Service Group and Faith Alliance – Prevent Child Abuse NC 4/20/2021
Meeting Minutes

Attendees: Councilwoman Cheryl Stallings, Niki Miller, Brittany William,s Nicole Bernard, Kris Demers, Toria, Nancy Hagan, Chris, Officer Kenneth Ragland, Officer Victoria Carter, Mindy Varkevisser, Ashlin Moore, Tracey O’Neal, Thomas Klatt, Sonya Edwards, Deb Vinci, Kim Adcock, Karen Morant

Announcements:

● Thank you from Nicole Bernard for assistance from Esther International and Brittany Williams for coordination with foster children.

● Shield NC is fundraising to hire consultants to prepare handouts for trafficking.
● Introduction of Child Abuse Prevention presenters and program for today: Tracey O’Neal and Kris Demers.
● Brittany Williams provided Esther International House update for a restoration home to serve 1-4 women now. They expect to be working with and walking alongside case managers and current clients to provide housing. They are looking for something smaller house wise and for churches and groups to help with rent for these places for the next year as they get started. Please reach out to her if you can help in any way. Also looking for board members ideally with fundraising experience. https://est-her.org/

Notes:

Tracey O’Neal, Faith-Based Partnership Engagement Manager at Prevent Child Abuse NC began 1 1/2 years ago and found faith communities have been very helpful in helping with child abuse. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) presentation to be shared highlighted that Prevent Child Abuse NC and Shield NC share goals particularly around community involvement to protect the vulnerable. “Possibilities are endless when communities unite to protect the vulnerable”

● Faith communities have a special role in health and well being of communities. 1 in 4 individuals in need will go to the Faith Based community first. Those who participate in religious services are happier, less likely to have substance abuse issues and most likely to volunteer. Faith Communities provided 40% of social net services.

● We then watched a TED Talk by Dr. Nadine Burk, “How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime.” ○ Childhood trauma takes many forms. Dr Burk was trained to refer victims to agencies but determined a causal issue after she opened CA Pacific medical center. ○ Exposure to trauma affects physical health. Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) was a common denominator and 67% of individuals with illnesses had one Adverse Childhood Experience while 12% had 4 or more Adverse Childhood

Experiences. Health outcomes were worse for individuals with higher ACE scores. ○ Impacts of ACEs were noted on brain structure and development,as well as on the developing immune system ○ Professionals are beginning to learn how to disrupt the negative impacts and physical outcomes. It is treatable and beatable. Need courage to look at this and recognize it is all of us.

● Faith communities naturally provide protective factors. Prevent Child Abuse NC has identified 5 protective factors: ○ parental resilience ○ social mental competence of children ○ concrete supports ○ knowledge of parenting and child development ○ social connections. https://www.preventchildabusenc.org/resource-hub/protective-factors/

● (Strengthen families and communities…. To be sent to Niki)
● Connections Matter Congregation: https://www.preventchildabusenc.org/resource-hub/protective-factors/

Next, Kris Demers, Communications Manager of Prevent Child Abuse NC provided a wealth of information and resources. https://www.preventchildabusenc.org/our-work/policy/
● April is Child Abuse Prevention Month

● Be a connection for children in your community
● Connections Matter NC identifies ways to be a positive connection and strengthen families (link?} Questions and Ideas for Helping: ○ Pinwheels for Prevention ○ #Be a connection campaign – post ideas for support ○ Digital advocacy day April 21 ○ Online store ○ Request a speaker ○ Toolkit ○ Recognize and Responding What is Children Sabbath – highlighting in your service raising awareness of child abuse including human trafficking What is Community Café – asking hosts (church) and agencies/communities what they want to improve; harvest repetitive relevant topics and how to address issues and highlight great things. Screen TED Talk as a great way to shift perspective. All
North Carolinians are mandatory reporters of abuse in NC. DHHS and Child Abuse NC combine to help if a child is identified as a victim of abuse. Online checklists for policies and tools in dealing with children.

