Assembly Select Committee on Domestic Violence

Well, good morning, everyone. Good morning. Good morning. We'll go ahead and get started for a few minutes late, just for housekeeping purposes. We have a lot of committees going on today, so we'll have our Members come in and out. Nothing against anybody. It's just the type of day and the kind of year it has been. So welcome.

I'm Assemblywoman Blanca Rubio. I represent the 48th Assembly District, and I've had the honor of chairing the Select Committee on Domestic Violence now for six years. I want to begin by thanking everyone for being here today. Our Committee Members, our new Members, Alexandra Macedo, Assemblymember, and Assemblymember Catherine Stefani.

And like I said, the other Members will come in and out. This is designed for informational purposes, so I know there's a lot of nervousness sometimes. No need to be nervous. We're just going to have a conversation about topics that I think are top of mind at the moment with everything going on.

And quite frankly, obviously, domestic violence has never gone away. We just keep looking over it and pretending that what we're doing is really helping.

And so we're here to talk about issues that we can fix even if we can't fix everything at once, if we can make baby steps, I think at some point we'll get to the point where we've made some progress. And we know that domestic violence is pervasive and devastating.

It affects individuals and families across communities, regardless of age, race or background. It takes many forms, physical, emotional, psychological and financial. And its impact is life long lasting. This issue is profoundly personal to me as domestic violence has impacted my family and myself. I've talked about that before. So we'll move on to the real.

Reason for today is there's been a lot of teen violence, specifically in my district. We had A young woman was murdered in December. A cheerleader was murdered by her boyfriend. It was a domestic violence issue. She had broken up with him, but he found a way.

Part of the discussions we've had in the past is on restraining orders. Restraining orders, we think, fix everything. It's just a piece of paper that doesn't stop anybody from doing anything. It's just indicating to law enforcement that that person should not be near you. But it doesn't stop the person from actually coming after you.

And it was really a sad and tragic situation in the City of Azusa. It's Azusa Unified School District. And the purpose again for today's meeting. Is I want to talk about. Teen violence and healthy relationships. We want to bring awareness to domestic violence in all areas.

But again, the focus for today's meeting will be on teens and young adults and healthy relationships and how to navigate through those. We all know that many survivors suffer in silence. They're trapped by fear, stigma, or lack of knowledge about available support. By raising awareness, we educate our communities about the different forms of domestic violence. It's interesting.

I'm a teacher and, well, I guess once a teacher, always a teacher. And I had a situation. I taught fourth grade and the young boy was laying on his desk and I'm thinking, okay, what are you doing? It's early in the morning and I'm like, wake up, wake up. He's all like, oh, Ms. Rubio.

It's because my dad was chasing my mom in the bathroom and hitting her and I couldn't sleep. He said it so matter of fact that it's just part of what he sees all the time. And so he was like, basically, let me go back to sleep, I'm tired. And as opposed to really understanding what was happening.

And he was 8 years old, so I can only imagine if he thought it was a normal part of what was happening. I hope and I pray that somehow the family got some help. But unless we actively guide them or talk about what's happening, I don't know if that family has ever gotten help.

And it does haunt me. I try to be positive and think that we're doing a lot to eradicate domestic violence or to at least highlight the resources available to families. But the reality is that if we can help one person, there's two or three or four or more others that are being abused at the moment.

So I really do look forward to hearing from our expert advocates as they share valuable insights and resources. And let's see. And I introduced our Assembly Members and our first panel is on teen dating. The first panel will focus on teen dating violence and issues surrounding it.

They will cover topics such as warning signs of abuse, the impacts technology. And we all know technology is a major culprit in what we're going through now. Not just in abuse, but also depression and mental health issues with teens because of it.

But we want to highlight some of the resources that or ideas that we can suggest so that families and teachers and just neighbors can use to try and help these victims. And so with us today, and I'm going to ask them to come up. We have Jenica Morin Pasquin. She is a speaker and consultant of Jamaica Talks.

We also have Taylor Stoneel, Youth Domestic Violence Prevention coordinator at Black Women Revolt Against Domestic Violence and We'll bring them up. They'll have about 20 minutes to talk. And then if we have any questions. Feel free to, you know, let me know so that we can have a conversation again. This is meant to be fluid.

What I wish that we can all get out of this again is the. Information on teen dating and healthy relationships, but also what we can do about it. So, ladies, thank you for joining us. And we'll go ahead and get started. Jenica, if you will.

Good morning. Thank you for having us here today to talk about this very important conversation. You know, when working with teens, part of what I'm doing right now is going out into the high schools and junior highs, providing education on what a healthy and an unhealthy relationship is.

So many times children that have come from homes where they've witnessed violence, it is very easy for them to kind of let those little red flags go, because it's very normal in their home to see fighting, yelling, screaming.

And then as they start developing relationships in those very early ages, like 1213 even friendships, they don't really understand what a healthy relationship looks like.

And so when we talk about some of the different types of signs that we're seeing, especially with technology and some of the things that I'm kind of encountering, which I'm sure you are as well, is the biggest thing right now. What I'm seeing with some of our high school students is being able to buy somebody a phone.

Like, hey, I got you this phone for your birthday or for a gift. But it's a way to have tracking devices. It's a way to put apps on their phones to be able to share their text messages. It's a way to kind of have contact in everything that they're doing.

So seeing who they friend on their Instagram, having their passwords, seeing if they like somebody else's story, being able to really monitor how much time their partner is using on social media, and then being able to see everything because they've bought this phone that now they have access to because they've paid for it, or I bought you that phone as a gift.

But it's a way of having that control. So that's something that I'm seeing a lot more. And also just with food, you know, with high school students and junior high, like, when you get food, because now there's Uber Eats and all of these different ways.

So sometimes I'll see at schools, zero, my partner sent me lunch today and tomorrow, and every day they're getting lunch delivered. Like, it's really exciting when you're 14, 15 years old to have McDonald's and Chick-Fil-A getting delivered to school. But then some days I'll see no food, and I'm like, hey, what's going on?

Oh, we got in a fight, so I don't get lunch today. Or, you know, different ways that they're using things that now they have access to on their phones to be able to have that control.

I have a students that I see that come to school with a lot of different their nails done or bags, makeup, eyelashes, and it's things that their partners have bought them because those are the things that are exciting for teens right now. And then being able to take all of those things away. Right?

And so I see those kinds of things being used a lot more because people have a lot of ways to access that by buying things on Amazon, having them delivered, having little gifts delivered.

And I'm seeing that so much more with my high school students that I work with as that being different forms that we never really were able to see earlier on. Also just with teens when they're in school. So one out of seven high school students experiences an abusive relationship.

And more than half of them never let their parents know because they don't want their parents to tell them. You can't be with this person when you're a teen. That person means everything to you, right?

And so having their family or friends tell them, like, this isn't somebody that you should be with, they don't want people to know that. And when in talking to parents and when I'm doing education, many parents would tell me, like, oh, I could identify. I would know for sure if my child was in an abusive.

And none of them knew that their children were in abusive relationships because the kids didn't want their parents to know because they knew they would be limited then on what they were able to do with that person that they think that they're in love with. And that person really taking all of their time.

So I see them come to school in the mornings. They're texting all their way to school. They get out of class. Then they meet right after class, then they have lunch together, then they have break together, then they, you know, walk to the next class together.

Then after school, they're texting until they get home, and then they're calling and they're FaceTiming and let me see where you're at. Well, send me a picture where you're at. Well, who else is there? Well, I didn't know you were wearing that how come you're wearing that? Who else is going to be at this party?

So it's like with the phone to being able to constantly have access. And I see that a lot with the kids as they feel like that person, their whole world revolves around them.

That lack of Independence and being able to, like, no, today I want to have lunch with my friends and today I'm going to go hang out, you know, after school.

It's not really understanding what those healthy relationships look like because they don't know what that Independence means and how important it is to be independent when you're, you know, growing up and being able to have your own set of friends.

And it's okay to have friends of the opposite sex, because when I talk to kids, they're like, nope, that's the number one rule. Nope. They can't have friends that are girls and they can't have friends that are guys. And like, no, that's, that's important to be able to have that to develop and grow and understand.

But many times when I'm working with youth, I see that these are things that they think are kind of cool. Again, a lot of times because of what they're seeing on social media, that these, it's, it's. It's important to be jealous. So when I ask the kids, what do you want?

They're like, well, they have to be jealous because that's what tells me they like me. No, that's not. But they have this misconception because of what's shown in TikTok videos and different things that they watch that TV shows and music that they hear that this is what is normalized.

And so they think that this is what relationships are supposed to look like. And so really trying to help them to understand that there's trust in relationships, there's honesty in relationships, and really helping them to see what that looks like. Because many kids have never had those examples of what that actually looks like.

They may have only seen unhealthy. And so they just kind of are following what they think is normal and what is a learned behavior. So I think some of the resources that we really try to incorporate is teaching those red flags.

Because many times I always say that people wear these little love blinder sunglasses and those red flags are there from the beginning, but those little glasses are on and you're like, oh, this person is great and they look amazing and everything's.

They're the popular and they're, you know, oh, they're the, you know, you know, getting great grades and Everybody likes this person. And those red flags are there from the beginning, but they have those little sunglasses on. They're just kind of brushing those red flags away.

But many times friends and family aren't wearing those and they can see those red flags.

May I? Just. Because it popped into my head, I have teenagers. I have an 18 year old now and a 17 year old and my son was in a relationship.

