Assembly Select Committee on Select Committee on Domestic Violence

Good morning, everyone. Good morning. Thank you. I would like to get the Select Committee on Domestic Violence hearing started this morning. We have Assembly Members that are joining us, and as you know, it's a heavy scheduling time, so they'll be in and out. But I want to make sure that we get started on time to respect your time. And with that. Hello again. I'm Assemblywoman Blanca Rubio.

I represent the 48th Assembly District in Southern California, and I'm also the chair of the Select Committee on Domestic Violence. I would like to welcome all of you here today. Really appreciate it. As you know, or if you don't know, I have a personal story with domestic violence. My sister is a survivor of domestic violence. And through this journey, when I was elected to the Legislature, I figured what better way to participate than to be the Select Committee Chair? And so I've been the Chair.

Then Covid happened. We were on our way to make sure that we were at least discussing and trying to resolve some of these issues. But then Covid came and we started doing remote. But unfortunately, Covid actually increased, in my opinion, and I think there's data to show that increased the instances of domestic violence. So I think now we have more work than we ever thought that we had.

It was unfortunate, but fortunately, that some of these issues came to the surface so that we can at least start talking and trying to address some of those. As you know, domestic violence impacts many people. It's not just the actual victim, but the family members, the children. I think that's the issue that we haven't really discussed that much is how it affects children through this ordeal. And family members, parents, brothers, sisters, everybody is kind of. We're all victims at some form or another.

And for most of us, we have no idea. We don't know what to actually do. And I think that's why it's important that we keep having these hearings, because I learn something new every single time, and I've shared with you, and I hate to say it this way, but I'm very frank about my sister's abuser. The original court filing was in 2016. We had a three-year restraining order. He violated the restraining order. And a different court, a different judge issued a five-year restraining order.

And when we talk about restraining orders, you think, oh, we're done, it's all over. That is not the case, and we are in the middle of a lawsuit. He's suing us for multiple things, defamation being one. And for whatever reason, we can't get rid of that constant. I want to call it torture, but the constant assault, if you will, of just our daily lives. It may not be physical, but it's mental. The lawsuit was filed on guess when?

February 14 of 2022, just on times Valentine's day. And I was really shocked. I was like, oh my God, who does that? Right. Well, come to find out that that's the regular operation of somebody that abuses, is they pick Valentine's, Mother's Day, all of the major holidays to remind their victims that they're still there. And it's difficult because I think, I'm an Assembly Member. I have resources. This couldn't be happening to all of us, right?

And as you know, my sister is a Senator, and we, by all accounts, have all of the access that we can need. And even we are still going through this. I cannot imagine what folks that don't have resources, folks that don't have anybody to go to. Well, I guess I can't imagine. I know what they're going through, because it's unfortunate that there's such a big disconnect between what's happening on a daily basis and the resources that we have available now.

Not to say that we don't offer, and we haven't made strides to make sure that victims have some resources, there's some support, but it's not enough, as you all know. And I think that's going to be the topic today. We're talking about how it affects different communities. At the end of the day, each community is affected.

And that's what the goal is, to have those discussions and try to put some, at least one actionable item after the discussion that we can actually come back and say, hey, we did that because it feels overwhelming, because there's so many issues. But I've learned, I was a teacher, so I learned that if we try to tackle everything at once, we're just chasing our tail at that point.

If we at least focus on 12 or three actions that we can complete by the next time we meet, then we've moved the needle, so to speak, to try and tackle this major issue. This issue affects men, women of women, people of color, caucasian. It doesn't discriminate poor people, rich people. It encompasses all of us, all of our groups, our Native American community, our Latino community, our African American community, our know, all of the communities are affected by this. And then that's community-wise.

But I think in general, it affects the psyche of all of us. And it's a tragedy for the State of California, for the United States that we are still trying to put so many resources in helping the victims. But I'm really proud to say that through the partnerships, we've been able to at least put some relief for the folks that are affected by this.

I do want to thank the partnership on domestic violence because they've been very instrumental in helping us try to navigate through some of these issues. I was at a rally last week for the teen violence prevention, and there had been an incident, and I was trying to get to the podium and I couldn't because I was upset over an issue with the domestic violence abuser and gave them an earful. And then I was like, okay, now I can go and do this.

So on a daily basis, and we think we're free, but we're not. There's always something that comes up. So I want to thank all of you for being here as well, before we start the panel. Well, actually, our Assembly Members are not here. We've made some phone calls. Again, patience, please. But this is so important that I want to make sure that you all know, obviously, this is recorded, but we use the information to have next steps.

And my colleagues, when they arrive, they have been true partners with me. As soon as I said, hey, I'm going to do this again, let's try. We had everybody jump in and say, I want to participate. And so I know they'll be here. And with that, I would like to call the first panel up to present what will focus on issues surrounding the prevention of domestic violence. They will cover topics such as community mobilization and school based outreach. I think that's so important.

All of it is important, but school based outreach from the rally that we had last week, it is amazing how many of our children are going through not just issues with their parents, but personal issues at school. And I think if we can help them through this now, we can teach them about healthy relationships. I'm really excited to hear about that.

And then, so today with us and speaking in this order will be Dr. Pamela Tate, the Co-Executive Director of Black Women Revolt Against Domestic Violence, Pablo Espinoza, the Co-Executive Director of Community United Against Violence, and Nat Wadman, Community Program Director for the Center for the Pacific Asian Family. If you would please come up. Really would appreciate that. And then we can go ahead and get started with Dr. Pamela Tate. Can you all hear? Thank you.

Good morning. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for having us here. I'm Pamela Tate, and I am from Black women revolt against domestic violence. And it is an honor to be here with you again and to see you again after the teen domestic violence rally we had a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to start off with just talking about Black women revolt.

We are a two-year-old, well, two-and-a-half-year-old organization based in San Francisco, and I have extensive experience in domestic violence coming from multiple areas within the field, as well as personal experiences with domestic violence. And so I wanted to say, when I started at my previous employment, prior to working in this, I had really reached out and tried to get funding for prevention specifically to address young adults who don't understand or know anything about domestic violence. And it was important.

And we were fortunate when I moved over to this organization to get funded from call OES, specifically around prevention for the five years prior to that. Every year, we come up with programming, and I would say, I'm interested in running something specifically to address prevention for not just adults, but for young adults and children. And there was never any funding. That was disheartening. But I was grateful when we started Black Women Revolt to be able to say, hey, we can put together a youth advisory council.

And so, excuse me, we did that. The great thing about that has been we get to work with young adults and really start to address and help them understand what is domestic abuse. We've done a couple of focus groups in addition to an online survey around San Francisco specifically to find out what did young adults and children know about domestic abuse. And immediately, they would always say things like, well, I'm in this relationship, but he didn't hit me, she didn't hit me.

And we were like, there's a lot more that is involved in domestic abuse. And so as we talked about the different areas, emotional abuse, financial abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, technological abuse, which a lot of our young people are experiencing, it became really obvious that there was a need to talk about prevention. As we think about prevention, people go, they're too young to even understand or need prevention.

I had an incident at my daughter's high school in San Francisco Unified School District, and I happened to be on campus, and a 14-year-old boy punched a 13-year-old girl that he called his girlfriend in her stomach. It was witnessed by several students who all came running over to the office and had an intervention. The principal obviously dealt with it. But for me, I was shocked.

I do this work, and I just wasn't expecting freshmen in high school to be assaulting another person, particularly someone that they called their partner. And so it's really important for us, and specifically for me as a parent, to make sure that children are getting educated around domestic abuse. So when we started these focus groups.

As I said, they kind of started looking at things, and what became really noticeable to us was high school students had experienced domestic abuse in their homes, but they didn't translate that into abusive relationships that they were beginning. And so prevention is really important as we start to look at that and begin to talk with children about what does a healthy relationship look like.

So after we did our focus groups and started to try to recruit people to serve as our youth advisory council, we approached local churches, we approached community partners. The local school district, which that's the next topic, is MOUs. And trying to secure an MOU with a school district is a whole crazy experience unto itself and being able to get access to children. And so we started doing churches after school programs to kind of say, hey, let's talk about healthy relationships. It's a free service.

We just want to make sure that kids know that there are places and spaces that they can go for prevention. One of those things. As we were talking about those MOUs and trying to secure that with the school district, I had a very unique position where I did educational advocacy in addition to domestic abuse advocacy, I worked for a shelter system. And when students would come into shelter, I was their transition person for ieps and directly communicating with the school district.

And so people know me, which was good, which is also how we were able to get in schools. I actually had the school superintendent tell me, we need to be talking to middle schoolers about domestic abuse and healthy relationships. So we created something called the healthy relationship pledge. It starts with, I commit to have fun and enjoy and support each other in my relationship. I speak up about my wants and needs. I respect my partner's digital, emotional, sexual, physical, and financial boundaries.

I accept responsibility for myself and my actions, and I prioritize and reflect on my personal goals and relationship. And finally, I trust that I can leave this relationship when it no longer feels safe or serves my needs. This was created in coordination with several of our students. And so this is a youth statement, and it's an important statement, and it's an important statement that we'd like to get out in front of more youth as we talk about prevention, because what they don't know, they can't fix.