Attendees:

Councilwoman Cheryl Stallings Bianca Mason
Emily daCamara
Nancy Hagan

Officer Kenneth Ragland Mindy Varkevisser

Announcements:

Niki Miller
Nicole Bernard Toria
Chris
Danica Coleman

Service Group and Faith Alliance LGBTQ Youth and Human Trafficking 3/16/2021
Meeting Minutes

● Esther International is holding a Vision Night on March 28th.

Notes:

Kori Hennessey, Director of Education and Programs at the LGBT Center of Raleigh, presented on why LGBT youth experience greater vulnerability to exploitation and how communities can respond to better prevent their trauma.

• LGBTQ+ youth are disproportionately trafficked
•  1 in 5 homeless youth become trafficking victims.
• 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ+ in the US.
• 46% of the homeless youth that identify as LGBTQ+ ran away from homebecause their family rejected them. (Most often, a LGBTQ+ youth becomes homelessness because they run away from home due to family rejection. The second most frequent reason a LGBTQ+ youth becomes homeless is because they are forced to leave their home when their family learns of their sexual preference.)
• 56% of transgendered youth are involved in commercial sex
• 1 in 3 LGBTQ+ homeless youth are likely to be lured into trafficking within 48hours of leaving homeKori brought our attention to the 2020 State Index on Youth Homelessness, which scores all 50 states on the states’ efforts to prevent and end youth homelessness. https://www.youthstateindex.com/north-carolina

According to this report, North Carolina’s overall score was 35 out of 100. Please see link above for the full report.

How can we help?

Kori suggests the following initiatives:

1. Fund community-led solutions, for example, donate to nonprofits andorganizations that support and create safe places for marginalized and at riskyouth
2. Create safe spaces and peer-led support groups. Kori explains that LGBTQ+youth are more likely to be open and honest with other peers and younger adults.
3. Service providers can offer gender-friendly services. They can also use inclusivelanguage, policies and approaches to be able to reach and support these youth.
4. Listen to what LGBTQ+ youth are saying when they confide in you.

Service Groups and Faith Alliance Mental Health
Feb 16, 2021

Attendees:

Nicole Bernard, Officer Kenneth Ragland, Niki Miller, Danica Coleman, Mindy Varkevisser, Cheryl Stallings, Toria, Britney Williams, Kim Adcock, Jim Ahler, Terri Reed, Maria Cervania, Sonya Edwards, Joi Whittington, unknown

Haley Gray was our speaker today. Haley is a successful business woman, a best-selling author, holds an MBA from Duke’s prestigious Fuquay School of Business, founded Women’s Entrepreneurial Network Group and is Founder and CEO of Fiercely Marketing. We are grateful that Haley made time to speak to our group and share her experience navigating the health care system after her daughter’s horse-riding accident resulted in a traumatic brain injury and subsequent psychosis. We were impressed by Haley’s willingness to share the personal details of her family’s struggle and we admire her courage to speak out and advocate for change.

Haley’s daughter, Laura, was in a horse riding accident in Dec 2015 when she was 17. She was able to complete the competition and fly home. When her family picked her up at the airport, they knew right away that something was wrong. Her conversation was nonsensical. “It was like Alice In Wonderland” or “the worst acid trip.” Laura was hospitalized and the family was forever changed.

Laura was diagnosed with a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and immediately the gaps in our mental health system began to be exposed. The doctor who diagnosed Laura with a TBI told the family that TBI’s do not usually lead to major psychiatric issues. Since then, Haley learned how very wrong that doctor was and how incredibly common it is for psychiatric issues to occur after traumatic brain injuries.

Since that day, Laura has had 18 hospitalizations; each a result of an attempt to commit suicide or homocide, all while still under psychiatric care.​ Laura often has delusions and some of them have resulted in attempts to harm or even murder her family. This left her family sleeping with one eye open or in shifts. She was not able to return to high school because she was unable to hold her thoughts together. She received additional diagnoses of Bipolar Disorder, Schizophrenia, and autism.