And I saw the signs, but I was like, ah, maybe it's just me, maybe it's just, you know, I'm being too judgmental, you know, just all of these things. As a parent, you know, I kept saying, I don't know and brushed it off.

I brushed it off because I'm thinking it's just me trying to justify that something, you know, and it wasn't obvious. It's my son, but it wasn't, you know, an obvious. It was just like constantly on the phone, constantly having to check in.

We were on vacation and apparently she started blowing up my daughter's phone because my son wouldn't answer. And he called her back and I happened to hear the conversation and he's like, well, I told you that my phone, I had to leave my phone in the room to charge.

And she says, but I told you that if you're gonna leave, make sure you charge it so that I'm always able to contact you. And I was like, it didn't feel right. But again, as a parent, so I know the resources are for the teens, right?

But as a parent, I was like, I don't know what to do. And so it took a while, literally like five or six months before I was like, we have to have a conversation. But a lot of the damage to him just feeling bad about himself was already happening. And so if you can talk about.

Any suggestions for parents as well, because. I'm supposedly, I'm Assembly Member, I have all the resources in the world and I know I. I've been chair of this Committee for six years. So you would assume that at least I would know the first thing and I didn't.

So if you can talk about some of the things that parents can look for or what we can do.

Well, I think you brought up a perfect example, right? It was things that you noticed, but then you kind of were like, oh, maybe not, maybe not. And I think that those are the things that we want people to look at.

So when we do talk to those friends and family, we want them to see and know what is unhealthy relationship so that they can have that conversation. With that person who may be in an unhealthy relationship. Like, say, hey, you know, when you're in a relationship, it's okay for you to not have to respond immediately.

It's okay for you to be able to have time with your family and be able to do things, and that person should be supportive, you know, having those conversations about, what does that look like?

It's important to have somebody who supports you and wants you to do things and wants you to be able to play a sport and have to practice in the night. And it's okay. It's okay to go on vacation with your family, and you encourage that.

Like, zero, I hope you have fun with your family, and, you know, call me whenever you get a chance. But when you have those conversations about what that looks like with your child, you really have to be able to be.

To be able to explain, like, this is what unhealthy looks like, and this is what healthy looks like. And helping them to see. Well, really? Because I didn't think that this. Because that's. I think what a lot of people don't realize is they don't even think that maybe things that are not healthy, you know, are not.

Are not unhealthy. Right? Like, they just think like, zero, that's normal. Like, that's not that big of a deal. It's not that, yeah, they miss me or they think this is normal. It's okay. And so I think that until you have those conversations, sometimes people don't even realize it. They're like, really?

Like, okay, I didn't think it was that big a deal that they're calling me 20 times or that they're messaging me or that they see that, you know, now it's turned into, you know, every single mint. Because I haven't responded. Now that's not okay. So it's having those conversations. And I think really having parents look at.

Has their child changed the way that they dress? Have they changed their friends? Are they not hanging out with their friends like they used to? Because I have. That's a huge sign for me. If you've been friends with somebody since kindergarten and now you're dating somebody and now you're not allowed to talk. Talk to that person anymore.

First of all, you're not allowed. Like, that shouldn't be right. Because in a healthy relationship, there's equality. We're the same. Nobody has more power than the other person. We make decisions. We work together as a team. We compromise. We have communication. And times in unhealthy relationships, it's just what the other person wants or what they feel.

Well, I feel like you shouldn't hang out with that group because I don't like the way that they, you know, they act, and I don't think they're a good influence on you. So. So I'd rather you just hang out with me. You know, creating that isolation, but very subtly.

I mean, a lot of times it doesn't come just like, oh, I don't want you talking to this person. It's very. You know what? I don't think that they're the best group of friends. You know, look at how they act every time you're with them. We fight. Is that really what you want?

You want to fight, and that manipulation takes place. And so it's really helping somebody to kind of understand what that looks like.

And thank you. Any questions?

So I just want to. I'm not a parent, but this topic is deeply, deeply personal to me. I grew up in a very sheltered life. I wasn't allowed to date. And we didn't talk about dating. We didn't talk about relationships, because I just saw my happily married parents and grandparents, and that was kind of it.

And unfortunately, a young man came into my life and he formed what a relationship should look like. And it was extremely abusive, emotionally and physically. And I became so good at hiding it from my parents that when I finally had those moments that I had to go to my parents, it was just.

It was heartbreaking to see in their eyes that they felt like they had failed as a parent. And they didn't. They had given me every opportunity and all of the love. Even the people close to me didn't know because I was so conditioned to hide it from people that I love.

Earlier this year, I was on a listening session at the Marjorie Mason center, and it was all teenagers. And, I mean, it was heartbreaking that they're talking to me about, to your point, wearing T shirts that have their significant other's names on. They're not allowed to talk to other people.

The strangulation that's happening as a result of young men watching pornography and believing that that's a normal sex life. And it was so hard to have these conversations with teenagers because they're children, right? And I'm sitting here, 31 years old, thinking, zero, my gosh, I can't believe at that age I would have to think of these things.

But you do. And so that's what's so tough for me, is I knew I couldn't go to my parents with this Because I felt shame for what I was going through. So I also recognize for educators, it's a really touchy place to talk about these things.

So I had a bill that I actually made into a two year bill because I really wanted to deep dive into this. I'm so grateful you guys are here today because I want to help teens. I want to actually give them resources.

And one of the things that I heard was that they didn't know how to identify things. You know, what is assault, what is bullying? And then talking about those things is very uncomfortable for some people. So I guess my question is when parents can't be the one to be the resource.

And we're asking so much of our educators right now, what would be the best intervention as far as parents feeling comfortable with somebody that's not then talking to their child about these things and not putting it on an educator, that if a child is going through something, they aren't putting themselves or their career in jeopardy by not saying something or saying something.

Right.

You know, I think that's why I'm so grateful for some of the school districts that have allowed me to come in because they recognize that. So they brought this in as a way to cover the AB329 talking about sex ed and interpersonal violence.

And so they have me come in during that science class when the science teachers usually talk about it. But they said, hey, we want to bring in an expert. Instead of having to put this on our science teacher who really isn't, you know, doesn't have all of this information about this.

We're going to have you come in and we're going to have you talk about this. And I feel like when I talked with the kids, so much conversation came up about it that then they said, hey, can you do the same conversation they do with the kids, with the parents? And so I was able to do that.

And so that's what I'm seeing, that there's school districts that are opening up and saying, hey, we want this. It's been such a hard thing to do to talk about this conversation in schools, because a lot of schools are like, no, we don't want to have this conversation. This isn't happening in our schools. But it is.

And just like you said, many times, the kids aren't afraid. So when I talk about it, it kind of brings it up. So I give them stickers. I saw the kids walking around after I saw them again, they're like, hey, that's a red flag. That's a red flag.

And it was much more just like a normalized conversation so that it keeps it fresh in their mind, like, hey, this isn't okay. And the kids were coming up to me after, like, hey, I have a friend that, you know, trying to.

And it was good because it gave that opportunity for it to be comfortable, where it wasn't the teacher, it wasn't their parents, but we were able to really have some authentic conversations about what they were going through, what their experiences looks like. I was asking them, what do you guys see on campus? Tell me what you guys.

And the examples that they give is that, well, you know, we can't do this. We can't, because my partner doesn't let me. I have to. I'm only allowed to post so many things on Instagram.

My partner wants shows me a picture that they have access to, and they want me to try this, and I've never done this before.

But because they think that this is what normalized sexual activity looks like, because they have access to so many things that they're not comfortable doing at 12, 13 years old, but they're making and sending videos because they think that that's part of a normal relationship.

That's so heartbreaking.

No, absolutely.

It is very heartbreaking. Assemblymember. And I'm glad that you brought that up, too, because we're right at the moment. We're in a crossroads, if you will, where we don't trust that. It's not like the olden days where the neighbors would help or whatever the adages were that the neighbors could scold you.

And it was, okay, we're in a time where we're trying to obviously be protective of our children. But where is that line? You know, you mentioned that you go into the science classrooms. Do they have to fill out a permission slip to get that conversation? So. So see that the question then becomes, what if a parent doesn't?

So what happens to those children that are not getting the conversations? And can you talk a little bit more about the parents, what you did with the parents? So, before we continue, Assemblymember Stefani, any questions or comments here?

Yes, thank you, Chair, and it's an honor to be on this. I have long admired you for your work, and before I even met you, I wanted a chance to be able to work with you on this topic. So it's really an honor to be here today, and thank you so much for your testimony so far.

And, Taylor, always good to see you from San Francisco. And, you know, for me, this topic is so personal, too.

I grew up at A home of a lot of domestic violence when my mom married my stepdad when I was 9 years old, and she was in that relationship for 41 years, and he was very abusive, and it took her 41 years to get out.

And I've seen the isolation, the course of financial control, and then what it does to the children. I'm the oldest of four for my mom and dad. And you know what I saw, no kid should have to experience. And there's a lot of trauma that people have to recover from.

And, you know, a lot of times, too, the systems that were meant to protect my mom just weren't there to protect her. Or cps, you know, just. They did not work in a way that provided any relief for those being abused and for the victims in that case.

And you know what I've also noticed, too, is always, it seems that our society puts the onus on the victim or the one being abused to fix the problem. Like, the question is always, well, why doesn't she leave? Instead of, why doesn't he stop? You know?

And so I think some of the focus which I know we're doing, whether it's schools or a lot of times it's in the jails.