And as adults, and as we think about our role as parents as well as teachers, it's important that we are assisting teachers as well as parents to educate their children. Because if teachers don't have access to the resources or don't know what prevention measures are available, we've all failed our children and so I wanted to say the need, of course, is for prevention dollars.

And while we're here today, mostly thinking about Voca, because we need that money as well, we also have to start addressing prevention because we can no longer put bandaids on gunshot wounds. We need children to be healthy and to grow up and to be able to be in safe and healthy relationships. Thank you.

Thank you. That's so important. I think, as you know, I was a teacher, and when you were speaking, I taught kindergarten, first grade, and my last eight years, fourth grade, one of my fourth graders was like, what happened? You're late this morning. He's all like, oh, it's because I couldn't sleep because my daddy was chasing my mom in the bathroom and hitting her. And he said, a very matter of fact.

And I was like, oh my God, here I am as a teacher trying to make sure that he's on time and where's your book and where's your pencil? And then he's going through some trauma. But he didn't realize, obviously, he had no idea that that was trauma because that was an everyday occurrence for him. And so knowing the difference, and I also really appreciate that the youth is the one that started this because, look, I'm a parent of two teenagers.

My daughter is 15, and she's probably going on 25 right now. And those of you that have daughters know, and my son is a 17 year old boy who's a boy, who's 17, who is a boy. And so that tells you everything. But everything that I try to tell them, they're like, oh mom, what do you know? Right? But if somebody tells them when their friends tell them exactly the same thing, now, it's all brilliant, right?

And the youth coming up with this and being the advocates, if you will, the other children or the other youth are going to listen to them more than they do adults, as we all know, because we knew it all when we were that age as well. And so we didn't listen. So thank you. I appreciate that.

And I want to continue the conversation on the student led or the youth led conversations because I think that's the critical piece of making sure that we get through to some of these students.

Yes, and thank you for that. As a 56 year old woman, I did see the need for having someone who's younger speak to children because children respond to peers just like adults respond to peers. It's important in prevention.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Dr. Tate. Next we have Pablo Espinosa, the Co-Executive Director of Community United Against Violence. Oh, and before we get started, Assemblymember Essayli, thank you for being here. If you have any.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. It's an honor to be here and to work on this issue with the Assemblywoman. I know this has been a priority for you. I know we tried to do a Bill last year. My background is a prosecutor, so I have a different perspective on this issue, dealing directly with victims in the criminal justice system.

And so one thing I know is that the domestic violence cycle is a very powerful thing, and it really needs an outside force to come in and disrupt that cycle. And so when victims speak up and finally seek that help, it's so important that they are heard and that the system listens to them and more importantly, steps in and protects them. And so that's one issue I've seen is a lot of times the system fails these victims. So I'm very interested in your perspective. I'm mostly here to listen and see what other solutions we can come up with and keep trying to improve the outlook for everyone. So thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Essayli. Pablo?

Good morning. Buenos Dias. Good morning. Assembly Members, audience present. Thank you for providing your time and attention today, and thank you to the people of California for providing this space and opportunity to bring you our stories and our asks. My name is Pablo Espinoza. I'm the Executive Director of Community United Against Violence, or CUAV, as we are known by our acronym. We are a direct services provider and prevention program nonprofit in San Francisco.

I am here today also as a member organization of CRDVN, the Culturally Responsive Domestic Violence Network, and as a member of CPEDV, California Partnership to End Domestic Violence. At CUAV, we work with and prioritize the needs of LGBTQ plus survivors of violence, which includes domestic violence, intimate partner violence, gender-based violence. It is in this vein that I come here today to share what we do, who we serve, and also why we know that prevention works.

Preventing violence, that is just as important as responding to violence once it has occurred. Whoever has been serving our community since 1979, and one thing we have learned in our history is that education is prevention, and prevention leads to change. We provide multiple containers in which to talk about domestic violence, about patterns of abuse, ways to encourage and prioritize healing, including counseling, support groups, referrals, and connections with other providers and the equally powerful and important containers of prevention work.

Prevention education, recognizing that violence can be prevented, that survivors have the capacity to heal, to learn why we stay in unhealthy relationships, and recognizing why a partner hurts us, what can make a relationship unhealthy, abusive or even violent. But these skills don't happen because you went to six counseling sessions and made it to a shelter. These learnings require long term investment. These are life changing tools, and sometimes these tools are even life saving.

At CUAV, we provide trainings that analyze violence, build curriculum and easy to digest learning modules that survivors practice together while affirming each other's experiences and growth, trainings that also get at the root causes of violence and ask survivors to learn about what needs to change within them and within society. To give LGBTQ survivors the tools to address violence, not just get past it.

We bring survivors together to learn storytelling skills and be able to share with others how they became aware of what abuse was and their commitments to have better boundaries in a relationship and learn how to make requests that give them balance with a partner. We encourage survivors to become members of our safety program, learn how we can advocate for ourselves as survivors together through community mobilizations, media campaign work, where they learn to speak in front of the press about their experiences of violence and healing.

Why do I come here to give praises to our LGBTQ plus community of survivors? Because for the past several years, this network, CRDVN, has co sponsored a state budget investment in domestic violence prevention, including $22 million that would specifically go to culturally responsive and culturally specific service providers, including non shelter programs.

And as a non-shelter program, CUAV could potentially have capacity to help even more survivors and community members who have experienced domestic violence and learn to prevent it in their lives and the lives of those around them. Sadly, there are diminishing opportunities for prevention funding in both government and private philanthropy. Most state funding, for example, is focused on direct services, not prevention. Some funders have talked about prevention programs as, quote, trying to prove a negative, asking, how do you prove that violence didn't happen?

That dismisses the accomplishments of the people we work with, like Flora, not her real name, who shared that what she learned in CUAV's programs led her to make the decision not to answer her phone when she knew it was her ex, keeping a boundary, choosing her mental and physical health over anything else. This request for funding by CRDVN was carried by Assemblymember Jones-Sawyer last year, and it has continued to go unfunded, and we sincerely hope this changes in the coming years.

Survivors and those who have not experienced domestic violence but might need to know you have their backs and that their health and safety as LGBTQ plus people are important to California. Thank you for your time and attention.

Thank you. Mr. Espinoza. I appreciate the comments on that and going back to the, I hate to keep belaboring the issue, but going back to the prevention part, prevention starts with our youth. I think if we don't know the difference as kids, then we'll continue not just to be victims, but those kids that will later turn to be the abusers. I shared that a couple hearings ago, I think before the pandemic.

But as much as I hate what happened to my sister, I think that the abuser needs help, and I would rather something else happen. But if we do not help, the abusers also get over whatever trauma they are experiencing, they're going to continue to be abused. And we're always going to have these conversations about surviving, surviving, surviving, because we're not stopping the issue at the root, which is the prevention.

And I think the key issue, obviously the prevention, but the key is going to be making sure that our kids get whatever issues they have. We know mental health is a big issue for all of us, not just the youth. But we always assumed that mental health issues were for the Los Locos. If you go get services, you get labeled as crazy locos. He's like, oh, you know, I'm not crazy.

I'm not going to a psychologist or psychiatrist because it has a negative connotation to it, especially in the ethnic communities. And I can speak for my community, for the Mexican American communities. That's a big taboo. If you go to a counselor, it's like, zoh, you're crazy then. But without understanding that it's not craziness, it's issues that can be dealt with or alleviated through some help. So I appreciate the conversation because we're making that connection with both. So thank you for that.

Next we have Nat Wadman, Community Program Director of the Center for the Pacific Asian Family. Thank you and welcome.

Good morning, Madam Chair and also the Assembly Committee Member. My name is Natchawi Wadman, or Nat Wadman. I am the Community Program Director at Center for the Pacific Asian Family. I am also a survivor of domestic violence and also sexual assault. I witnessed my mom and my dad fought for my entire life. So I knew what it's like to kind of live in that situation.

And I knew that I could have had someone who I can rely on, who I can reach out to, who actually taught me a different reason when it comes to healthy relationship and also when it comes to preventing further harm, I also recognize that through my work, it is so important to break that cycle of violence. And oftentimes breaking cycle of violence doesn't take, it takes years. Take decades and it does take a lot of resources.

So at Center for the Pacific Asian Family, we are an organization that supports the survivor of Asian Pacific and Islander community monolingual immigrant. We also a member of culturally responsive domestic violence network and also California partner to end domestic violence as well. One of the key work that we do is we really want to challenge and address these root causes of domestic violence and also gender-based violence.

One of the thing that I would like to highlight when we talk about prevention, oftentimes we tend to look at what already happened first. But primary prevention is essential element to really eliminating the gender based violence. And primary prevention is to stop violence before it even happened. And how are we doing that? And I think a lot of our panelists here already addressed we need to do it as early as possible.

Prevention has to be done at home, prevention work has to be done at school and also in the communities. So when we talk about the community, there are various community that we identify. There's a different culture, norms and practices that exist in that community. So when we talk about ethnic specific community, they're also a unique need and also element that we need to consider.

So as a member of CRDVN and CPADV, one of the things that I would like to highlight is when we identify the communities and culture norm and practices, we need to invest in working with those community through the culturally specific organization, because they know best, right? They have the language ability. And when you talk about the culture, there's a lot of nuances within it.

