Strong At The Heart

I just stumbled on an excellent website with great resources for child advocates or for anyone concerned with child abuse/recovery/offender issues. Best Interests calls itself “a website for children’s advocates” and it certainly is a great place for people like CASA volunteers, therapists and social workers. Survivors, too, find news and useful information.

The books section is especially rich. Navigating through the subject heading toolbar on the left or the search engine will bring you to a wealth of good titles, mostly for adults. To my joy, I found an excellent page there on Strong at the Heart.

The links page is extensive and hard to use because there are so MANY links in alphabetical order and no way to jump forward or scan. But the subject tool bar works great.

The book pages link to Powell’s Books one of the last, great independent bookstores.

BTW, Cody’s Books, that great Berkeley, California, institution has just sunk under the waves. If you want to be able to open a book before you buy it, explore quirky or deliberately focused collections, and keep your local economy strong remember to walk in to your locally owned bookstore and spend some money there!

I can’t imagine life without my hometown bookstore, Northtown Books. The owner, Dante, tells me that he will be upgrading the web presence soon and include a searchable inventory and book ordering feature. In the mean time, he’s keeping a book blog that’s worth checking out.

This weekend I’ll be headed for Davis, California, to receive the Friend of the Child Award from young child abuse advocates.

The Courageous Kids’ Network is a group of young adults who speak out about their experiences being placed with abusive parents by family courts. Now that they are out of abuseve homes, they are speaking out to help other kids. I’ve heard a lot about them but this will be my first chance to meet them in person.

The conference is the 14th Annual Child Sexual Abuse Awareness Conference put on by the California Protective Parents Association.

Jessica Hendry, who played Dejar in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine will speak at the conference about her memoir How Yo Cook Your Daughter, and what it was like when she confronted the famous father who abused her.

more news

Later this month, on April 24, I’ll be speaking at the Downstate Conference on Child Abuse in Southern Illinois.

I’ll present a plenary session on STRONG AT THE HEART and lead a workshop in Overcoming the Stigma of Abuse.

Twenty three years ago I wrote my first children’s book about childhood sexual abuse, PROMISE NOT TO TELL. After it came out I received occasional heartfelt and touching letters, typed or handwritten, and forwarded to me by my editor in New York. Occasionally a therapist in my own area would call or stop me on the street to let me know she was using the book with a client or a children’s librarian would let me know it was being checked out. That was the way it happened then.

Now, having a website for STRONG AT THE HEART, I receive inquiries from all over. Kids who want to know how to get out of a bad situation. A young woman 7000 miles away who writes to me about finding the courage to go into therapy. A man in his 50′s amazed at and encouraged by seeing the faces of male survivors. Conference organizers who want me to speak at their event or do trainings for professionals. Other writers. Survivors with resources to suggest. Librarians asking for book referrals.
We have conversations. I hear how people’s lives change. We exchange ideas and experiences.  And I learn so much.

gift from within

A reader recommended a site that others may find helpful. Here’s the self-description from the organization:

Gift From Within, a nonprofit organization, is dedicated to those who suffer post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), those at risk for PTSD, and those who care for traumatized individuals. We have articles written by authorities in the field, poetry and art gallery for trauma survivors, peer support network, coping and inspirational stories, a Q&A, videos, book reviews, list of retreats for survivors, global list of trauma survivor support groups, meditations, and other educational materials and resources.

I just received in the mail a hard copy of The Prevention Researcher, “a multidisciplinary journal focusing on successful adolescent development and at-risk youth.”

There–on pages 11 and 12–is the most comprehensive and thoughtful review of Strong at the Heart ever. The reviewer, Dr. Jacqueline Golding, is writing here for a professional audience. She really understands the power of survivors defining their experience.

You can read the full review on line. Here’s a snippet from the end:

“In addition to being a wonderful resource for adolescent and adult survivors of sexual abuse, Strong at the Heart can be of great use to people who have not been sexually abused, but are close to someone who has been. … A survivor’s partner, friend, or parent can use Strong at the Heart to better understand and support the healing process of the person close to them.”

The current issue of The Prevention Researcher can be read on line. Their website has an extensive archive of articles on healing and the prevention of trauma–some of which require a fee to download.

picturebooks

BTW, the reviewer is herself an author. Healing Stories: Picture Books for the Big and Small Changes in a Child’s Life is an annotated bibliography of over 500 picture books. The author is a clinical psychologist and a mother who has a clear sense of what resources will be helpful for parents, counselors and teachers who work with the very young.

No, it is never too late for a good review!

The latest appeared in the November issue of PPT Express, a newsletter for teachers and others working with pregnant and parenting teens.

The editor, Jeanne Lindsay, who is also the publisher of Morning Glory Press, had asked me for an article on Sexual Abuse and Teen Pregnancy. Then she ran a review of my book as well!

Here is the review in its entirety:

“Nine survivors of childhood sexual abuse speak frankly about the abuse they experienced and the ways they found to heal. Research shows that a majority of teen mothers and a high percentage of teen fathers have been sexually abused. I highly recommend having copies of this book available for reading and discussing with teens. Those who have been abused can learn they are not alone, and that it is possible to heal. And this book can help those who have not experienced abuse become more caring and compassionate. Order from your local or on-line bookstore.