Sunny Schwartz in San Francisco has developed an incredible program for those that have abused women to really focus on, okay, how do we educate those that are victims and being abused and help them get out of that situation? And how do we look at the. Teens. Those that are abusing?

How do we get programs to them to help them see this is not a road they want to go down, or these are feelings inside or these are actions that they're taking that they should recognize and they should have somewhere to go to help, too.

So I. I just want to know whether or not you focus on that or if there's anything being done in our schools to also look at that from that angle.

Absolutely.

I mean, I appreciate you bringing that up. Thank you also both of you for kind of sharing your personal insight on this, because it affects so many people. And I don't think people. I mean, just look, in this space alone, we are. You know, you guys were able to share.

That the trauma that affects children is lifelong. For kids that grow up in homes where they witness violence, more than 50% of those children are also abused as well.

And so they also have the long lasting effects from that trauma that you know, from even children who are as early as I've seen one years old who have the effects of just not being able to eat, having digestive issues at babies because they've come from homes where they witnessed violence and then up until the middle school age and teenagers, that trauma truly affects children.

What I'm trying to do is also incorporate self esteem building workshops because I do know that that is is extremely important. For children who have experienced and witnessed abuse many times it takes years before they ever share it.

They never talk about it because it's been taught what happens in the home stays in the home and you don't share those things. And so it takes a long time or sometimes it's the first time me going into school talking about it.

There was a kid that came up to me after and said how did you know my house? Like how did you know? And he thought I was talking about him. He came up to me after and I was just like he was upset because he thought I was talking about everything that was happening in his home.

But also it was the first time that he was ever able to talk. So just being able to be allowed in these spaces, I think is what really is where we start being preventative and talking about what healthy relationships look like. I'm trying to incorporate this. I was sharing with Assembly women that working with athlete orientation.

So this becomes part of the orientation for all athletes in schools so that when they get their regular athletic orientation, then I'm part of that athletic orientation. Just different ways that we can try to. How do we get in there and have these conversations in any space that we can.

Thank you for that. And thank you. Yes. So I just did want to mention that Jenica has recently started working with with high schools, specifically in my district, because I shared with you that the young woman was murdered in the Azusa Unified School District. So they're in conversations about that she's in West Covina.

She's also a trainer for the Raiders because we see a lot of the domestic violence issues with the sports teams because nobody taught them how to have relationships either.

And I know you're working, you said with UC San Diego is going to bring you in to do part of the orientation is this kind of training for those athletes. Because if we need to attack it in all forms so thank you, Jenica. And I want to welcome Assembly Member Gibson. Thank you.

We all understand we're ping ponging back and forth, so no worries. But Jenica, if we can, you know, move on to the next speaker and then hopefully we'll have more time because. Because I know the conversations are so important and the questions start instead of decreasing. We're like, my God, what about this? What about that?

So thank you. And then so now we have Taylor. Taylor, welcome.

Thank you for having me. Before I get to what I was planning to say, I also wanted to add for parents, Valor has a Car Conversations guide. It is aimed at children between 8 and 14. B A L O R. It is something you can download, I believe, in English or in Spanish.

And they are meant to be those little quips when you have your kid in the back of the car of like how to introduce a topic without sounding cheesy for you to sort of touch base on what they're doing and what their friends are doing.

Because if you want the foundation to be able to have a chance at speaking with your child about their dating life or what their friends are doing, you need to start those conversations before those things come up. Right.

The other resource I use with families who might not have access to me if they're not in our district or our area is Love is Respect. So that is the National Teen Dating Abuse Domestic Hotline. But they also have an Instagram. It's going to be "loveisrespectofficial".

If you know your child spends a lot of time on their cell phone on Instagram you can go in and have them follow accounts that talk about healthy relationships. So when they are busy scrolling they follow Love is Respect. They follow Join one Love so that that content is part of their feed.

They follow their local youth clinic so that they're seeing that information as part of their scroll. And the same can be true for stuff about positive self image. Right.

Making sure that they know they're spending time on their phone that not only do they unfollow stuff that doesn't make them feel good about themselves, but that you can also put in some follows of information you would like them to see.

Thank you. And go ahead.

Yeah.

Otherwise really appreciate you being here.

Thank you for having me. So my name is Taylor. I'm the Youth DV Prevention Coordinator with Black Women Revolt. Get some other domestic violence. I'm also an advisory council member for Love is Respect, which is the National Teen Dating Violence and Abuse hotline. So According to the CDC, sorry.

According to the CDC's 2022 Teen Dating Violence Fact sheet, of teens who are dating in the last year, one in 12 high schoolers will report that they experienced physical violence at the hands of their partner. One in 12 high schoolers will report that they were sexually abused by their partner.

And only one in three will report that they have told any adult. Right. For that statistic. It is approximately, I think three quarters of students. And I will get you the citation for that. Did tell a friend. Right.

And so one of the things that we are all leaning on when we come into classrooms is that none of us remember resources when we are overwhelmed, but their friend might.

So teen dating violence includes physical, psychological or sexual abuse or harassment of any youth 12 to 18 in the context of a past or present dating or consensual relationship. Black Revolt Against Domestic Violence is proud to offer community and school based prevention presentations on healthy relationships. Teen Dating Violence 101.

And our most common one at the moment is Digital boundaries. So a nod to that need to acknowledge that we are online, right. And that youth are not able to check off or take time away from friendships or dating relationships that the same way that we might have been able to.

On that note, one of my most handed out resources is Take it Down. It is a resource with the National Center on Missing Exploited Children.

If the youth you are working with have taken a sexual video or just a semi nude image or suggested image of themselves and they were under 18 when it was taken, they can upload it to have it taken down.

This is where as a parent you now need to tell your child that if they take a sexual video or photo or their partner takes one of them, they they need to send it to themselves because I cannot have them tag it to have it removed anonymously if they do not have a copy of that video image, which is a bit of a different conversation the parent than saying please don't take it.

Right? I also want to nod that in accordance with the California Healthy Youth act, we go into schools and talk to them about social emotional education. Very similar. Also talking about signs for consent and teen dating violence awareness. And those are rights that your students are to have in middle school and high school.

And formerly with Cal oes, we were able to build relationships with the University of San Francisco and San Francisco State which are in our San Francisco city and county, but also Skyland and Cal State East Bay where we've launched a three part love series with our college students to make sure that we talk about what love is.

And also what love is when you are not living at home for the first time. So we all know dorm love is a little bit different than high school dating. The heart of our intervention efforts are Youth Advisory Council. So we invite youth 18 to 24 to learn about healthy relationships.

And they serve as ambassadors, both as near peers for my middle schoolers and high schoolers, because what I have to say is nowhere near as cool as what my college students have to say.

And also ambassadors on their campus on when their friends might need a breakup plan and when they might need a safety plan and where to get assistance on and off campus.

It is confidential because often they do not want their school to be aware of what's going on or for it to affect their academics the same way that you don't want your parents necessarily to know. Sometimes our prevention and awareness efforts come too late.

Our Youth Advisory Council, Ender and Kendall, had a prevention presentation scheduled with Zeta Phi Beta sorority in spring 2024. Happened to be on the same night I was on campus for a memorial for a student, Zoa Nikki Reedy Watts, who was killed by her boyfriend in his home.

There is also a scholarship at San Francisco State, and there may be for a college near you in memory of Ariana Mae Hitomi, who is a student who also lost her life at the hands of a former partner.

With federal changes, it's more important now than ever that California youth have access to accurate information on healthy relationships, consent, dating, domestic violence, and how to recognize the signs of an abusive relationship before it starts.

Empowering youth is one of the core efforts of our program, so we're really proud to be able to work with the San Francisco youth commissioners. So 2024 in February is recognized as Teen Dating, Violence and Awareness and Prevention Month.

Our youth commissioners actually wrote their own proclamation in recognition of that and passed that through and brought it to their supervisors. They've done that again in 2025. So the initial.

But just getting that to be part of their legislative identity so that if they continue on in law or they continue on in teaching, that they see the words domestic violence in a hearing, in a motion, in a bill, and they don't think it's so big and so scary that they can't touch it.

Because I think that's the other thing that happens is it feels like something that's so big that people don't want to say the wrong thing.

Yeah. Thank you. Any questions or comments? Well, funny you mentioned San Francisco State. My son is going to be a freshman in the fall, and so I'll be sure to contact you. I think, like I said, as a parent, I'm always worried for kids.

And I know all of us are so on that I didn't really get to talk about your bio. So how did you get started?

I have a background in sexual abuse. Sorry, in sexual health education and infectious disease prevention from City College in San Francisco, where I was a peer educator for their Expect Respect program.

But in retrospect, I was drawn to the work because I had a seatmate in high school who had a restraining order that our principal did not enforce. And so he was able to access her, even though she was 18 and he was 17, inside the school building.

And it was something that we had to navigate as her classmates. Yeah.

Thank you. Mr. Assemblymember Gipson has a question.

Well, thank you very much for appearing. Really appreciate your testimony today. What one thing or two things would you would like for us to know. As legislators that would, by way of policy, help that we should consider. To. Try to make sure that other young people are protected?

I think those two things I would think of, for one, that original Cal OES funding that we had no longer exists. Right. So prevention funding can't just be something we fund for two years, then we stop. There are new middle schoolers and high schoolers every fall. They all deserve access to that information on healthy relationships.

So making sure that that's constant. Right. How much was that? I will have to get back to you on that. Okay, thank you. My Executive Director can answer that question when she's up next. The other thing I would say is that we in California have written in allowances for education on consent and teen dating violence.