You cannot make assumption that one culture, even though you associate yourself, even myself, as Thai American, I cannot make assumption that I know everything about Thai culture. So in order to honor what already as a protective factor in that community, you really need to understand and invest in people in the organization, in the approach that already a protective factor. So there's different way that I would like to share some of the learning and also evidence that we have learned in the school setting.

In particular, there's a socio-emotional learning, right in term of the curriculum. There's always this mainstream curriculum that disregard the culturally specific context of the student in order to address some of those. What's the cultural identity look like for the student? Have we introduced some of those activity into the school to really help them discover that cultural identity when it comes to the immigration history of their own family coming to the country?

And also what are the nuances in those language need that consider in the school system and how cultural norms and practices still exist when it comes to the harmful one like misogyny, patriarchy, and also the toxic masculinity that has passed on from generation to generation. And doing that peer advocate is the way to do it, because you need to really build the skill and knowledge of youth to become the leader within their own group. And in order to do that, you need to invest in opportunity.

You have to build that assets when it comes to capability. You have to create an opportunity for them to be able to lead in that school setting. And of course, in order to do that, you need to build the adult ally who's a school administration to understand that you cannot ask them, okay, go ahead and support the youth without equip them with knowledge and understanding of the issue. The second element in the school setting is around safety.

Safety has always been as a priority for the school setting. But when we talk about safety, it's not just a physical safety, but it's also emotional safety as well. And that safety within gender based violence is around consent, is around boundary, is around your own understanding of your own need and recognize other people needs and also be able to communicate that need and set that boundary.

How often we actually encourage that in the school setting, how often we actually have that discussion at home, role modeling by our parents, right? So in order to do that, the curriculum need to be done both at the school level. When we talk about healthy relationship, not just the spectrum of unhealthy to healthy, but also the whole concept of what consent mean in the different communities.

What consent really mean in Asian community, what consent really mean in Latinx community, in Black community, how do we set boundary? What does that look like? Rather than building this mainstream like this is the concept of boundary, go implement it. So you need to really teller and contextualize those curriculum and help the student to unpack the cultural identity within it with the support of the adult ally of the school administration.

The third element, which you mentioned a little bit earlier around engaging boys and men, you cannot do the work without engaging those, as we know statistically, that's what the source of the harm being done, right? So it's all important to how do we build some of those network and supportive mechanism and role modeling to really challenge some of those toxic masculinity that display all over in the school system, especially in sport.

We see in the sport how competitiveness and also these different toxic masculinity has been passed on and enhanced. So how do we stop that? How do we challenge it? How do we integrate the conversation before and after those activity and help them see actually those are something that actually harmful? What are the alternative way? What are the skill that we can actually help build for those, when it comes to conflict, when it comes to certain skill to manage their own emotion.

So when people get angry, they express to the certain degree that cause harm to themselves and to others. So what are those mean? That we can help and support young boys and men to learn a different way to cope and manage their own emotion? Last but not least, I would like to also make a request. As I mentioned earlier, we are in the society that there's a lot of mainstream culture and dominant culture exist, right?

And as an immigrant, as people of color, as culturally specific or ethnic specific community, we really need the funding to really build the language access and language justice into the work. It's so hard to access those information. Like you mentioned earlier, for those who are educated, it doesn't mean that you can access that information if it's not relevant to your culture and language. So how can we make it more accessible?

And when it comes to curriculum, how we make the curriculum more contextualized to the need of the community, rather than here's a mainstream culture curriculum implemented. So I really hope that with the future funding and opportunity, whether from the national gender-based violence plan, the first time that we ever have it in this country, it will really help us to kind of figure out what that culturally specific curriculum, what culturally specific services, when it comes to prevention, look like. How can we support parents, how we can support youth, how we can support the school as a system to really work collaboratively together to really end violence. Thank you.

Thank you for that. So, so far I've learned money, funding. It's always basically, the conversation builds around resources to be able to provide some of these services. And in a tough budget year, how do we do that? Right? And I think sometimes we think too much about what we don't have as opposed to what we do have available to us.

And I think you shared that, Dr. Tate, that you can ask, but maybe thinking about this differently, thinking about it differently might be able to give some access to that funding. Youth supporting youth, that I think is going to be the key. And if we talk about funding, the funding needed for that would be specifically for training some of those youth.

Because I know that there's youth organizations that already do that, but once they're trained, then it's a club, basically a club that they belong to in school, like every other club there. But I think that's the most important part of this conversation, because we know that the funding is never going to be adequate. That's a given. But I think the youth, supporting the youth is going to be the key to make sure that we do the prevention and culturally specific conversations.

To your point, you said Latinx, Mexican. It's very different even within the regions. The south is very different than the north, as it is in the United States. But we've got Mexico, Salvador, Guatemala, all of the different Latin American countries. And we all assume, and I'm assuming in California, everybody assumes we're all Mexican, and that is not the case. I'm sure in Miami everybody thinks they're Cuban, which is not the case. But we have assumptions, to your point, that everybody is the same.

Well, even with the African American community, just the different generations are completely different than the mainstream that you keep mentioning. And I think the role of social media and digital access has really done a different number on us because we were already trying to be prepared to help folks and kids, but now we have this other monster, which is social media that has created other issues that we'll eventually have to be dealing with.

So I think, again, the funding youth, supporting youth and the culturally specific conversations are going to, from what I'm getting here, are going to be the key to move some of these forward. But I cannot stress enough, again, I said it earlier, even for those of us that have resources, it's still a challenge to be able to access those resources because we don't know the difference.

And again, if you're in a situation where there is trauma, you're not even thinking about how you're thinking about surviving and trying to get out of or not because you can't get out of a relationship. And so thank you for that conversation. And I would like to continue specifically all of them, but the culturally specific issues, but the youth are the key. As a teacher, I can tell you that we said it earlier. They won't listen to me necessarily.

We can have the trainings for the teachers, but unless the children are listening, which they don't necessarily, because they think we don't understand what they're going through, they think that we're just the adults, right. But getting our kids trained for their own well being, and then they can help us with other children. So thank you for that. Mr. Essayli, any questions or comments?

Yeah, just something you hit on was know, getting to young boys at an early age, and I think there's something there. And I noticed you mentioned toxic masculinity. I like to frame things in a positive way. So what can be done to promote healthy masculinity? Because I think there's a big difference. Right? Like, the real men I know would never abuse a woman. I mean, no one would ever say that that's a masculine quality.

And so what I'm concerned, what I see today is boys are just getting the wrong message, or they're just not getting the right message. They're told if they're too hyper and they need to go on add. You mentioned sports. I think sports could be a very healthy outlet to channel that. And a lot of time that's going to be the only mentorship they get is a strong coach that coach could replace.

If they don't have a good role model at home, that coach kind of becomes the father. So what are your observations in the community about? Do kids right now, do they have access to mentors either? Do they have role models? Or is social media raising our kids now? Because when I was a prosecutor, I did a mock trial program. I was a coach for a mock trial. And what I noticed is a lot of these kids, they were craving.

They wanted, like an adult to see them and mentor them, and it's something that they were lacking in. So different kids have different interests. That was mock trial. Maybe it's sports, maybe it's some other club, but what is it like in the communities? And do kids have these opportunities?

Okay, I really appreciate that question also observation as well, because you're right on in all of it. First of all, when it comes to social media, youth, they need to be educated around how to take the information. And those are really important to understand what is the accurate information and what is the information. Right. And in order to do that is you need to create that space for particularly young boys and men. It doesn't happen often.

If you're looking at the school setting, there's not a lot of boys couple coming together and process certain feeling and emotion. Because with the dominant paradigm culture, boy, don't cry, you can't be vulnerable. You can't actually express certain feeling and stuff. How do you role model, how do you create that opportunity and space for them to show that vulnerability? Because those are something can be a protective factor for them. Right.

And then secondly, not only create a space and opportunity for them, but also how do you introduce the positive element of that? What are the people in the community? So that's how the school should engage the community leaders and those who actually are successfully be able to understand this emotional literacy, emotional intelligence, and also understand the positive way to deal and regulate with those emotions. Right.

And invited them into the space and have a conversation and help them to understand or equip them with the tool when you talk about the sport. Mentorship is a really great program. However, what I recognize is that sometimes there's an intersectionality of being boys and men, right? And matching the mentorship that you need to understand that nuances within that context of the individual. You cannot just like, oh, you like this together, just match them up.

But that aspect that we forget to pay attention to and what's the family history, what the community context that you need to consider. So then you can honor the strengths that already exist rather than looking at the deficit, right? Enhance and uplift some of those strengths and mentorship program to really help focusing on that strength. So then you can become better and be more positive when it comes to the concept. I'm not sure any.

I was going to say, having had three children 33, 23 and 22, all of them played sports, they have gone through many a coach. Coaches are great. They volunteer for the most part, unless you're doing travel ball, which we've done some of as well. But there's a dynamic with coaching that is not always positive. And those traits are passed along to girls as well as boys. And I know we need to get into more positive coaching type aspects.