Nice–and concise!

a birthday of sorts
It’s been two years since Strong at the Heart was launched at Northtown Books in Arcata. What a ride those two years have been.

Speaking on the book has given me the opportunity to talk with so many different kids of people about various aspects of healing from sexual abuse, about literature for teens, about how we can make the world a safer place for kids. From the public library in Bend, Oregon, to Harvard University, from San Francisco’s Mission District to the IVAT conference in San Diego, it has been a long and fascinating trip. One I could not have foreseen two years ago. Thanks to all of you who have made these two years so rich!

For some reason, readers at this site tend to write emails directly to me, rather than post their thoughts here. For me that’s great, but then others miss out on the conversation.

Today I heard from a gentleman who attended a book event that Arturo and I did a few days ago in the Bay Area (yep, I’ll post about that soon). He sent a link for an excellent article on HIV and sexual abuse survivors.

The article has good advice for survivors dealing with doctors–whether they are HIV positive or have other health issues, so I want to share the resource with the rest of you.

It’s called Two Time Survivor. Incest survivors who are dealing with AIDs aren’t the only “two timers.” When I was diagnosed with a rare cancer four years ago, my first response was “I’m already a survivor! I don’t need a second time around.”

But in the next few days I realized that dealing with a sexual abuse history had taught me a lot that helped me with this new event. First of all, I knew I wasn’t going to try to do this alone or in isolation. I told all my friends and those who could deal with it did and were great support, and those who couldn’t, well bless them, we can’t be all things to all people.

I also recognized the feelings I was going through. A serious diagnosis is a trauma, and I had a traumatic reaction–fear, disbelief, anxiety. But going through healing from child abuse has given me a lot of tools. I’ve faced terror and walked through it. I know that tough realities can be faced, and lived through. I have the skills I need to calm myself and get centered, to stay focused in the present. And I knew how to ask for help and organize a healing team.

Fortunately my health is great right now. But going through that tough time gave me a new appreciation for all that the healing process had given me.

When I left home for the International Conference on Violence, Abuse and Trauma in San Diego, I felt unsure about the whole enterprise. There’d been a mix up about ordering books. My workshop had been paired with a report on sexual abuse and the military. And the book signing was scheduled for two days before I spoke.

But you just never know, and I was meeting a dear old friend, Connie Valentine, who is an amazing activist for protective parents.

It turned out to be a fabulous experience.

cohort

One thing I hadn’t anticipated was what it would be like to be with a thousand people who get it about trauma and healing. (There were a few offender apologist types hanging at the edges, but almost everyone was there to learn and to share knowledge and insight.)

At the poster session, I talked with a youth counselor about the kids he is working with, teenage survivors who are supporting each other as they heal. I met activists and educators from Taiwan and Jamaica. And two women who are also writing about how children’s literature addresses the “hard stuff.” They haven’t yet tackled child sexual abuse, but want to. We traded resources and I hope to hear from them.

Some highlights for me were Beyond Abuse, a session put on by three thriving survivors; meeting and talking with David Clohssey, co-founder of SNAP (Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests), who gave an dynamite address; an excellent session on working across cultural differences on issues of interpersonal violence; and the presentation of her research on sexual abuse and military vets, by Dr. Shamala Karuvannur, my co-presenter.

like a glove

As the convener Linda Brown must have known, our talks fit together beautifully.

Shyamala presented a problem–a serious one, that many young people in the VA hospital who are suffering from PTSD are survivors of sexual abuse either in childhood or the military, frequently both. Often the offenders were above them in rank, and if they reported, the survivors were discharged from the military and the offenders retained, receiving at best a slap on the wrist. Sound like a familiar dynamic?

I presented solutions, both personal and communitywide, from the lived experiences of survivors young and old.

She talked about how hard it was to report within a system that didn’t support victims. I talked about the stigmas and stereotypes that keep us silent and how we can break free of them. She spoke of ruined lives, I showed pictures and stories of people who moved beyond PTSD to Post Traumatic Growth. She graphed the numbers, I provided handouts with resources.

The room was packed and the discussion was lively, spilling out into the corridor and on to email after the conference.

community responsibility

One story that I had chosen to go into depth on was Sheena’s and I was glad I had loaded photos of Auntie Jane and the community. Because Hollow Water is an example of a community that has really turned on this issue. I could present to this group of people, many concerned about ingrained systems and prejudices, that one group of people had found a way to bring sexual abuse out in the open, make perpetrators responsible for their actions, and kept balance and continuity, honoring both tradition and victim’s rights.

home, but not for long

It was good to be home, but I’m heading out again soon. If you are in the Bay Area, it would be great to see you at either of these events:

Thursday, Oct. 11, 1-5 pm
Walden House
Cesar’s Hall, 1885 Mission Street, 3rd Floor,
3 CEUs for MFTs and LCSWs
to reserve a spot call Melba Smith, 415-355-2535

Saturday, October 13th, 1-3 p.m.
Berkeley Public Library
2090 Kittredge Street
(at Shattuck in downtown Berkeley)
3rd floor Community Meeting Room

Arturo from the book will be joining me at both of these events and presenting his story live.