They are part of the California Healthy Youth act. And we have to ensure that that is in practice and students have access to that education information, even when a lot of that federal funding that comes through to do the work, can act in a silencing capacity.

If California has recognized that youth need access to that information, we need to ensure that our students have access to that information.

Yes, but I guess the question would be is what does that look like? Because I shared earlier that we're in such a protective mode at the moment that we don't trust that either the parents or the school system, and especially not the legislators, are doing what's best, you know, because they're my kids. Right. It's my child.

Who are you? So how. Because it's already in the Youth Act. So what do you think is the roadblock for the schools from actually talking about it or enforcing It.

I think what I've seen is that they think they cover it by just having that chapter, and that's not really covering it. Students need this more than just like one time a year in a brief130 minute conversation. It really needs to be incorporated into the curriculum. Just like it's a math or science subject.

That's what I believe. It needs to be something that is ingrained very early on, talking about what healthy boundaries are, healthy friendship. Because many young kids can't. Kindergartners, first graders, they may not understand because they may come from homes where they've seen things. And so then we start to see bullying.

We start to see kids who are coming from homes who are the bullies. And also the kids who, you know, are the ones being bullied. We know that that is linked to domestic violence. And so I think it really needs to be something that is incorporated early on.

It doesn't need to happen in junior high and high school. They're already establishing friendships in kindergarten where they're like, I don't want you to play with that person. I don't want you to play with that person. And just helping kids to understand what those look like. It's okay that we all play together.

It's okay to have friends, you know, and understanding what that looks like, I think sometimes it gets like, let's tell them later when they're older to understand. But just like learning your colors, you can still teach a kid what it means to be kind and respectful and honest.

Thank you. Yeah, no, no. No worries. No worries. So thank you. Yes, go ahead.

I just want to thank Taylor for every time I see you, I'm so inspired. I mean, what you're doing with black women revolt and then the resolution that was authored by Assemblywoman Rubio on teen dating violence, I was able to co author that. Thank you.

And really recognize the San Francisco Youth Commission for everything they're doing around this. And I just want to again, call that, call that out, because every time I meet with the Youth Commission in San Francisco, they have even more ideas for us.

And I think this emphasis on making sure this education is not just funded for two years, it's something that needs to be funded like mathematics. Like, you know, this is something that we need to be teaching from a very early age with consistent funding up through college.

So anything I can do to be supported, I have to run to edgy really quick. But thank you. Thanks. Good to hear you. Thank you so much. Appreciate that.

And yes, you know, going back to the conversation about the work that you all do, I think sometimes it feels like you're fighting this fight on your own. And there's just know that there's a lot of us that are here now. As you can see from our schedules, everybody's running around. I call it ping ponging.

But you have an incredible Legislator in your area. And please reach out. Even if you think, look, the budget is what it is right now, so the excuse is always going to be the budget. However, I think that there's other things like the Youth act that is already in place.

And so as a teacher, I can tell you we don't need extra funding. We just need time to actually do that work. And to your point, Jenica, reading about it and checking the box is not education. It's more of a you're checking the box because it's required as opposed to actually putting some emphasis in it.

So maybe without talking about money, maybe the conversation should be about how do we, I don't want to call it enforcement, but how do we assure that schools are having these conversations? Because we see a lot of domestic violence and teen violence. We talk about it, but, you know, it feels like they're isolated incidents and they're not.

You know, to your point, when you see kids, they have experienced, and you said it as well, many kids have already experienced that. They just don't know the difference. And how do we get to that point? So thank you. Good. Any other questions? Okay, well, thank you.

Just for the interest of time, if you would like to sit here and I'll bring our other panelists up and we'll start that conversation and hopefully we can start a conversation between all of us. If not, you know, I really appreciate it, but if you wouldn't mind just standing there or if you want to go back.

Yeah, we can. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Yes. Because I think it's important to have a fluid conversation. You can all sit here. Yes. So the second panel, the second panel, we're going to discuss the impacts of domestic violence, the impact on children that are come from domestic violence situations.

They will cover topics such as strategies of preventing long term trauma, child abuse rates in the state, and children's responses to violence. Here today we have Joyce Blue, Deputy Director of Sacramento Regional Family Justice Center.

We have Susie Flores, Director of Inner Circle Children's Advocacy Center, and Dr. Pamela Tate, Executive Director of Black Women Revolt Against Domestic Violence. Thank you, ladies, for also being here. You've heard from our amazing panelists already.

And I could see you in the back going, you know, sparks flying Because I know that the conversations we're having are very familiar to what you're through, through the work that you are doing. So if I can have Joyce Blue, if you want to start, and then Susie Flores and then Dr. Tate, go right ahead.

Thank you. First of all, thank you. You guys did a great presentation. I took some notes for some good resources. So I appreciate that. Thank you for inviting me to speak. My name is Joyce Blue and I'm the Deputy Director of the Sacramento Regional Family Justice Center here in Sacramento.

And I've worked in the field of defense, domestic violence. October will be 43 years. So it's been life calling. Excuse me. I'm also a survivor of domestic violence. So the Sacramento Regional Family justice center is a one stop center where we provide services, free services to survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, elder and child abuse.

And we have a lot of agencies on site. We have the Sacramento Child Advocacy Program on site where we have four forensic interview rooms where children are being interviewed. We have a legal team. We're the lead agency in Sacramento county that provides the domestic violence and elder abuse restraining orders.

We have a team of case managers or social workers. We have a human trafficking program. We're the only agency in Sacramento that has a 24 hour, seven day a week human trafficking program. We have our child therapy program which I'll share a little bit bit more about. We call it Catch Children and Teens Creating Hope.

So we provide child therapy. We offer a Camp Hope America. We have kids at camp right now as we speak. We sent 30 kids to camp this year. We have camp for smaller kids and the older kids are at camp up by Truckee right now. They went yesterday, so they're having a good time.

We have a housing program. We don't provide shelter, but we have financial resources and, and case management for survivors and their children who are leaving and maybe need to get some financial help to pay their rent. We have a partnership with local hotels, so we're available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

We have a domestic violence high risk team. So law enforcement will call us or the hospital will call us and say, hey, you know, we have a human trafficking survivor or a survivor domestic violence that really needs to get into a place right now and then those ongoing services, so we provide them to them.

Domestic violence, as you all know, is about power and control. Someone mentioned about the Simon over there talked about staying or leaving. And it's really not about staying or leaving quite often. It's about living or dying, you know, and then when you have kids, it just adds to that. Breaking that cycle of violence is really hard.

I know in your conversation, you were talking about how do we break that cycle, cycle for our teens? You know, you got to get through that denial. So how do you get through that denial when it's trying to break the fantasy from the reality of what it is? So how do you do that?

So we work with our kids on that. As many of you, you know that children, when they react to domestic violence, you know, they often act out, they've withdrawn, they show signs of anxiety or depression, maybe have some sleep issues, they often struggle in school, develop trust issues, or they become very hyper vigilant.

You know, they're always on guard. I'm a survivor, a child who was in a household with domestic violence also, and I remember just always being on guard. I'm a military family. My father was a prisoner of war, a Bataan death march survivor, and stayed in for 20 years. So he had his own duffel bag full of issues.

And that comes down to your children. You know, many begin to normalize the abuse and repeat that cycle later in life. The one thing I do want to talk to you about is, though we've seen an increase in adult strangulation and pediatric strangulation.

But when we first opened our doors in 2016, we had nine reported cases of women who disclosed they used the term choke. We weren't trained in it. We weren't trained for assessing it or anything like that. Our whole staff now has received advanced training.

And our data, it's like 89 to 90% of the clients who come through there have experienced some form of strangulation. Children. When it comes to pediatric, we've seen an increase of children who've been strangled, either by a child at school or mom's boyfriend or father or someone in the household.

The thing about when it comes to strangulation, there's generally over 50% of the cases. There's no visible injuries. So you really need to take strangulation as an emergency medical.

They need to go get a CTA scan so they can have the internals, see if there's any kind of damage, because you can have brain damage, stroke, and even memory loss or death within just a few seconds. The one thing that I know the stimuli woman talked about before she left was strangulation during sex.

This is a conversation that most of us don't have with our children. So get your aunts and uncles to do it for your kids. But teens are being strangled during sex or what's called rough sex. And teens strangulation is being used in dating relationships even during consensual or non consensual acts.

Many don't realize it's abuse, it's a frame of passion. So we need to teach others that strangulation is never safe. It's an act of control and dominance, not love. And there is no safe way to strangle someone. You cannot consent to something that can cause bodily harm or can kill you.

So you, Senator Rubio, you said you have a son, you know, have that conversation. Because if you think about a couple having strangulation incorporated into their sex, there's one person that's a victim and then there's another person that can have a consequence of prison time for death or for seriously bodily hurting someone.

So we have to have those conversations. How you have them is a different story. I know the National Institute on Strangulation Prevention, which is part of the Family Justice Center Alliance. I'm on a couple of their committees, national committees. We're coming up with talking points that families can talk to their kids about.

If you think about where are they getting this information about sexual glamorized all over social media. We also use evidence based risk assessment tools. We use what's called the danger assessment 20. It was developed by Dr. Jackie Campbell. It's a validated tool that identifies risk factors for lethality, including strangulation, coercive control, weapon use and threats.

It allows us to respond with urgency, not like guesswork. Research shows that domestic violence is predictable and if it's predictable, therefore it's preventable. And the lethality assessment can really help. It's a score based tool. Of course, the more higher the score, the more lethal your relationship is.