We do look to coaches, to mentor, and we think about guiding. But sometimes the things that are going on in coaches homes are not okay, are toxic, and children are witnessing that and are perpetuating that as they are working and playing against other teams. And you will see outbursts of coaches, which results in outbursts of children and then outbursts of parents as a result of that. And when I say I've seen the gamut, I've seen the full gamut.

I've had coaches removed from my children's games, male and female coaches. I will say that as well. It's a culture issue that we really probably need to look at. And while I understand wanting to keep it positive, there's toxicity, and we need to address the toxicity in the room. One of the things I appreciate about being a member of the culturally responsive domestic violence network is we're looking at things based upon culture.

So the way that a Black child is being treated or works with mentors will be completely different from the 40 different dialects plus dialects of an Asian child, because it depends on where they're from, what region they grew up in, and how they're raised in their home. And in some places, depending on which nationality, they might even recognize domestic violence as domestic violence. Some places don't have a term for it. It's just. That's my wife. Right. And I do what I want.

To the point, just to get to the topic of sports, it's competition. Like, we're competing and you're supposed to beat the other team. It's happening now with our political system. It's all competition. It's about who is going to honestly, who the most popular is, right. Who the most popular is, and you got to beat the other person. And so to your point about the sports, the mentorship doesn't necessarily happen, especially not at games.

But even within the practices, I've seen children be scolded for not doing ABC or D as opposed to, hey, let's be positive and let's fix that. It's more of a scolding and disciplinary action as opposed to trying to uplift and educate Mr. Espinoza.

I was going to add that the question of mentorship and training at CUAV, we see certain members of our community rise up to the level of mentors for others, and we have survivors who have received services at our organization who literally will bring their friends by the hand to our front door and ring the doorbell and say, this is so and so. This is Pablo, or, this is CUAV. You need to talk to them.

And a lot of the, more than half the time, they are immigrant, Latinx, Trans, Queer, Lesbian, who've been in this country for a couple of years, who haven't mastered English yet, and they are relying on a fellow community member to guide them. And so our hope at Kova has always been that we are creating these mentors, we are creating these life coaches in a way out of our own community of survivors.

To actually bring people in and have them recognize one of them will say to the other girl, what you're going through right now, that is not okay. You're going to come with me to co op. We're going to walk over there by the hand, literally, because people are afraid of disclosing what's happened to them, because many of the folks that we work with are also undocumented, and they're going to be like, I'm not going to go to an organization.

I'm not going to give them my name, where I live, my cell phone, because that's going to go to the government. And if it goes to the government, what's going to happen to me? Am I going to get deported? Right? So it's that trust, right?

And much like we say, the children are going to listen to other children or other youth about, hey, what's going on between you guys? It's not okay. The same with our community. And because LGBTQ people face so much more isolation and so much more insular, because the mainstream heteronormative society doesn't want to recognize us as having relationships unless people are married. And even then, that's not acceptable. So where do people who are queer and trans fit into this conversation?

And so for us, it's like the language that we use, the terminology, the history around domestic abuse in LGBTQ communities has to be out there in community, has to be part of our conversations about relationships, has to be part of the conversation of our history. The first funding that ever went to domestic violence for gay men, for example, was in the early 80s in Boston, and CUOV had the first one in 1985.

So our history is very long, and it's just as long as most mainstream domestic violence work. And we've learned a lot from the sisters that straight sisters who created the domestic violence programs, we learned a lot from them. But we also had to have our programs evolve, and our prevention work has to go along with the evolution of our relationships, the acceptance, or not acceptance of who we are and how we live our lives. And some of us have children. Some of us are married.

Some of us have these families that we're talking about. The children are going to see it. Some of our community members are getting divorced. So it's like all of these dynamics that you see in mainstream heterosexual communities is what you see in LGBTQ plus communities that are experiencing domestic abuse Mentorship, yes.

But what I'm hearing, though, is, and I think I touched on earlier, domestic violence does not discriminate against any gender, ethnicity, the whole gamut. And that's the part that I think makes us equal. But then that's the challenge. We talked about the undocumented community. I had actually a former staff member that his stepfather would threaten them and say, well, if you don't do blah, blah, blah, then I'm going to call immigration. And it happened for years and years and years.

So when he became documented, that's when he started defending himself and trying to defend his mother. But by that point, his trauma has been a challenge, LGBTQ as well. It's been a challenge for him because now he felt like, okay, I finally achieved to be documented. Now I'm going to be brave. But the trauma that came with that is still lingering and has to be dealt with before they can speak up for themselves. So these are great conversations.

Again, I just want to welcome Assemblymember Pacheco. Thank you for joining us. If you have any comments, we have a couple of minutes, if you would just want to introduce yourself.

So thank you, and I apologize for being late. I am the Assembly Member for the 64th district, so I have parts of LA County and Orange County, but I was previously an attorney, still an attorney, but now non-practicing. And so this is an area that I believe is very important, and I'm really happy to be a part of the conversation. So thank you very much.

Thank you and welcome. So thank you again for those conversations. I think, just to go back to, I guess, my own summary, youth supporting youth funding is always going to be part of the conversation and then culturally specific conversations or support, very important. How do we do that? That's going to be the big question.

And I appreciate the work that you're doing because at least we're doing something as opposed to wondering what we're going to do without the funding, what we're going to do without the culturally specific issues. And if we all do a little bit, I think at a time, like I said, we can't do all of it, and that's obvious. But if we can move the needle a little bit, I think we can start collecting those successes and making sure that our communities are safe. So thank you. With that. If there's no other comments, I would like to move on to the next panel.

I did have one.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

I like that you're focusing on youth, but we have peer-to-peer adult type supports as well. Adults, as Pablo have mentioned, are being trained to support each other as well. And prevention, definitely starting early is helpful. But once we get to adult know, being able to support adults and other adults, supporting adults is effective as well. We find that when we are doing that with ptsas, specifically meetings in schools, the parents are there and hear the statistics and they're shocked.

The kids are there and go, I want to help. And that peer to peer support is obviously working as well in other agencies.

Perfect. So we'll call it peer to peer support. And the subtext would be youth supporting youth and adults supporting adults. How about that? Yes. Thank you so much. Thank you again for the conversation. We'll make sure that we record all of it and talk about next steps at a later point. Thank you so much.

Thank you for having us. Thank you.

Thank you. Then our next panel, let's see the intersection. Here we go. So the next panel, I have to get, unfortunately, I need glasses here. Okay. There we go. Our second panel is Keely Linton, Executive Director of the Strong Hearted Native Women's Coalition, Tejeswi Dodda, the Self-Sufficiency Coordinator from Maitri, Jenya Cassidy Executive Director of the California Work and Family Coalition, and Melodie Kruspodin, a Prevention Specialist with the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence. If you can all come up, really would appreciate that. Okay.

And then we're going to be discussing the intersection of domestic violence and economic justice. We will cover topics such as economic security, credit repair, social safety net programs. Thank you and welcome. We'll go ahead and get started with Keely Linton.

Good afternoon. Thank you for having us. And I appreciate all your comments and support for this topic. I'm Keely Linton. I am Íipay and Cupeno from the Mesa Grande Band Mission Indians. And we're located. My reservation is located down in San Diego. County. I am the Executive Director for Strong Hearted Native Women's Coalition and have been a domestic violence sexual assault advocate for over 20 years. Stronghearted Native Women's Coalition does partner with the California Partnership and the Cultural Domestic Violence Network as well.

Strong Hearted exists to enhance the capacity of survivors and advocates and tribal organizations to end violence within our tribal communities. We're also known as Shinwick. As our acronym. We provide technical support, training, outreach, and we also provide a domestic violence shelter, transitional housing, primarily in Southern California. But we do offer emergency assistance for our tribal communities throughout the state and this includes both our tribal members off-reservation and on-reservation.

And of course, I'm here to talk about economic Independence, and so this is something that is essential for survivors well being and ongoing support for their children in order to alleviate the pattern of violence. The CDC has found that even a small increase in family violence is linked to a decrease in family violence and recommends strengthening economic supports to prevent domestic violence and strengthening household financial security.

Housing access is one of the number one important security measures a survivor can take when they have a safe, stable location to support themselves and their children and their families. They have a better focus to be able to focus on healing, seek therapy, and of course, get job development and focus on their financial security. Assisting survivors with financial literacy allows them to make more informed financial decisions, add supportive resources so that they are able to maintain their economic Independence.

This extends to survivors ability to maintain stable housing and prevent homelessness. This includes support and resources for survivors to assist in their credit repair as well. It is important to understand also the difference between economic security with people that are living both in rural and urban communities. Rural communities have less access to job opportunities and often less access to resources to receive assistance. Individuals living in rural areas must travel hours to receive basic services such as hospitals, forensic exams, courts, legal assistance, and even therapy.

With less available resources, survivors often need a vehicle because public transportation is nonexistent or very limited. So economic support means assistance with not only vehicle maintenance, car insurance, support, parking, but also childcare.

We need to start looking at this to be able to provide more flexible funding and outside of what we normally do, I think under the law we have a very strict requirement on what types of services are to be provided when agency receives domestic violence funding, and we need to look beyond those restrictions and to make things a little bit more flexible and more culturally appropriate. For example, economic security strategies look very different in different areas.