Major deficits in the number of beds in North Carolina’s psychiatric hospitals led to ​several stays in emergency rooms for weeks at a time​. In one instance, Laura stayed in a room in a

hospital emergency department for 7 weeks waiting for a bed in a psychiatric hospital! It is important to note that the psychiatric rooms in emergency departments are nothing more than holding cells. They are empty except for a bed and maybe a rubber chair nailed to the floor. There are no windows so no natural lighting and visitation is restricted. “Staying in a room like that is enough to make anyone crazy.” Often their insurance company would insist Laura needed to be discharged, only for her to become suicidal or homicidal within days of release and return back to a hospital. One time, Laura was released from the hospital into an outpatient program. The outpatient program refused to continue treating her because her psychosis was “distressing other patients.” There was no place for Laura to go.

Central Regional Hospital consistently had no bed for her. Psychosis is not curable. “There is no medication or treatment that would render her not psychotic.” She needed 24 hour awake care because of her homicidal and suicidal tendencies but there was no place for her to go and her family was at a breaking point. It is at this point that many families would kick their psychotic relative out of the house for the safety of others. The link between homelessness and mental illness is perfectly illustrated in this story. Also evident is how untreated mental illness leads to overcrowded prisons and overburdened emergency rooms. Ms. Gray also pointed out that patients with persistent mental illnesses often become drug addicts. Instead of abandoning their daughter, the Gray’s pushed on and persistently advocated for her. This included driving Laura to Central Regional Hospital and insisting they find a bed for her, which the hospital did.

So what is the answer?

Ms. Gray believes that when a patient is discharged from care, there needs to be a solid step-down discharge plan in place to allow the patient to ease back into a normal routine at home. A Continuum of Care is vital to the proper, humane treatment of these patients and for the mental health of their family members.

Ms. Gray also pointed out that several studies have found it is more cost effective to provide proper housing for mental health patients than it is to burden social services, hospitals, and the mental health system. This would increase the number of available beds, save money and improve treatment outcomes.

Finally, Ms. Gray emphasized the need for research and funding for evidenced based treatment, and the willingness for insurance companies to pay for those treatments.

Local policymakers were on the call today and vowed to make necessary changes to improve the mental health care system.

Service Groups and Faith Alliance Homelessness in Wake County Jan 19, 2021

Attendees:

Nicole Bernard, Officer Kenneth Ragland, Niki Miller, Kim Crawford, Apex Town Council Member Brett Grantt, Apex Town Council Member Cheryl Stallings, Yvonne Harrison, Frances Bisby, Phil Welch, Karen Morant, L Crosslin, Toria,Carla Witherington, Wendy Scott, T. Barksdale, S Peterson,Craig Varkevisser, Nicole Singletary,Jim Ahler, Joselyn Williams,Morgan Mansa, Mindy Varkevisser,Robin Hammond

Summary:

Nicole Bernard reviewed the 4 -level socio ecological model. The four nested, hierarchical levels of this model are Individual, Relationship, Community and Societal. This is the gold-standard model used to structure prevention strategies. We used this model to determine our Service Group and Faith Alliance topics for 2021.

Officer Ragland recognized Apex town council members attending the call and introduced ​Kim Crawford, the executive director of Raleigh/Wake Partnership to End Homelessness​(The Partnership). kcrawford@partnershipwake.org​https://partnershipwake.org/our-staff/

Ms. Crawford began by explaining the Homeless Crisis Response System in North Carolina as follows:

Several years ago, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) mandated that 12 Homeless Continuum of Care (CoC) regions be created in NC. The Partnership is a paid consultant of the Raleigh/Wake County CoC, the second largest CoC.​https://www.ncceh.org/coc/

HUD requires each CoC to:

1. collect data on service recipients and maintain one Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) per state.
2. maintain a Coordinated Entry (or Assessment) System to ensure fair and consistent access into the Homeless Crisis Response System. This system determines who is eligible for services and which services best fits their immediate needs.