We also do on everyone who's had a danger assessment, but on others too. We also do personalized safety plans on our children, on our team, on our adults. They include like escape routes. You know, money, financial, you know, a safety plan isn't a one time be all thing.

It's something that changes all the time depending on your situation. I think we're kind of the experts in our area on safety planning, but it is something that is very much needed. You cannot say, go get a restraining order without doing a safety plan.

Child Protective Services, if they want that family to get a restraining order, they have to have a safety plan. If law enforcement says we can't do nothing unless you get a restraining order, you have to have a safety plan. Because what you mentioned earlier, restraining orders don't save lives. They're a piece of paper.

It's not a shield of armor. It does start a legal document trial and you're asking the courts for protection. But the more lethal the relationship is, the more scary it is to get a restraining order. So you have to have a safety plan. Most people in these domestic violence relationships don't want to leave.

They want that abusive behavior to stop. Most of us, a lot of us think, if they leave, they're safe. Well, the hell just begins once they leave, you know, and that's what I love about the Family Justice Center Model.

Because when you leave, when I left years ago, you had to go from agency to agency, retelling your story, getting re traumatizing and giving up, basically, and sometimes to agencies who mean well but are not so sensitive to your issue.

You know, the Family Justice Center Model, you come in, you share their story one time, and you get connected to all of these services under run roof. We emphasize really the proper screening and documentation, especially if there's been strangulation.

We do a lot of training for hospitals that we also offer art therapy and play therapy and trauma focused behavioral therapy for kids. We do the group therapy. We do. We just started this new group called Emotional Hygiene Group to help them with their.

We didn't want to use the term mental health, but so the kids were really drawn to that group, healthy relationships. We did do grieving and loss and then music and.

We have to understand the trauma that people go through, so we screen for the adverse childhood experiences. We use the ACEs tool to understand what the child has experienced. It's not just how they're behaving.

ACEs are potentially traumatic events that happen in a child's life, like the emotional, the physical, and the sexual abuse, the domestic violence in the home, any parental substance abuse or incarceration, neglect, abandonment—those types of things. And the science is really clear on ACEs.

The higher the ACE score, the greater the risk of long term physical and mental health problems. ACEs scores are linked to heart disease, substance abuse, depression, school failure, incarcerating, and early death. The ACES doesn't take in consideration though, those children who live in an environment, a community, where there's lots of violence too. But here's the hope.

ACEs are not the destiny. Support—the more supportive—adults that that child has around them, the more trauma-informed care they receive, and the safe environments that they're involved in can really help reduce the impact of ACEs and build that resilience. We use ACEs to guide our therapeutic approach.

We use it for our case management and safety planning, not to label kids, but to help them heal with intention. And I'll just share briefly with you about our Camp Hope America, where we are restoring childhood. Camp Hope is our summer program for kids exposed to domestic violence. It's not just a summer camp.

It's based around the science of hope. I don't know if you know this, but you can actually measure hope. It builds resilience and teaches kids that hope is a life skill. So, we measure hope. We use what's called the Hope Index Survey. 30 days before camp, the kids take it.

While they're in camp, they take it, and 30 days after. And what we found is while they're—before camp—their scores are low. But in camp, they go up. When they're out of camp, they go back low.

So, we do ongoing monthly activities, in particular, leadership activities with these kids, because we want them to know that their dreams can come true. And we see that their HOPE scores stay high. Programs like Camp Hope give children and teens a chance to rebuild trust, process trauma, and experience the joy in a safe environment.

We just don't keep them—we just don't help them survive. We help them restore hope. So, we know that early intervention really does save lives. So, we train 911 dispatchers because that's where that call comes in. They get very little training on domestic violence, in particular high-risk cases of domestic violence.

We have them answer these—incorporate five high risk questions. Based on that danger assessment 20 that I was telling you about, there's five questions that's incorporated into that. It can help with officer safety, for one thing. So, 911 dispatcher gets the call.

They put it into what's called a CAD call, which goes to that officer, that responding officer, who knows now, oh, there's been strangulation. Oh, there's weapons involved, there's children involved, whatever those high-risk factors are, so they know ahead of time.

We do a lot of training for educators and in particular, medical staff on assessing for high risk. How do you treat strangulation? We created a Sacramento County—county wide—strangulation protocol. It had all law enforcement, all health care providers, community-based organizations.

It was presented in front of our Board of Supervisors and it's one of the best in the country. There's three really good ones. I'm sure there's more, but I know of Montana, San Diego, and Sacramento. And ours stays updated. We've incorporated hidden homicides in ours. We've created—we included—child pediatric strangulation, sex and strangulation, and all.

We do provide some child therapy on schools. Schools have always been kind of a hard place to get into, but for some reason, like you said lately, come on in. You know, we haven't tapped yet, can we come in and talk about sex and strangulation? But we have come in and we're doing groups there on school.

And it's a safe place for kids sometimes to get the therapy that they want. We have the advocates who are available to respond to law enforcement and hospitals for those high-risk cases, 24 hours a day. We want to get them into those DAFI exams, those domestic violence forensic exams.

Those survivors who really need them all often don't want to go. With an advocate by their side, they really are more apt to go. We offer a 56 hour, seven days, domestic violence volunteer training academy. We offer it four times a year. We're getting ready to do one in August.

All of our staff, all of our volunteers, all of our interns are required to take it. It's certified through the Domestic Violence Penal Code. You know, you—qualifies as a peer counselor and it's open to the community. All of our staff, volunteers, and interns have received, as I mentioned earlier, advanced training on strangulation prevention.

And we all shift the focus from what's wrong with this child to what happened to this child. And last, I'd like to say that hope is a strategy. So, strangulation, for example, is a warning sign, ACEs the predictors, and hope is our strategy. We must believe in children.

We need to act early and surround them with care. And when a teen feels safe, supported, and believed, they begin to heal and dream again. At the Sacramento Regional Family Justice Center, we walk alongside survivors, adults and children, as they navigate the hardest chapters of their life. We listen; we believe them.

And together, we work through the trauma so they can begin to put it behind them, because trauma is the past and hope is the future. Early, every safety plan, every therapy lesson, every danger assessment we conduct is an act of belief in a different tomorrow. We don't just want survivors to survive; we want them to thrive.

Children who grow up in violence deserve more than silence and fear. They deserve voices that say, you are safe now, you are not alone, and your story is not over. We can't undo what's been done, but we can build what's next. And what's next is hope.

So, I'm open to any questions and thank you very much for listening to me. There are 27 plus family justice centers around California, 150 statewide, and 150 internationally. It's a new concept. I wish I would have had it when I was going through mine. I'm a survivor of gun violence.

My husband shot at me with an automatic weapon. He missed, thank goodness. I wouldn't be sitting here today, you know. But our two children were 7 and 8 at the time. They were exposed to that. And for the rest of my life, I carry that sort of guilt. Even though I know it wasn't my fault, I still carry that.

They're adults now. They have their own lives. I went into their high schools and their home ec class at that time and their health classes, talking about teen dating violence. And that's many years—because my kids are in their 50s now. So, I was able to break that generational cycle for them and education is a key. So, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you very much. And welcome Assemblymember Rodriguez. We've been ping ponging in and out. We've had amazing panelists. We have two more. Would you like to say anything? Listening. Thank you. Thank you so much. So, next we have Susy Flores. Susy is the Executive Director.

She used to be at the Children's Advocacies—Director of Inner Circle Children's Advocacy Center, and I met Susy years ago in Covina, the Children's Advocacy Center. I think all the advocacy centers are the same. They just changed their name. Unfortunately, you exist. And I always talk about how heartbreaking it is for children to go through this trauma.

And I just—it's not questions. I'm just going to throw it out there. I think I've mentioned a few times that we do a lot for the victims of domestic violence, which is really, really important. But at some point, the root of that is the abusers.

And I've said it before, and it pains me because obviously, if they're creating this kind of pain for families and children and women, and sometimes other men, right? You know, we want to do everything for the victims.

But until we address the root issue, which is the trauma that the abuser has suffered, because clearly there's abuse, there's some trauma there because otherwise, they wouldn't be doing what they're doing. So, thank you for highlighting that.

And maybe at some point, we can get some ideas of how we can break those cycles as well, since you brought that up.

So, thank you. Susy, welcome.

Thank you. And thank you again for having me here today. Good morning, everyone. So again, my name is Susy Flores. I am the Director of Inner Circle Children's Advocacy Center. I'm also on Advisory Committee for our state chapter of Children's Advocacy Center Centers of California.

And more recently, I was appointed to the Los Angeles County Sexual Assault Council as well. So, I'll be serving that capacity for the next two years. But I'm here to talk a little bit about children's advocacy centers and how it relates to children who are exposed to domestic violence.

In brief, what Children's Advocacy Centers are, are they are centers where we work within the framework of what's called a multidisciplinary team. And that can change through counties. I'm not sure how it's referred to in the second—safe center, okay.

But we work with, in collaboration with law enforcement, child protective services, as well as our DA's Office and also, community care licensing. We receive referrals from these specific investigative agencies whenever there's any allegation of child maltreatment that is being currently investigated. So, then, as forensic interviewers—I still serve a dual role.

I am Director, but I love staying still in the trenches and I still conduct interviews. And so, when children are referred to our Center, especially in cases like this, oftentimes we don't know up front what they actually have witnessed. We know that they have bruises and bumps themselves, but we don't know necessarily why that came about.