There's social enterprise, a cafe like my sister's house serving Asian immigrant communities in Sacramento. Survivors are trained and employed in small business financial coaching Asian women's shelter where refugee women learn to budget and plan for their family's future. Fundamental workforce development making training and employment programs statewide that are responsive to the needs of domestic violence survivors both economically and culturally. Domestic violence prevention has often been siloed as distinct from economic justice, housing support and other basic needs.

For sustained shifts, we need to see a system change and reduce silos and resources. For example, over the past few years, our statewide network has focused on shifts of workforce development support through policy change to call out domestic violence survivors in assessing jobs job training resources and to connect with California Workforce Development Board to advocate for a culturally responsive workforce training. Domestic violence survivors are not seen as their audience. Many of these programs are geared toward just men and not toward vulnerable survivors.

With cultural relevant lens imagine a drop training program built for survivors responsive to their language and cultural experience and accessible to them in their vulnerable circumstances. What might it take to create and fund a job training program for domestic violence survivors? Supporting the economic security for survivors is prevention work.

We should be thinking about violence prevention as integrated into all we do and funding the continuum of care accordingly and looking at providing a more sustainable, flexible services for survivors outside of the norm and inclusive of their cultural diversity. Thank you.

Thank you so much for that. It's difficult, I know we've had conversations before to hear about the financial insecurities of domestic violence victims. Senator Susan Rubio my sister did a Bill which is law now on coercive control.

Most people think that domestic violence, you have to have a bruise. If you don't have a bruise, then you were not abused. But course of control, the financial insecurity is, I think obviously one of the biggest factors in making sure that the victims feel secure enough to leave, because I've heard it and I've seen it where people are like, well, why don't you just leave?

As if it's just a matter of picking up and walking away, which is not the case. And I think statistically it takes about seven, I believe seven or eight times that you left the first time to actually leave, finally. But if you don't have the resources or you're being coerced into your paycheck is not your paycheck.

The car is under my name and I had a situation with somebody in one of the cities that I represent where she went to buy a car and she's like, oh, no, let's just put it under my name so that the insurance is less. Well, when she tried to leave, it's like, zero, well, the car is mine, right. And so that is course of control, trying to control every aspect of the financial situation. And so we talk about why don't they just leave?

Well, if you don't have the resources or the economic support, the proper support, housing, for example, then that's not going to happen. So thank you for that. I really appreciate that. And it sparks obviously interest in all of us because the main comments is like, why don't you just leave? Well, there are all these factors that don't allow us to just walk away or allow anybody to walk away, especially if you have children, right?

It's bad enough that you don't have children or that you have a relationship with someone, but if you have children, not only are you having to fend for yourself, but now you have mouths to feed. And so the trauma is different because now you choose between leaving or do I take care of my children? So thank you for that. And hopefully we can have a little bit more deeper conversation on some of the issues that we can help with. So thank you for that. Next Tejeswi Dodda. Thank you.

Thank you Keely honorable Assembly Members, legislative staff, fellow advocates, and members of the public. My name is Tejeswi Dodda and I'm here as representative on behalf of survivors and victims of domestic violence. I represent my three, an agency that is devoted to serving domestic violence survivors since 1991. Like Keeley and other panelists before, we are Members of the culturally responsive domestic violence Network and the California Partnership to end domestic violence. Thank you for your time.

Today, my three is a confidential, nonprofit organization free, based in San Francisco Bay Area. We work with the South Asian population facing domestic violence. Mytri fills a critical gap in the community services to mitigate culturally and linguistically tailored barriers faced by south Asian populations. Between our staff and volunteers, we speak more than 13 languages and Maitri was born out of the need for culturally responsive services in the San Francisco Bay Area.

My tree was formed with one program and one helpline, and as we serve survivors, we've expanded to add programs like legal advocacy, mental health, peer counseling, housing stabilization, and economic empowerment. We include policy advocacy as a tool to help South Asian survivor voices be heard and policy to be geared towards them. We engage and educate our communities because we believe economic security is as important in prevention as it is in response.

In the area of economic security, Maitri has built its own capacities through career readiness programs, individual coaching, budgeting, supporting childcare needs, as well as scholarships for domestic violence survivors. My three-zone pilot social enterprise, a clothing boutique, was started in 2014 which had to be ended during the pandemic, but that provided an opportunity for survivors to get trained in retail sales, acquire communication skills, and build confidence.

My work at my tree is grounded at the intersection of domestic violence and economic security, and today I would like to discuss some of the things that are my learnings and my colleagues experiences pertinent to this panel on economic security. It is not uncommon, like the chair pointed out, that for people to understand physical abuse very easily, whereas it is very difficult to understand how one can be subjected to economic or financial abuse.

Abusers control survivors by not giving them access to finances, by taking out debt in their name without consent, by withholding work authorization, by specifically controlling where they can work and how they can work, if they can work, and also participating in acts of disrupting behaviors at their workplace. All this on top of whatever the survivor is already going through at home. And that can be a lot.

Many studies in the area of domestic violence have pointed out that the primary obstacle for victims and children to leave an abuser is economic security. Economic security for a survivor comes with their ability to be safe, ability to work, have food and housing, reliable transportation, affordable childcare, at the least. For immigrant survivors, basic economic needs are exasperated by their immigration status, ability to work, lack of culturally responsive services, including language access.

I'd like to briefly share some of these barriers so that the Committee understands what I'm trying to say. Limited English proficiency is one of the major barriers because that means survivors can only obtain jobs within their shared language and cultural communities. Often these communities are very small, and survivors share their circumstances with those community members, and that might lead to safety compromises.

Work authorization, not having work authorization can be a very helpless and frustrating experience for survivors because they still need to make ends meet, and so that causes them to work in very unsafe conditions, and that might lead to more violence at the workplace for them. It is very unlikely that a domestic violence survivor reaches to an affiliate of the Workforce Development Board for a job.

It is more likely that they reach out to the domestic violence agency that is helping them, among other trusted people they might go to. And it is very hard for them to explain why there is gaps in their employment history and why there is no employment history at all in some cases. And when a survivor leaves, they don't leave with all the documents. That is not the circumstances they're leaving in.

And so how do they explain to an employer that, yeah, I'm authorized, I don't have the card. Oh, no, I'm a resident, but I don't have the documents. So this is very hard for them to explain. And so some people might not even not try to work because they don't know how to deal with the situation.

For many survivors, career exploration is like a maze and in spite of home country work experience and educational qualifications, they still don't know where to get the credentialing and the right direction to find work with there. And that leads them to still continue to work in minimum wage jobs, which means they work longer hours, get lesser money, and still they're going through having to deal with healing the trauma and the children and any family that they're caring for.

Survivors oftentimes are only caregivers for their children and it presents to them as a barrier to finding employment because the cost of childcare is not something they're able to think is directly financially viable to their situation. And based on these barriers I shared I have a couple of recommendations for the Committee that I would like you to consider. My first recommendation is pertaining to culturally responsive approach to language access. Based on census information.

California is home to at least 10.4 million immigrants and 27% of California population is foreign born. And these immigrants speak one language other than English at homes except for individual library systems, it is very difficult to find ESL training and lessons that are geared towards spoken English and comprehension. Survivors and many immigrants join sessions from adult education and community colleges to be overwhelmed with curriculum about writing, English and the grammar.

But while all aspects of language are important, it is critical for a person to be able to speak and comprehend when they're in a new country, more so when you might be experiencing domestic violence and are navigating with first responders, the court system, medical system, and the benefits system. One of the biggest struggles I also feel, even though you might have some English, is to understand the accent and the accent that a survivor might have because of their home country language and how to reduce that.

I have worked with several survivors who have dropped out of ESL classes, and that is purely because they felt they don't cater to their needs. It takes too much time. They're talking about things that are directly not relevant and crisis are spread over months in community colleges and contrary, survivors don't have that kind of time. My second recommendation is integrating culturally responsive services and trauma-informed services in the workforce development spectrum.

In the nine years that I've worked with immigrant survivors in different capacities, I have not had a single immigrant survivor approach, a workforce development board, or an affiliate. For any employment needs, they often reach out to the DV agency like I already shared.

In spite of the fact that the Breaking Barriers to Employment Initiative include survivors of domestic violence as a target population, neither individual domestic violence agencies or umbrella agencies like the Culturally Responsive Domestic Violence Network or the California Partnership for Domestic Violence have not been included, either in the form of technical assistance or in terms of implementation. If the goal is to serve the target population, the funds and the resources need to reach the agencies that can funnel survivors entry into these programs.

This is critical because local workforce development boards might not have the capacity to provide trauma-informed or culturally competent services, including language access for seeking employment. The workforce development system is not currently poised to include and serve DV survivors, and we want to change that. CRDVN would like to see California being led by a pilot job training program designed for DV survivors and something that breaks down the silos of domestic violence and economic opportunity.

As noted in the Hoover Commission report, survivors access to these services directly affects their ability to be employed, re-enter the workforce, obtain skill development training, and connect to potential employers. Without all this. Currently, all DV agencies are working individually on these aspects with survivors with little resources, little information, and very less staff bandwidth. My third recommendation is about access to childcare and what we can change about it. Moving to a new country and experiencing domestic violence can be a very isolating experience.