Some tasks The Partnership assists with are training CoC professionals to properly maintain required records, convening the CoC twice a week, and applying to various funding sources on behalf of the many service providers.

So how did the system work in Wake County Pre-COVID?

Originally, there were 8 emergency sites where people could walk up and request an overnight stay. This was problematic because entry allowance was not consistent and the 8 sites were only accessible to locals since transportation is often difficult for individuals experiencing homelessness. There were 620 shelter beds available in Wake County pre-COVID.

How is the system working in Wake County now, during COVID?

About 6 months ago, a call center was created to rectify some of the problems mentioned above. (Currently the call center averages about 1,000 calls a week.) The call center employees’ initial goal is to divert the caller to other available services so the caller does not have to enter the Crisis Homeless Response System and deal with the negative effects associated. If a true need for emergency services is determined, call center employees would enter the caller’s information into the Coordinated Entry System and direct the caller to a shelter with open beds.​The call center phone number is 919-443-0096. The individual needing help has to call in for themselves due to confidentiality restrictions.

Due to social distancing mandates, the 620-bed capacity went down to between 400 and 450. Wake County worked with area hotels to secure more beds. At peak demand in late August, Wake County had 1,135 occupied shelter beds. Unfortunately,as of December 31st, the hotel beds were no longer made available. Currently, there are only 475 shelter beds in Wake County, but 600 beds are in need. Anyone who calls the Call Center now will be turned away or put on the waiting list.​The current wait to get into a shelter is 4 to 6 weeks!!​In addition, there are 487 households in need of an address. When the eviction moratorium is lifted, the situation will get exponentially worse.

Shelter workers and homeless service providers are overwhelmed and worn out.​Even though funding is coming from COVID emergency relief in the form of Emergency Solution Grant Funding, the housing program workers and managers don’t want it​. They can’t fathom accepting more work. They are simply overworked and do not have the stamina to keep up with the never-ending influx of individuals who need help. The whole system is overwhelmed.

The Raleigh/Wake County CoC has implemented an initiative called the ​Landlord Engagement Housing Navigation Program which approaches landlords and asks them to please set aside one or two housing units to help combat the homelessness problem in Wake County. ​Since there are 700-800 landlords in Wake County, they are hoping that his program will help supply hundreds of housing units. The details are here:​https://www.triangleaptassn.org/housewake​.​Notably, the program offers signing bonuses for the leases that go through their program. For a long-term lease, the bonus is $750, $600 for a 6-month lease, and $350 for a month-to-month lease signed.

Service Group and Faith Alliance Meeting 11/17/2020

Announcements:

• If your organization would like to ​host a blood drive​ in your parking lot, please contact Officer Ragland (kenneth.ragland@apexnc.org). In addition to collecting life-saving blood, a financial donation will be made to Shield NC.
• The Apex PD will be doing ​Christmas With A Cop​ again this year. Please contact Officer Ragland if you would like to nominate a family. (kenneth.ragland@apexnc.org)
• The Apex PD has decided to ​adopt ALL seniors at Brentwood and Spring Arbor​ this year since it was such a popular outreach last year. They need help in collecting gifts for the seniors in these communities. They will need items such as gripper socks, toiletries, 100 piece puzzles(with large pieces), art supplies, games, etc.
• Project Fight​ is putting together gifts such as gift cards. Please Elizabeth Hunter for more information ​elizabeth.hunter@uss.salvationarmy.org.
• Western Wake Crisis Center​ is looking for a site to host final interviews for their ED in which they can appropriately space. Also, if anyone is in need of an office cubicle, WWCM has one to donate.Guest SpeakerBritney Williams, founder of Est/Her International, spoke to us about her progress in opening a home for human trafficking survivors in Apex. Britney has served young people since her early days as a youth director at her church. Through many overseas missions trips she was exposed to the horrors of human trafficking and felt a calling to help eradicate it. She decided to move to San Pedro, Belize to serve as executive director at the Shine Girls program which assists girls coming out of trafficking. There she helped to create Hope Haven which consists of an artisan program, food bank, shelter, classroom and a safe place for human trafficking survivors. (For more info on Shine and Hope Haven click ​here​.)