We just assume something happened. It is our job as forensic interviewers to ask open-ended questions of these children to elicit free narratives from them about whatever may have happened, so we can, again—we do this, sorry, in a very safe environment for these children, very child friendly as well.

Again, our questions are open ended to make sure that they are providing us with the most accurate free narrative that they can because no one else was there except for them and their voices are equally important. Once we conduct these at our centers and mind you, each center operates a little differently throughout the state.

We do have 52 CACs in our state, representing 44 counties. But at each center, for the most part, and please chime in if you wanted to talk about yours, but at most centers, they're greeted by victim advocates. They're oriented to the happenings of the day.

They're, they're told why they're going to, what they're—not what they're going to talk about, but why they're there, what's going to happen, the process. Our victim advocates also conduct little brief needs assessments of the families to see what are their needs, how can we help them?

Either services that we at our own centers provide or we can connect them to community organizations that are present here today. Once that all happens, interviewers like myself will then introduce ourselves to the child and explain to them very briefly what our role is and how we're going to be working together together that day.

Then, once we take them into our interview room, then that's where the difficult work comes into play because it is just a child and someone like myself.

And I'm going to give you a very brief—and please note, I changed a lot of the identifying information of two cases that really stand out to me because this is what children do endure when there are cases of domestic violence.

Not only are they subjected to viewing the adult in their life being hurt, whether it be verbally, physically or both, but they themselves are subjected to a lot as well. So, I have two cases, very brief. One was of two sisters, 9 and 11 years old.

I'll just refer to them as Laura and Samantha. Their mother was severely being beaten by their father who had already previously been incarcerated for another child abuse case, unrelated to theirs. When he was released, due to the complexities of domestic violence, the mother allowed him back into the home.

As a result of that, he came out and started sexually abusing both his daughters. In the beginning, it was unbeknownst to both of them what was happening to each sister. But then, it turned even worse for these young girls. And mind you, this is, again, information we're gathering for them for purposes of the investigation.

From there, both girls learned that they were being abused. Once that they learned that, then he then had both sisters start abusing one another in front of him. So, it was very detailed information that they provided. This included rape of both of the girls and them performing sexual acts upon one another while he observed.

This was a father?

I'm sorry?

Yes, biological father. Yes. And then, what ended up happening was these little poor girls were in a situation where it's literally I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't.

This was a father?

Because if the girls "allowed him" to perform said acts, he would abuse them and say, you're easy. If the girls denied and fought back, he would beat them and then say, but I'm your father, I'm supposed to do these things.

So, sitting in a room with these girls and being able to provide them that space, both free of judgment, but just pure compassion and listening ears, so we can get as much information as we could to hopefully prosecute this person, that was our goal and thankfully, it was met.

And the girls, difficult as it was, they were both able to open up and provide, and I'm happy to say that in this particular case, he is back in, serving life in prison. But what happens to those girls? Right? He gets prosecuted and then what happens? So, that's where our teams come into play.

You know, again, working within that multidisciplinary team structure, we were able, in this particular case, to connect not only the mother who initially fled—I forgot to mention this part—they initially fled out of the country, but eventually, they were brought back.

We had the mother receive service, as well as the girls, even though they were placed in foster care. But given the complexity of this, we knew that we couldn't just send them to any type of therapy. They needed someone who really was very trauma-informed and had experience working with complex trauma cases as well.

But again, these are the types of cases we work with on a daily basis—unfortunate. The Resource Center on Domestic Violence found that approximately 30% to 60% of the cases of domestic violence have a co-occurrence of child maltreatment. Those numbers are extremely too high.

One is too high, but this is ridiculous, and we need to start addressing this with up front, front and center. And not only that, providing immediate services, as my colleague here has already talked about, because we need front-end help. We can't wait until they become part of the ACEs study.

Because once they're at the ACEs study, it's not only—they're not only—I don't want to say lost causes, but it's much more difficult for them to become healthy, and it becomes expensive for our state as well.

Because you all, all of us sit here and pay through our taxes for whatever services we have at this end, we're on the front end. If we provide them with the appropriate mental health services that they need and whatever else it is, you know, parent support, that's when it, when children actually have a fighting chance.

And that's what we need to do for all these kids. And that's kind of our goal at children's advocacy centers is, again, bringing to light a space for these children to talk about the most heinous things that they've not only witnessed, but what that they have firsthand experienced.

Susy, may I? I want to welcome Assemblymember Ahrens and Assemblymember Alanis. Thank you for being here. We all understand everybody's ping ponging back and forth, but we're having a great conversation. And, you know, kind of—I always find that it's very difficult to hear the stories that you all are telling.

And for us, we get to hear them and go on about our day. And I've known Susy for a long time and Janica for a long time. And, you know, the question for Susy is, you talked about one specific case. How many? This is what really kills me when we talk about these things.

But we have to talk about it. How many cases do you think, or do you have per week, on average?

On average, so I—an interviewer can interview anywhere between three to four a day, times five, right? And that's that, and that's that—we're having to set those limits for our forensic interviewers because we also need to protect their emotional wellbeing. There is an influx of cases. We have in our county, in Los Angeles County, we have seven children's advocacy centers.

But I can tell you right now, that is not enough. It is definitely not enough. We need more. Because unfortunately, these cases do not stop coming.

Well, I'm sure that they don't take weekends off either.

Correct.

Yeah. So, like our center, we actually offer emergency services that includes Monday through Friday, anything after 10 and weekends., because we've unfortunately had cases come through where there have been domestic violence turning into a homicide case. And so, we get called for emergency cases as well, to interview those children on whatever they may have witnessed, right?

Well, and the reason that I asked that is because every time, you know, I think about what you all do, I just cannot imagine. I know, I know that we all serve a purpose, but what you do is so amazing.

And I cannot express to you the gratitude that I feel for the kind of work that you do, because I don't know, honestly, if I could do it.

You know, hearing your stories and hearing what you see and experience on a daily basis is so much sometimes that I wonder about your mental health sometimes, you know, to the point that you're trying to make is that you're trying to do, you know, five—you limit to five interviews per day.

Well, you know, that's just one person can see 30 people. Yes. Thank you, Assemblymember Gipson.

I, I just want to say that I have to go but thank you very much to everyone. I was a former police officer and sometimes, and I know my colleague here was a former police officer as well. These are calls that I dread going to. And sometime, I—we have to.

It's difficult for us to go into a house where the father is the abuser and we had to go into and remove the child and had to deal with sometimes the mother who would shield the child and protect the child because the father is the sole provider.

And when we had to take the father out of the home and then that took away the financial response. You follow me? And so, that made it very difficult, but we had to, because we were the mandated reporter, we had to do our job and that made it very, very difficult.

But we had to remove because he was the abuser in the home and that caused a disruption, but we had to. And it was very, very difficult for us in uniform to do that because we knew what would be faced with, right?

And it was difficult to see the child who was being abused and for us who were fathers as well, to put ourself in that situation, right? And not try to lay hands on him as the abuser of a child who was very innocent in that whole situation.

So, I commend you for all your transparency and also, appearing and letting us know and giving us a glimpse of what you have to experience as those who are in your roles and your responsibilities. So, I thank you.

We just want to encourage you continue to engage with us and keep us, you know, connected to the work that you do so that we will know how to continue to legislate in these spaces, so that we can be the protector and continue to be the provider in these kinds of policy space basis.

So, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Assemblymember. Assemblymember Alanis.

Thank you, Madam Chair, if you don't mind. Sorry I'm late. So, obviously, we have other committees going on right now. I apologize. I, I definitely wanted to make sure I made it at least an appearance here to be here and be part of this. My background, as mentioned earlier, 25 plus years, Sheriff's Office.

I, I also am a forensic interviewer, and I was a domestic violence detective, along with crimes against children detective. So, I worked with our local San Jose Family Justice Center, working with colleagues from other agencies and helping them out as well. I'm very happy that this Committee is happening. We're going to need your help. Definitely.

I'm the Chair of Public Safety—have been for three years now. And we've had many domestic violence bills that I have watched not pass. I have watched—basically the victim's voice is silenced and the abuser very protected.

I've heard where the survivor could just go to more counseling and we can let the abuser out because the abuser needs to be out. But what they didn't understand.

This is something that I always try to explain is I know when my survivors would call me on my caseloads that they were in fear, that they lived in a living hell, basically. Right? I think he's out. I think he got out. I'm like, I would check. Oh, he's still in.

And yeah, we have a system set that will notify them when they're released. But maybe sometimes they think they missed the phone call and so, they're constantly in fear for them and their children. I know we've also had some laws where we have—or some bills that we have trying to make laws to, where you can delay in reporting to protect.

Because we know a lot of the survivors also are not reporting because they want to protect their children. Had many cases where obviously the abuser also killed the kids. Right? You're not gonna—if I don't get them, then nobody gets some kind of thing.

So, I just wanna express my sincere—I'm thankful that you guys are here. I'm thankful that this is happening. I'm sure—thank you for putting this together—I'm sure there'll be a lot more conversations as well, and just letting you guys know that I'm here to help.

I will use my experience up here as much as I can, and I'm trying as hard as I can.

Thank you so much.

And we'll pull what they call a pin because you talked about domestic violence laws that have died in Committee or bills that have died in Committee. One of the questions, for the group later, a little bit later, is the statute of limitations.

I think that's really, really important because I know that our laws don't necessarily support the victims because for whatever reason, and, you know, our job up here is to try and change those.

