?

Miri: Yeah.?

Caroline: And I bring that up once again because we have, can have so much empathy for people and the variety of ways they act, and that behavior that causes harm. We can have empathy and we have to ask people to change. They have to take charge of that. So don’t want survivors to feel like they have to be the impetus for that change, ’cause it’s not on them. Um, even if that’s painful ’cause you love someone that’s hurting you.?

Michelle: Yeah, that’s absolutely true. So one of the questions that we have, which kind of steers away a little bit from [unclear], is: Is your organization experiencing or expecting troubles with what’s currently happening in the Department of Education? And there is so much going on right now.?

Miri: I forgot I put that question in there.?

Michelle: It’s a very rough transition.?

Miri: It’s been on my mind, but my wife’s a teacher and I work, you know, we work for a school and you work for a school, so, you know, I’m sure it’s been on all of our minds.?

Caroline: Yeah. Um, We’ve been so fortunate that PCC has continued to fund our program in really meaningful ways. So, huge shout out for PCC for recognizing that this is an issue that is important to our students. It’s important for the equity and access to education. Um, we are funded by one federal grant. It’s the Office of Violence Against Women Campus Grant. And we are unsure at this time what with the executive orders that came out around grants, federal grants earlier in the year, we’re unsure how that might impact us. So we’re still waiting to see. We pretty quickly saw some changes in, um, language, around equity and access that we could use, and our goal,?

Miri: So, use ¨C sorry, in, in requesting the grant or use just in general without then getting yourself excluded from the grant??

Caroline: Exactly. So that we have to be really thoughtful of how we’re using language so that it doesn’t negatively impact our funding. That being said, we recognize that, gender based violence, so dating, relationship abuse, sexual violence, and stalking, is a social justice issue. Everyone can be impacted, and people are disproportionately impacted based on systemic oppression. We know that, right? So, we are just continue to be really thoughtful of how we can ensure that we have services that are accessible to all survivors, that we are providing culturally responsive, and in some cases culturally specific, services, that we, you know, this is where our partnership with identity ¨Cbased resource centers are so important and we are able to really honor identity and culture in the work that we’re doing and the intersections of the work. Um, we’re a team of four.?

Miri: Yeah, I know. You, your team of four at the start when you were listing all the things that you guys do, I’m like. Four……ty?.?

Caroline: Um, I’m really proud of our program. We have an amazing team. Our student leaders are amazing, amazing partners at PCC. We are doing really great work. So what’s happening in the federal government isn’t going to stop us from doing the work. It’s like what’s happening in the world around us, is what I should probably say instead is: we’re gonna keep doing the work and really making sure that to the best of our abilities, we’re creating, um, resources and access for survivors. And exploring opportunities to explore this topic so that we can, once again, I’m gonna go back to that prevention and culture change. That’s what keeps me going in this work. ’cause it’s an amazing field.?

Miri: Yeah, it’s great work you guys do.?

Michelle: Yeah.?

Miri: And we really appreciate you coming and sharing it with us.?

Michelle: Yeah.?

Caroline: My pleasure. Thank you both so much for having me, and having the opportunity to talk about this April Sexual Assault Awareness month. This is important that we have the opportunity to talk about these things, and how, how it’s impacting all of us, whether we feel it directly or not.

Michelle: Yeah. Yep. Thank you again for joining us. Thank you.?

Closing Thoughts and the Future of the Outreach and Advocacy Project

Miri: Are there any last words you have to share with anybody? On topic, off topic, anything, any good movies you’ve seen?

Caroline: I guess I’m just really hopeful. I know that?

Miri: Me too.?

Caroline: Things are hard. And, um, this is a really difficult topic, and once again, we’re all impacted in, in many different ways just with our… And, I am honored by the people I have worked alongside, both survivors and my amazing colleagues. I feel honored to be in this work and I just am wanna express gratitude to survivors of the community, and their openness to share their stories. And all along with folks who aren’t able to yet, and, uh, I’m just really hopeful that we really can be part of some really, really amazing change in our community.?

Miri: Yeah. I’m hopeful too. I mean, like there is a lot of things going on, but people are, especially because of groups like, like yours, and the work you’re doing, and just social awareness at large. I think that hope should be the driving emotion behind most things going on at this point.?

Michelle: Yeah, I think so.?

Caroline: Oh, lastly, we’re changing our name!?

Miri: Oh, okay!?

Caroline: Oh, we, um, I wanted to make sure to name this ’cause it will look different in the next couple months, but Outreach and Advocacy Project can feel like a complicated name for some folks, so we are engaging our campus community, students, faculty, and staff, really emphasizing student voice, to help us rename our program to be something that, is more easily recognizable, and helps folks understand what we do. So keep an eye out for some name changes.?

Miri: Okay. Awesome. Thank you!?

Michelle: Yeah.

Miri: Thank you all for listening today. This has been an interview with Carolyn Bartlett of the PCC Outreach and Advocacy Program. Thank you for listening to Lets Talk, Portland Community College’s broadcast about disability culture. Find more information and resources concerning this episode and others at pcc.edu/dca. You can also find linked resources on today’s episode page hosted on KBOO.fm, search for Let’s Talk. This episode was produced by the Let’s Talk Podcast Collective as a collaborative effort between students, the Accessible Education and Disability Resources department, and the PCC multimedia department and KBOO. We post newly recorded content biweekly on our home website, again, that’s pcc.edu/dca, and we hope you always tune in to our shows here on KBOO, every first and fourth Friday of the month at 11:00 AM.