We are now fortunate to have Britney back in her hometown of Apex, NC! Since she has returned, she founded Est/Her International. Short for “Establish Her”, Est/Her International supports abused and at-risk women and young people within local communities through empowerment and education all by the love and grace of Jesus Christ. Their next step is to open a home for human trafficking survivors in Apex. Shield NC has partnered with Britney as she visited several “stateside” survivor homes and continues to evaluate relevant research to determine best practices for operating a home and develop effective, evidence-based treatment for survivors. Britney has also spent the last couple of years building relationships with the local organizations who are already combating human trafficking. She has completed her due diligence and is now ready to act.

The vision for the Apex home is a large natural area with several buildings and multiple independent living structures​. Phase One of the survivor program will entail living with a few other survivors in the main home with the oversight of a “house mom”. In the next phase, the survivor would be offered an independent living situation with less supervision. In each phase the individual will attend various life skill classes, receive trauma care counseling with a trauma-informed therapist and work at an on-site studio in order to learn business skills and develop a good work ethic.

Britney picked Apex, NC for this project because she knows Apex is a warm, supportive community. Her instinct was confirmed by the support of our mayor and individuals on the town council. Her endeavor has also received approval and encouragement by the North Carolina Human Trafficking Commission.

Britney would love to speak with you and answer any questions you have. ​You can email her at ​britney.est-her.org​ or call 704-591-1091. ​She is passionate about restoring women and would be excited to hear from anyone who would like to serve

Racial Equity and Equality Presentation Notes, Shield NC

Bryana Clover, Owner 1619 Consulting
Videos:
1619: The First Africans in Virginia and the Making of America (Part 1) The Myth of Race, Debunked in 3 Minutes
Systemic Racism Explained
Resource I referenced (2019 report attached to email):
Equity in the Center

Professor Dafina-Lazarus Stewart, a researcher of diversity, equity, and justice in US higher education. She addresses questions every D&I initiative should ask. Quote:

• Diversity asks, “Who is in the room?”
• Equity responds, “Who is trying to get in the room but can’t? Whose presence in theroom is under constant threat of erasure?”
• Inclusion asks, “Have everyone’s ideas been heard?”
• Justice responds, “Whose ideas won’t be taken as seriously because they aren’t in themajority?”
• Diversity asks, “How many more of [pick any marginalized identity] group do we havethis year than last?”
• Equity responds, “What conditions have we created that maintain certain groups as theperpetual majority here?”
• Inclusion asks, “Is this environment safe for everyone to feel like they belong?”
• Justice challenges: “Whose safety is being sacrificed and minimized to allow others tobe comfortable maintaining dehumanizing views?”
• Questions for Faith Leaders:
  • What can we hope for in communities where the story of togetherness began with the oppression of one group by another?
  • Do we understand the role of the Church in perpetuating racism then and now?
  • How does our perspective and impact change if we understand “reconciliation” to be averb rather than a noun?• •••Jesus sought to reconcile us on the deepest level where reconciliation is a verb…a process that never ends. Not an arriving point, but rather a messy, authentic, inefficient, unprofessional, slow, loving participation in one another’s lives.

Where do I sense God calling me into more authentic cross-cultural relationships?

When is it time to slow down and tend to relational connection, and when is it time to push ahead processes of social or political reform?

What might I need to change about my pace of life to make space and time for reconciling relationships?

What can I learn from Jesus’ relationships with those different from him?