With no family around, survivors are often the sole caregivers for their children and childcare becomes a heavy burden to shoulder and more so while navigating entry into the workforce. On top of that, many survivors struggle with the fear of the abuser showing up at schools and childcare centers, compromising their safety. Many existing systems that assess childcare needs only seem to consider direct employment or training for direct employment as eligibility criteria for childcare services.

As a recent report on intersecting barriers to economic empowerment noted, all survivors, regardless of employment status, need access to childcare. Temporary childcare seems to be particularly a need for survivors, not just for work, but also for job seeking, code dates, recovery from incidents of abuse and other domestic violence related emergencies.

Additionally, there is a need for childcares to be open past standard time 07:00 a.m. To 06:00 p.m. Given that many people are employed and work in shifts that are longer and on the weekends and fall out of the time zone, summer is a particular challenge because the schools are closed. It's difficult to find affordable childcare given the cost of summer camps and there is no alternate option. So it's versus whether you go to work or you just stay at home.

For survivors who do manage to connect with assistance. The current system of aid can be very overwhelming. When survivors start to make economic advances, supports are often removed, causing them to lose eligibility, which feels like an arduous cycle of slipping back into poverty. The irony is that they can't work because they can't afford childcare and they can't afford childcare because they can't make enough money and go to work. My fourth recommendation is about rights education.

While California has made critical progress in supporting survivors to economic security, the many protections and provisions for survivors are largely unknown unless connected with an agency that's actually navigating the situation with a survivor. For example, establishing coerced and fraudulent debt protections when incurred as a result of domestic violence and without consent. Survivors spend months paying this debt not knowing that they are protected and they were fraudulently incurred. Another major protection is language access.

Survivors often feel overwhelmed and ashamed about seeking language access and see that as a favor and not a protected right, which it is. Same applies to the labor code protections for survivors to access job protected leave wage protections, workplace violence restraining orders. Unless the state invests in rights education in multiple languages, survivors might not be even aware of all the work that is being done and all the protections that exist.

I am requesting this Committee to take these recommendations into consideration as we all strongly feel that it will help California residents immaterial whether they're a survivor or not a survivor. Economic security is a unique aspect for survivor safety, but it doesn't have to be addressed as a response to domestic violence. It can be addressed as a prevention tool among communities that will benefit from interacting from a culturally competent, language-accessible, and trauma-informed system.

A system that is ready to help every person before they experience abuse, violence, isolation, and in the process, prevent the cycle of abuse itself. Thank you.

Thank you so very much for that. I think everything that you said is true just for the normal, just folks in General, and that's what we're facing right now. But thank you for those recommendations. In the meantime, I would like to welcome Assemblymember Soria and Assemblymember Gipson. I explained to everyone that we are all running around this morning, so I appreciate you heading over here after your commitments this morning. So if you would like to say hello or a couple of words. Thank you and good morning.

Thank you, Assembly Woman.

And so that's one of the things that I'm trying to figure out, because if we can't get these women in shelter first, then we can't even do all the other wraparound services that you guys are talking about. The only one shelter that exists in the three counties that I represent is in Fresno. All the other ones are kind know the cbos trying to scrounge up dollars on their own to kind of figure out a safe place for the women and children.

And so that's one of the things that I'm really interested in figuring out how the state can be a better partner, how we're using even the homeless dollars that we are diving up throughout the state, because I haven't seen really how through the homelessness funding, we've really addressed some of the shelter issues that we do have with these victims. So that's kind of the issue that I'm very interested in. But thank you again for everything that you've shared. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I'm happy to be a part of this Select Committee. It's very important to California as well as to my community. When I was a former police officer and going to a number of domestic violence calls and then making the decisions based on the law to remove someone from the home, and that's nine times out of 10 is an abuser, but then we arrest them and the victim don't want to press charges. Right.

And then we've seen officers getting hurt in those kind of physically hurt in those kinds of situations. Right. And the victim doesn't feel supported because the victim is not the breadwinner. And it changes the landscape of what happens if the assailant, the perpetrator leaves and the lack of stability that will exist and being placed in those kinds of uncompromising positions are very important and concerning. And so one, I'm happy that we're having this conversation.

It's one that we need to have and not in a vacuum, but we need to have it openly and let people know what we're doing to try to support, because not only do my calls lead to going to a place where a female was the victim. I've been to calls where the husband was the victim as well. So it's two sides to these situations.

But we want to provide resources and this very important conversation so that we can figure out what we need to do as a government to provide resources and services that can be leveraged and accessible to everyone that needs them. So thank you all very much for testimony and thank the chair for one moving this conversation forward.

Thank you. And thank, you know, just to address Assemblywoman Soria's conversation, I'm from Los Angeles County and know, by all accounts have the support either in Covina or West Covina in my area. And it's difficult for those of us that don't have the issues that the Central Valley, for example, has. Or, and I imagine the issues are the same in Northern California, where the resources are not as readily available or the shelters.

We need to keep hearing that because, again, I'm from LA and we have somewhat of a system, but it didn't occur to me that you only have one shelter for three counties. I was just blown away right now when you said that, because, again, we were thinking, and we're trying to have a conversation about supporting the victims without giving them the stability of a place to go, the resources that they need to just get out, let alone the wraparound services, as discussed.

So thank you for that and thank you for highlighting that. I think our Northern California colleagues can also share the same issues that you have shared. So thank you. All right. Thank you very much. So next, Jania Cassidy.

Yes, thank you. Hi, can you hear me? Thank you for having me. My name is Jania Cassidy. I'm the Executive Director of the California Work and Family Coalition. Really appreciate being here. Really very appreciative of your leadership. Assembly Member Rubio, on this issue and the whole Select Committee. I've really learned a lot this morning. I appreciate everything I've heard. So I work with the California Work and Family Coalition.

We're a statewide alliance of really diverse organizations united in the quest to ensure that all people have the time and the resources to care for themselves and care for their family Members. We led the campaign that passed the first paid family leave law in the nation back here in California in 2002.

And since then, our coalitions actually stayed together to work on ensuring access, because even with a great law, as you know, access can still be an issue for a lot of people we work very closely with, and they are also a Member of our coalition, and we are a Member of theirs with the California Partnership to end domestic violence, partly because they really see the role of paid leave and other workplace supports as a prevention mechanism for domestic violence to end domestic violence.

So the kinds of things we work on, we do see as having such a bigger impact than just that day that somebody can take a day off of work when they really need to because of being seriously ill, caring for a family Member, bonding with a baby. Economic security is a predictor of health and safety for families and whole communities.

It makes sense that when communities have what they need and they have access to things like stable employment, living wages, people are more likely to thrive and the incidence of all kinds of violence decreases, including intimate partner violence. However, when communities have weak economic and social policies, they're at higher risk of multiple kinds of violence, including intimate partner violence.

The things that we work on, like paid and job protected leave, do help create stable workplaces and are key elements to establishing not only economic security for the workers and families that use them, but also the ability to establish healthy relationships with each other, which is such an important part of this. And including. And in addition to that, there are also direct services and supports for survivors of domestic violence, because being able to access time off is key in that case, too.

So I want to talk about three important laws and things that we work on. We work on passing laws, but we also do a lot of work on implementation, making sure those laws are really felt in people's lives. So a lot of the work we've done recently is really making sure that more Low income Californians, of which there are many, can access these. So one of the things I'll talk about is paid sick and safe days, which is a Gonzalez Bill that passed last year.

It was signed by the Governor in 2023, and it increased our paid sick days law from three to five, just came into effect January 1. And this means that Californians can now accrue up to a minimum of five paid sick days, not only to care for themselves, but also for family, including chosen family, which is, in California, very important. A lot of families are not by blood.

Sometimes they're your close neighbors, your closest friends, and these also can be taken as safe days for anything related to domestic violence. This could include things like taking time off work to receive medical or mental health care, obtain supportive services, seek safety for yourself or your family. Paid safe days are also job protected, which helps survivors stay in the workforce.

So one of the most important things in terms of recommendations that we can do around this law that already passed is really ensure that there is really good community education that is in all of the languages and culturally competent, especially for a lot of young workers who really, I have two young daughters who are in the workforce, and their bosses sometimes tell them that they don't have basic.

So, you know, it is something that we really need to educate on the fact that these are safe days as well. The other really important advance we made recently was when Governor Newsom signed SB 951, which is the Doraso Bill that expands the wage replacement for paid family leave, which was first 55 and then 60% to 90% for Low wage workers. And the formula in the Bill defines that as somebody making 60,000 or less.

Because in California, to make ends meet, as we all know, housing is very expensive. That is considered a lower wage worker. And I think a UC Berkeley study showed that one in three people in California workers earn what would be defined as Low wages.

So that's millions of workers that really needed this to be able to take leave because we had this amazing benefit in know first in the nation, and lower wage workers were just not accessing it at the level that higher wage workers, it wasn't accessible to everybody, and it has so many different benefits.

So I think it's going to come into law in 2025, and I think access to paid time off, job protection, the ability to know that you have this safety net, is really kind of the jewel and the crown of our economic security in California. Our SDI system is an incredible system. Everybody who pays in has access to it when they need. So the number one thing on that is it was this amazing victory.