So, I want to put that in your mind and then we'll have Dr. Tate continue the conversation and maybe we'll have a little bit of time to do a back and forth. Thank you, Dr. Tate, welcome.

Hi, I am Dr. Pamela Tate from Black Women Revolt Against Domestic Violence in San Francisco. We are a four-year-old organization, and we absolutely love working with Assemblywoman Rubio. I feel like most of what I was going to say has been covered quite thoroughly by my colleagues.

But there are a couple of things I did want to lift. I serve on the California Partnership End Domestic Violence's Policy Advisory Council for the next two years. So, I will be looking to my friend back here to talk about policy.

It's been an interesting year, as we know, with all of the turn of events and things that are going on. And one thing I wanted to lift that Taylor had started to mention, and Taylor and I work together.

As we're starting to see teenagers teen out and become young adults, we had a case that didn't just start at San Francisco State—and I'm a Gator, so go Gators. We had a case with a young woman who did a tay navigation center. She was having troubles with her partner. She went into this navigation center.

She still managed to attend college and one semester before she was due to graduate, her partner killed her. And so, we get a telephone call and find out that she had actually kind of gone through our triage for resources, had associated with a shelter in San Francisco, Third Street Youth.

And then, of course, she's a student at San Francisco State. And I will self disclose, when I was in college at San Francisco State as a 19-year-old young woman, I was attacked, and I was raped. There was no women's center. There is a women's center now. They are still just as ineffective as not having one.

They have Title 9 officers who are supposed to support and help and the first thing they do is reach out to community and ask for assistance. I don't want to put the onus back on teachers because teachers are teaching the A through G—that is their job. We're asking teachers to protect children in classrooms from guns.

We're asking teachers to protect students from sexual assaults from peers. We're asking teachers to take on all of these responsibilities that are outside of what they went to college to do, which was to educate children, not necessarily to teach values, but of course, to support family values. But it's not their job to teach.

And so, when the question came up around what can we do to support, I think it's really important that teachers have a role and they do a great job. But teachers are also stretched pretty thin. Just like forensic interviewers are stretched pretty thin. Resource workers are stretched pretty thin. Youth advocates are stretched pretty thin. There's money.

And we like to say that it doesn't come down to money. At the end of the day, I think that we are frying people and burning people out. I think it's something that we need to look at. And doing five interviews, forensic interviews, I know we have a cap.

Of three clients new per month just because of the intensive services that we provide. I could not imagine doing five forensic interviews a day with the type of trauma and experiences and things that are being shared with the forensic interviewer. So I do want to lift that.

And again, knowing the times are different, the funding sources are different, I wish that we can do a little bit more collaboration to figure out how we can carry and share caseload. And as you mentioned, it is difficult to get into school districts. It took us, we're four years old.

It took us two and a half years to get in San Francisco Unified School District. And I had a teaching credential that was affiliated with with the district. And so it is difficult, but I think that once you get in there and the ways that we navigate to get into school districts have to be unique, i.e., going with athletes.

For me, I got in as a result of my own daughter having witnessed a student who punched his girlfriend up in the upper campus. And it was witnessed. And so I walked directly to the principal and said, you have an issue here. And this is the work that I do.

And I'm happy to come here and serve at school. Which wound up with me doing two hours a week during my lunch hour. And my boss was very gracious and said, go ahead and do it. But I wound up doing it for two years for free. Everybody doesn't have that luxury.

Everybody does not have a boss that's that kind. And so I wish that there was a way for us to figure out how to do more collaborative things that are supportive of educators, teachers, DV centers, resource centers and the like.

I was supposed to talk about, and I'm going to get back to what I'm supposed to talk about. Things that we notice in terms of children, an impact on children. I'm gonna go to infants since y' all kind of went to older people.

We have a group that we're currently running through homeless prenatal, where we work with them. And it's a group of new to be mothers and then new mothers postpartum, it's called Thursday Tea Time. They get online. That way they don't have to bring their children in. And we talk about what they are experiencing as parents.

We talk about self love, self esteem. We make sure that they're not getting broken down. We talk about what are forms of abuse. And a lot of times we discover they don't even know that they're currently in an abusive relationship. And we don't just hear that at an adult level, we hear that in kids, we hear that in teens, we hear that from principals, we hear it from PTSAs. People are just not familiar.

They go, well, they didn't hit me. Well, that doesn't end and doesn't mean that you are not being abused. And so as we're doing this, we're starting to see things come up where they're saying they were verbally abusive, they were physically abusive, they were financially abusive. My parents are saying things like, nobody else is going to want you.

My parents are telling me I have to stay with this person because they're financially responsible for myself and my child. And so as we're hearing these things, it's kind of making me and our organization kind of look at how do we shift this narrative. And there's whole pockets of people that are not being spoken to.

And the result is children and young adults and adults are having babies. The babies are being born with low birth weights. They're being born and that you can just kind of see that they have a flat affect and they're depressed. It leads into a little later on in life with post traumatic stress. They respond to people yelling.

They have odd responses to someone just saying something like, come here. And we also are post Covid. So we have a whole new, a whole new realm of things that people are experiencing that we haven't seen. And so again, lots was said and you were quite thorough and I do appreciate it.

I'm just feeling like right now we're at a precipice and it's time to look at how we're doing things and changing the way that we're doing things. And really it's about collaboration and laws that can help. We have things that are in place. Like we say that the California Act for Youth and getting those things implemented.

We also have things that say, you should have ethnic studies in school. And people are arguing about it. We just need to make sure that we're providing kids with a chance.

Yes.

And that's where I'm gonna end it.

Yes. And I think listening to you about what's happening in the schools, I didn't wanna add it, but I'm going to. I have to speak this. What's happening to the immigrant communities is horrible. When it wasn't happening, I had a friend whose mother was married to an abuser and she was undocumented.

So every time he would beat her. He would say, if you tell anybody, I'm just gonna call immigration. And that was before what we have currently. And so I imagine that a lot of the calls or maybe not. They're afraid to call.

They're calling, but they don't come in and they don't follow up with services because they're afraid.

They're afraid. And so, you know, that's also an added. I mean, we're going through a lot at the moment, but particularly in this space when you now have all of these amazing services and yet you can't, because you're afraid that your partner is going to call immigration and, you know. And that's a real threat.

And I think we miss that sometimes. I think, you know, it's just been so crazy the last few months that we're just, you know, here's this and then this and then this. But I wanted to add that to that conversation because the services that you are providing are supposed to be, are supposed to be confidential.

Nobody's supposed to come into your centers and that's out the window. And so obviously you won't have answers. But how do you, it's a rhetorical question at the moment. How do you navigate through policies that are supposed to be in effect and that are not?

I mean, it was hard enough already to go through what you were going through and now add this added to it. And to the teens, the teens are afraid as well. I have a couple of girls in my district that they were born here, but the parents are undocumented, so they're having to.

And this is not, you know, this one in particular is not a domestic violence issue. However, the trauma is real for them. One of them was in college and literally said to me, oh, I'm glad that I didn't go into the dorms because now I can go and buy my parents groceries.

And it never occurred to any of us that that was a thing, you know, that you can't just pick up and go and buy groceries. But if you add the domestic violence component or the child abuse component, it's really messed up. I mean, that's the only way I can say it right at the moment.

And so, you know, there's a lot. I appreciate the work that you all do, but also wanted to talk about statute of limitations. I think that's really, really important because we're going through a lot right now. And, you know, I pray that we're getting out of whatever it is that we're in right now.

And once we get out of this, then we're going to have the trauma and we're going to have those long lasting effects. But especially statute of limitations is an issue. To Assembly Member Alanis' point from earlier, a lot of these bills that we've been trying to pass.

Myself, Senator Rubio, my sister, and I know a lot Assembly Member Alanis, and I know Assembly Member Rodriguez, her son is a sheriff and daughter is a nurse. So I'm sure they see it as well as what do you think? Or, and obviously the timeline is not the same for everybody.

But I think currently we don't have strong statute of limitation. And I say that nicely because we've tried to change it several times and it doesn't happen.

But how long, especially for children, since that's the conversation we were having, is I had a conversation with you, Susy, earlier, about children don't necessarily are aware or are not aware of what's happening to them. So in your experience, I don't even wanna call out of time. But what do you think is important in terms of statute of limitations? I'll put it that way. I can't.

I think if that's being taken into consideration, we need to include memory. Memory plays such a significant role. Memory is not something fluid. I don't push play, stop, rewind. We don't have that luxury of doing that when it comes to memory. So for some children, I don't want to put a timeframe.

Right, right.

Because, again, it might come in bits and pieces. Right? What was encoded, was it where they detached in the moment, because that's how they survived. And then, you know, 10 years later, when they're finally in a relationship, you know, the scent, a word, a gesture, can trigger all of a sudden a flood of memories. And now we're saying, well, sorry, it happened, but time's up.

Yeah.

You passed a deadline. I know issues of cooperation come into play, right? And I think Assembly Member can, since he was law enforcement, can touch on that as well. Cooperation is important as well. We need to take that into consideration with memory. What can we get even at this end? Because their stories do matter.

There isn't a timeframe for me just because they do matter. And there's so many different little elements that come into play.

Yeah. And Joyce, I am looking at you and your body language, and I know you're thinking about the question that I posed, but I imagine that you're thinking about your own trauma. And, you know, I don't want to highlight it, but I think it's a perfect example to have that conversation.

You said that, you know, you were able to break the cycle with your own children. But I know that because of the work that you do, I imagine that you have recurring incidences about what you experienced.