It was years in the making, but now we have a threat to it through an initiative that will be on the ballot in November. It's the Taxpayer Deception act. It's something that is going to make it practically impossible to raise revenue, and it will actually nullify things that were new bills that were passed that went into effect back in January 212022.

So this is something that we've never really experienced before, where a lot of different organizations and communities are coming together to even defend some of the social safety net programs that we have from being lost by the ballot. It's something that, I know there's a challenge to it at the state, but we're already gearing up to really work on that. It's kind of a new thing for us.

But in addition to that, we are also working on removing the barriers people face when they go to apply for SDI or paid leave, because especially with Low wage workers, new immigrants, there are a lot of language access barriers and other barriers. And there's an incredible Committee in the coalition that works on all these nitty gritty little issues that people have when they go to apply. And we do a lot of training so that people can support each other in taking that leave.

That's something we're working with the EDD on. We have this great benefit that people can afford to take now, don't have it not work when you go to apply. So those are some recommendations to really help that work with the EDD on making it as easy as possible for all Californians to apply. The other thing that is coming that I know Melody will talk about as well is paid family leave for chosen and extended family.

So right now you can take paid family leave to care for your spouse, your registered domestic partner, your child, your parent, parent in law, sibling, also your grandparent or grandchildren, which is a lot of family Members more than in some states. But at the same time, a lot of Californians are of two types. Extended family is really important. People care for or cared by aunts and uncles as well, nieces and nephews they care for.

But also a lot of people really don't have blood family in their lives. They rely on chosen family. So this Bill, it's a wix Bill and it's a two year Bill, and we are hoping to pass it this year, AB 5118. And that would extend paid leave to people caring for chosen family. We already have the job protection in place, but it really has to be paid to make it truly accessible.

So we are really working on some of the things that we think help make communities and families thrive. And that is, it might seem odd to talk about that as preventative of domestic violence, but it really, studies show that it's one of the most important things you can have know, building healthy relationships and having the time to do that. So with that, I just really appreciate your time today.

Thank you. Any questions from Committee Members? Okay, thank you for that, Jenny. Next we have Melody Crispadin from, she's a prevention specialist with the California partnership to end domestic violence. And we've done a lot of work together.

Yes, we have. I just saw you last week at the rally. So. Yes, so my name is Melody Crispoden. I use she her a pronouns. And I'm from Tongvaland in Los Angeles, California. And I just want to say thank you to all the chair people here to be able to listen to this topic.

And I think what I am trying to do is really kind of align and synthesize what everybody has spoken about today in terms of prevention and economic justice, because we do see economic justice as a tool for prevention of domestic violence. And I actually did just want to take one small moment to talk about the comments about healthy and toxic masculinity and sports and things like that.

So there actually is a curriculum called coaching boys into men, which is where advocates train coaches on high school campuses how to be leaders on domestic violence, and rather having advocates like us provide that education. The coaches are trained so that they can coach the young people on those teams to be able to be aware about domestic violence prevention, because coaches are seen as mentors, and so many athletes are seen as mentors on their school campuses. So they are now deliverers of this information.

And there's also a college program called it's on us for young men on college campuses to take on prevention as their own issue and say that it's on us to help prevent domestic violence. So I just did want to address that to your point. So, again, we do see domestic violence as a tool that can be addressed through economic justice. And our coalition is so proud to have all of these organizations as Members for us.

And again, I hope that some of what I can say can really put together what we've been talking about. So we do know that economic insecurity is a risk factor for domestic violence. And even though the circumstances surrounding domestic violence and sexual violence might differ, economic instability is a risk factor in both and can be prevented or addressed through economic justice supports. And according to the CDC, policies that promote economic justice can help mitigate the risks posed by economic instability.

And the California Partnership is one of few coalitions from different statewide organizations funded by the CDC specifically to do economic justice work, and specifically to do economic justice work with historically and currently marginalized communities. And so I just wanted to touch on a moment that a lot of how we do prevention is through the public health model, which is really about addressing risk and protective factors of different issues and mitigating those risk factors and promoting those protective factors.

And a lot of these are determined by what we call social determinants of health, which is really anything non medically related to a person that might impact their health, for example, access to drugs or alcohol or access to jobs and access to resources in their communities. And so really what we want to do is focus on primary prevention, which is preventing violence before it starts in the first place.

So we know, again, that risk factors and social determinants of health that contribute to domestic violence are things like poverty and economic instability and that domestic violence is tied to Low income, unstable employment, Low socioeconomic status, and harmful adherence to strict gender roles. And so prevention of domestic and sexual violence can reduce financial burdens placed on communities by targeting the community and societal level change that we're looking to see.

So Jenya mentioned the chosen family issue that we're working on right now, as she mentioned that a lot of folks are not necessarily connected to their blood family.

And this can be really important to LGBTQIA plus communities and immigrant communities, particularly if they are domestic violence survivors, because we know that a tool that a lot of people causing harm use is isolating folks from their family, and so they may not be able to have a blood family Member to provide paid family leave to them, but again, someone else who they have access to, who their person causing a harm from, has not isolated them from.

Jenny's coalition has also been working on a Bill that was passed about data collection so that we can see which marginalized communities are or are not accessing paid family leave, and to be able to use that data to do outreach to those communities who need to know it most. And something else that I wanted to highlight about intersecting issues of economic justice is that it really is tied to prevention, education, and awareness of talking about the root causes of domestic violence.

And so, in addition to economic instability being a root cause, we're also looking at things like racism, Transphobia, homophobia, classism, things like that.

So I first wanted to start with some workplace policies that can be addressed to continue on with what Jennya was saying and even what Tesla was talking about, that fostering safe and respectful and equitable workplace culture is paramount to preventing and addressing sexual harassment and other forms of gender based violence in the workplace, because individuals might be experiencing the impact of intersectional discrimination that is consisted on the bias of basic race, ethnicity, religion, other factors, including, again, the LGBTQI plus community.

And so we have to address the root causes of gender based violence in the workplace, including on preventing these types of racial and gender and sexual orientation discrimination. Because we know that workplace safety and culture can create systems in which violence can flourish.

And so gender equity, including equal and comparable pay and adequate and quality and affordable childcare, like you mentioned, including flexible work schedules, on site childcare and childcare subsidies, can be really important, as well as, like Jenny was saying, about livable wage and also a lot of work that Members have done on even lactation friendly workplaces.

And our organizations, the California Work and Family Coalition and the partnership, actually worked on a paid family leave toolkit for folks to be trained on how to educate folks on accessing paid family leave. I also wanted to talk about the immigrant community and how they can have access to paid family leave by paying into that through their paychecks.

And again, workplace policies like you were talking about, according to the National Plan to end gender based violence, which I believe Nat referred to, which is a national program, talks about how immigrant survivors face increased barriers to economic stability because they often encounter delay processing times when applying for special immigration remedies for gender based victims that were established through VAWA, the victims. Thank you. Violence against Women's act. Thank you.

And that there can be limited in accessing those sorts of things around asylum and visas and things like that. And like you said, delays in access to work authorization and public benefits for which a person might be vulnerable, such as for housing or health care, can increase those vulnerabilities. And again, to the LGBTQIA plus community, it's important that there's job protection because those folks might also be facing those intersectional issues with Homophobia and Transphobia. But we also see economic justice related to other intersecting issues.

One, access is health care. Jenya talked about affordability and costs. And really, we know that prevention is far less expensive than having intervention approaches after a person has been impacted by domestic violence. We also know that there's a connection to reproductive justice and whether a person has access to abortion rights. We know embryo rights just recently and also access to sex education in schools.

So many folks don't know that there's something called the California Healthy Youth act, which was implemented in 2016, that updated the requirements for sex ed in middle schools and high schools, which is supposed to include education around healthy relationships and prevention of teen dating violence. And what we're hearing, anec.ally is that many school districts across California are not implementing the California Healthy Youth act in the way that they are supposed to, including providing that education around healthy relationships. Yes. Go ahead.

So why do you think that is? Why do you think that in 2016, when it was passed that through your studies and data shows that schools are not providing this information?

Yeah.

The whole purpose is to prevent teenage or high school abusive relationships. So why don't you think that we're implementing that?

So what we've been hearing from folks is kind of three particular reasons tied to, actually the requirements. One is that folks can't teach abstinence only. As the only form of preventing sexual education, we have to include all different forms of contraception, education and things like that. So folks who are opposed to that sort of education can sometimes block that. Another requirement is that schools must address the LGBTQ community with education about sexual orientation and gender identity.

And for that issue, we now know that there are a lot of parents rights advocates who have been speaking out about that education being provided in schools. And then I think when it comes to the health education for healthy relationship parts, it's actually that it is minimized as an issue and that schools don't think that it is important enough to talk about in the classroom. So that's kind of what we're hearing. Are some of those major blocks to its implementation. Yeah, no problem.

Thank you for asking.

And I remember having health class in high school and having all these important discussions, but I'm curious to see, I know middle school, when I was in, going to elementary school wasn't something that was taught. Are you seeing lack of these conversations happening more in the middle school, or are you equally seeing it in the high school level as well?

So we're seeing it at both the middle school and high school. And again, according to this California Healthy Youth act, sex education is required to be addressed at least one time in middle school and at least one time in high school. So it's supposed to be implemented at both of those levels. Melody, may I add that it might also be a matter of capacities for these schools and these school districts. Do they have trained people who can actually implement this education to the target population? Exactly.

Yeah. And I'll just say as the last point, that our coalition will actually be seeking an audit this year of CDE, the Department of Education, to audit school districts from across the state to actually measure whether or not the California Healthy Youth act is being implemented, because, again, a lot of our data is anec.al, and so we want to actually get that qualitative and quantitative numbers about whether it's not being implemented.

So then through that audit, we could seek a Bill or a policy seeking to actually enforce the implementation of this law. So just related to that, the very last thing that I wanted to talk about is that financial abuse is actually something that we've talked a lot about in terms of adult relationships. But many folks don't know that within teen dating violence, there is also financial abuse that can be happening.

And so futures without violence launched a national survey to better understand the financial pressures on youth. And the study assessed the prevalence of economic abuse amongst teens and determined the impact of that abusive behavior on their education, employment, and finances on existing prevention efforts.

And so, in terms of prevention education, like so many of our folks talked about in high schools and middle schools, financial abuse is almost never talked about, but the experiences in this survey showed that the most frequent economic abuse happening for youth who identify as straight and heterosexual, but also as gender diverse, that the ages of 15 through 17 is when we're seeing the most financial abuse happening.

And so there's a lot that educators can do, which includes including healthy relationship programming within health programs like I talked about through the California Healthy Youth act, but also to train school staff and teachers to recognize the signs of economic abuse amongst teens and include inclusive content on how students can navigate relationship conflict, including how financial abuse might be needed.

So really, it's just about how can we increase the amount of education as much as possible to show that financial abuse is something that's happening with both teens and adults. And the more education that we can do around that, including how it intersects with other issues like health care and immigration. Like I mentioned, the more that we can seek to prevent domestic violence from happening.

Thank you so very much for the conversation and just a comment on the financial aspect of abuse. It's very difficult to just even get financial literacy in the classrooms. I can't imagine trying to implement a financial abuse component to all of this and so really appreciate the conversations. I think, again, when we think of domestic violence, we are very trained to it being physical abuse. I think the important conversation about financial abuse and a course of control are issues that haven't been dealt with before.

And I think that we're scratching the surface at this moment on trying to get into those conversations. I'm a teacher. As a teacher, I can also tell you that I think a lot of times our school districts and our schools want to do the right thing, but they don't have, to your point, the resources or the staff that is trained to be able to do this.

And so how do we think about these types of programs, if you will, to be able to deliver to the school system without impacting the already high workload that teachers or administrators are facing. However, that is also not an excuse not to do it. And I think your avenue of trying to do an audit on that, and I sit on Jay Lock, the Audit Committee, and really, I feel I've been on the Committee for seven years.

It's not designed to be punitive, although people take it as a punitive measure. I think what the Auditor does is they go in there, look at what's happened or what hasn't happened, and they have recommendations on how to fix it. I think we need to stop looking at an audit as a punitive conversation. Rather than if you haven't done it, what can the Legislature do to be able to support the implementation of such laws? And I think that's where we all get defensive, if you will.

Everybody's defensive because I think everybody genuinely wants to do the right thing. But when you're looking at it as detailed as an audit, you think, zero, my God, am I going to get in trouble because this hasn't happened. And I think we also have to change that culture within the organizations that are responsible for implementing this because it's not designed to be punitive. I think everybody wants to do the right thing, but how do we assist them?

And an audit for us in the Legislature gives us the opportunity to say, if it's not working, what Bill or what can we do to support the implementation of these issues? So I think we need to start with that because everybody's going to freak out because you said the word audit. And I think, again, it's not about looking at it punitively, other than for us and the Legislature, what do we do to support the implementation of such programs?

Yeah, and if I could add exactly to your point, the audit is really for data collection. Right. It's not about saying, like, here's what folks are doing wrong, but it's to see what's happening. And again, to your amazing point and to your point about teachers and school districts wanting to do the right thing, but maybe not necessarily having the tools, that's why many schools and school districts invite outside organizations to provide this education.

But again, the connection to the audit is that a lot of our organizations, when we try to go to schools, they say, zero, well, this doesn't apply to us. We don't need to talk about this. So again, the audit is just to say, like, hey, are you allowing even community based organizations to come in and support you? Because when these schools say no, that's the missing part of this requirement, and it can really support us to support the schools to get this done.

So, yes, we don't want anyone to fear the audit. We just want to collect those numbers to then see what can we do to support schools.

Yes.

Just in closing, I know we're wrapping up. Yes. The takeaway I got from this, I think it's probably on the workforce development side having some sort of priority or having a special priority for victims of domestic violence to get a good job. And I think employers, in turn, would like that opportunity to give them jobs because what better employee than someone who's motivated to improve their life and provide for their family I mean, that's going to be one of your best employees.

So having some sort of fast track or prioritization for workforce, and I know working with these victims, the hardest thing for them is asking for help. They want to be independent. So getting a job provides financial Independence, dignity, it provides an avenue out of this thing. And then just lastly, for me, all this stuff is important, the supportive services, but we can't ever forget the public safety component. And people have to be held accountable when they commit this crime. It is a crime.

It is a crime. There needs to be accountability. And a lot of times the abusers will reoffend if they know there's no real consequences. So I just don't want that to be left out of the conversation. But that's my takeaway. This was very helpful and productive. Thank you so much for having these panels.

Any other comments from Committee Members?

I also wanted to say that these conversations are really important because like Assemblywoman Rubio said, a lot of times people say, why don't you just leave the situation? And it's just not that easy. It's not just the physical abuse, it's the emotional abuse, it's a financial abuse. There's just so many layers. And a lot of times victims feel like they cannot leave their abuser for whatever reason you need to support them. Providing housing and job security is extremely important. So having these discussions are important.

I love to hear about helping the youth and teaching them about healthy relationships, because a lot of times it all starts when you're young and when you are dealing with an abuser. When you're younger, you're going to constantly be seeking that kind of relationship. So I appreciate the conversations that we're having, and I appreciate you for being here as well.

Thank you.

Just want to say thank you very much for being in this space because I think it's really important that we continue to have strong advocates on both sides in terms of those who've actually experienced abuse and those who are advocating against such abuse by way of the organizations which you represent. And certainly for me, this has been a very robust conversation, but the information is eye opening. It's very eye opening. And so I wish you well on the audit.

Hopefully, you go in there and let people know that it's not punitive.

That.

It'S information you're trying to seek, so you can see how you can help and make things better, because I think it's very important. And so thank you very much. And I'm sure this won't be the last time that we will see you, and please don't hesitate to reach out to us and consider us a friend as also a partner in this work. Thank you.

Thank you. Now we have a few minutes. Anybody in the audience that would like to make a comment or ask a question, you may come up and hopefully we can answer some of those.

Thank you. Madam Chair, just a comment. Rosanna Carvaco Elliott here on behalf of Unchained at last, which is an organization that is helping survivors to escape child marriage, as well as working to end child marriage around the United States, want to thank the chair for co authoring Ms. Petrie Norris's Bill AB 2924 to finally end child marriage in California. I think, as we all can imagine, marriage before 18 is a known driver of domestic violence.

There are numerous studies that make this linkage between child marriage and intimate partner violence. One quick example, a 2019 study of child marriage survivors that were married between the ages of 13 and 17 reported physical, sexual, financial or emotional abuse all during their marriage, as well as unwanted pregnancies. I think, as we've heard today, additionally, as everyone in this room knows, financial dependence is a known risk factor for domestic violence and cited by survivors as a reason that they stay with their abuser.

And as you can imagine, children are much more susceptible to financial dependence on their spouse, which also is their abuser, as everyone knows. So as this Committee discusses prevention and economic justice, one step that myself and my client think is very easy is to end child marriage, the legally sanctioned marriage of child children in this state. So this will help with the goals of both preventing economic justice to survivors.

And I just want to thank the chair for holding this important hearing and look forward to working with you. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to address or ask a question? Okay. Seeing none, I want to again thank our panelists. Really important conversations. I been doing this in the Committee setting for seven years, and I'm still learning so much about the work that you're all doing. So I want to thank you for all of that work, all of our panelists, because you're on a mission. And even through the pandemic, I saw how important your work was, especially with our young folks.

But I want to continue having these conversations. And now that we have the pandemic behind us, I want to make sure that we have regular meetings and to see how we can help support some of your efforts and hopefully bring some of those resources to the communities so that we can see a solution, perhaps of domestic violence. Instead of talking about survivors, talk about prevention. I think if we can switch that conversation.

It will help us through and making sure that our kids and our peers are educated so that we don't make the same mistake twice. And we really can't end domestic violence unless we end the root of those kind of the anger or the discussions that we had today. And so again, I want to thank you for all of the information. Thank my Committee Members for participating. Your voice is really important because I know we come from very different areas.

As Assembly Member Soria from the Central Valley, I know you're Riverside County, we're from LA, but different parts of LA. And I think our experiences are very different. If you talk about California is very diverse, not just culturally, but regionally. And I think those issues have to be addressed as well. So thank you. And with that, we'll go ahead and end the hearing today and have a great rest of your afternoon.

But we'll be in touch for sure on our next panel and how we can assist in your efforts. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

All right.