Sure. And I agree. You really can't put a timeline on it. If you think about that, let's think of a child or an adult who's been strangled, for example. And they've received some traumatic brain injury as a result of that strangulation, the thought process is different.

You know, you can see it so clearly when you see a client, if you will, meeting with that advocate, telling his or her story. Maybe it includes strangulation, child sexual abuse, whatever the trauma it is that they went through, or the victimization. And then they go to the next room and they meet with that attorney.

Attorneys want facts because they're trying to put a case together. Right? For the judge, to get their restraining order, if you will. Well, we've trained all our attorneys. You can't do that with survivors of trauma because they don't think, a lot of them don't think in a linear fashion, for one thing.

And if you have a child who's been through the child advocacy center, like our safe center, and we have high cases every single week, and just our center alone, we see about 40 to 50 new clients every week or month, I should say.

But if child's being interviewed at the age of 13 or let's just say the age of 6, you know, the little girl she was talking about, for example, maybe that court case doesn't happen for four or five years now. They're adults now, so their thought process, their memory is totally different.

So what is the hurry, if you will, to put a statue of limitation for some cases, maybe for some situations. But I think when it comes to domestic violence or sexual assault, human trafficking, take a human trafficking survivor, that's a very dark world. Very, very dark.

They don't even begin to deal with their trauma at the very beginning. It's sometimes years later, and you have to follow along with them for a long, long time, you know. So I don't have an answer on what is the time frame for limitation.

Yes. And I know Assembly Member Rodriguez.

Thank you. I just want to thank you guys for being here now that you hit on human trafficking. That's a big deal in my district. I represent the City of Pomona. I know last week I just read we just got a victim of human trafficking. They rescued her.

So, you know, with that being said, I was a young mom and I. My daughter's father, he wasn't. I wouldn't say, he never, like, hit me or anything, but he was very jealous. But I noticed, I notified. I knew he was like that early on. And I knew that wasn't going to be for me.

That's not how I wanted to raise my daughter. Seeing some, her dad acting like this. He did, unfortunately, he got killed in drive by shooting. And you know, that never was an issue. But I did identify that as a young child, as a young girl, I was 16 years old, that this man could have been abusive. Right?

So anyways, with that, I want to thank you guys for being here today and I appreciate it.

You know, every one of you have thanked us for being here today, but every one of you have shared a part of your story with us too. So we thank you for that. I think one of the greatest gifts you can give someone is sharing your story.

But what's even greater is having someone to listen to your story. You know? And I know when you come to all of our sinners, that's what you're gonna get. You're gonna get true people who really, really listen to your story and thank you for your service in law enforcement. Cause you guys get a crappy deal. But centers like us really support the officers, law enforcement in particular, safety.

Thank you. And then Jenica and Taylor as well, you work with teens. And I don't even know the real question because they're just finding out that they are in a relationship that's abusive or that they're being coerced or. What is, I think the question is when they realize that this is happening.

Have you seen actually folks looking for help or some of them are just resigning themselves that that's just the way it is. I hate to ask it that way, but I know that the conversation about why don't they leave. Right?

Well, if you don't know that it's happening to you, you have no idea that there is another option. And so if you can talk a little bit about that, we have about 10 more minutes and then we'll wrap it up. Thank you.

I'll share with some of the teens that I work with. Sometimes they're more afraid to tell because they're afraid they're going to get in trouble with their parents because maybe they're not supposed to be dating or maybe they're not supposed to be where they said they weren't at or you know, so sometimes those fears of just I'm going to be grounded, I'm going to be in trouble, I'm not going to have my phone.

Right? Is the biggest thing for them to just stay silent. And it takes, I think just that comfort and safe space of just, hey, it's going to be okay. And your parents would rather know this than to find out that you were killed.

And I think when sometimes we put in that perspective and we give those real life examples, look at what just happened in Azusa. This little girl should have graduated last month. They're like, wow, I say, this is real. This really happens. And when somebody leaves, you're more at risk.

And all of the tools that you guys all mentioned. But I think kind of just what Susy said, sometimes when you're dealing with somebody and talking about that statue, when we talk with the teens, I'll tell them, if you sharing this or you talking about it, you don't know what someone else is going through.

And that may be all that that person may need to share, that this happened to them five years ago or this happened to them last week. You never know. And you never know what you coming forward or you showing that, hey, this isn't okay, might do for somebody else.

And that can make the biggest impact amongst their peers is to see somebody else that they know and that they trust in their group be able to say, hey, this isn't okay. And that for them is bigger sometimes than us coming in and just saying this. It's seeing that they're their peers.

And that's why it's important to provide that education to everyone. Because it might take somebody else who isn't wearing those little love blinder sunglasses to say, hey, this is not okay. We need to do something about this.

Thank you. Taylor.

On the subject of those rose colored glasses, I think a lot with teenagers we always want to name the behavior. I don't want you as an adult or a person in their life to criticize the person because I love that person. Right?

So in naming, if we call them red, yellow and green flags, if we call them like warning signs, naming those behaviors and encouraging them to bring that into their friend group. Right? Alerting teachers where they can find us, that sometimes people tell a teacher and the teacher does not know where to get help. Right?

The principal juggles a thousand hats and doesn't know what the name of the statute is. I can tie that sexual harassment into your school's anti bullying policy. They don't know because they haven't done it before.

I also want to nod that a lot of the high schoolers and college students I work with are kind of hoping they don't have to end the relationship. They're hoping it's naturally going to end when summer break starts. They're hoping it's naturally going to end when they leave for college.

So I think also empowering our youth with skills about that some relationships end and why they end and how to end them respectfully so that they can not only know what to expect for themselves, but also know how to encourage that, reinforce that positive behavior in friends. Because I think they really do check each other, right?

And empowering them that that is love. If you really care about somebody, you will call them out. You will say, hey, I noticed you spend too much time scrolling on your ex's page and we're going to go do something else now.

I also want to nod on the statute of limitations that we got text messages, I got phone calls about just sort of, I think the incredulity that a video could exist of someone being beat in a public space in a hotel and that there was an expiration of a statute of limitations.

So I think the other thing is considering if nothing else, if there are certain kinds of evidence, is there a way we can extend the statute of limitations for that, if nothing else?

Because I think, and I know that hundreds of thousands of kids saw that video and then they learned that if you pay enough it could go away and that eventually it could be expired as evidence.

So I think that incredulity of living online and knowing that a video or audio is proof and then the idea that that couldn't be submitted later was really mind blowing, I know to them and should be a wake up call for the rest of us.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I really appreciate the conversation and it's heart wrenching. And you know, quite frankly, some of the stories that, that you have really make us think twice about what we pretend is really what's not happening. And I think that's the.

I think all of you made the point about having those conversations with teens and quite frankly, adults. I don't think some of adults are also prepared to end relationships or to Assembly Member Alanis' point, they're the breadwinners of the household. So how do you navigate that? But it's important that we have these conversations.

And you know, the goal always is, at least one outcome from this. Because my famous I was on what is it? They have like a meme website, GIF caucus, and they catch legislators saying things sometimes.

And you know the one that I was caught on, as I said, I don't want to have a meeting just to have another meeting, which is the reality of what we do here, we don't want to have meetings just to have meetings and pretend that you know, look at all of that we were doing.

Because now we're posting or whatever it is. I want, you know, at least one outcome, a tangible, as small as it can, it can be at least for us to do something. Because if we keep pretending that things are fine just because we have the conversation is like, oh, look at what we did.

We haven't really done anything that's tangible. And so, you know, I think not for now. Think about one, even the smallest thing. I heard from Taylor about the Youth Act. That's an important tool that is not being used. But what other really small, the big things obviously would be great, but in this climate those are not possible.

And I hate to be so blunt about it, but that's our reality. But what is one little thing that we can do to be able to help? And you know, again, not right now, just think about it and send us something. Because I know that the folks that are here and even the folks that are not here.

The response that I get from our colleagues when we talk about issues like this, especially when it involves children and teens, because we're all, you know, we've all been there, we all know how difficult our teen years were and you know, the things that. Thank God there was no social media when I was a kid.

But I know that the biggest influencer in our kids lives right now is social media. And so something for the kids, but also something for the adults, the parents, the teachers. I was a teacher and I was not by any means equipped to do what you do.

But we are mandated reporters and so at minimum, how do we navigate that? So with that, any closing remarks? Assembly Member?

No? He's good. Thank you. Just again, I want to thank all of you for being here and if you can send me the one thing that you think we could do. And I like the idea of the ambassadors. I think I saw something similar to that.

About four or five years ago, a group came into my office that they have little pockets within their high school and that where they're the mentors or they're the ones that are talking to the kids.

Because we all know I can tell my kids exactly the same thing that a teen tells them and they'll be like, you don't know anything. And then the peer says it and it's like all of a sudden it's magic. And I was like, it was exactly the same thing I told you.

But implementing some of those programs or some of those conversations or maybe a club or something like that in the schools might help us. But always the question is, we have services for the victims, but until we service the abusers, we're never going to get out of this situation.

And as I say this time and time again, because my family has experienced domestic violence. My sister just got another restraining order. The first restraining order was for three years. The second one was for five years. And now a third restraining order for an additional six years. And the abuser claims he didn't do anything.

It's like, okay, it's going to be 14 years. But it's a piece of paper. And until he gets help and all the he's or she's that abuse, get that help, we're gonna continue on this path of yet another restraining order and yet another, you know, more money that we need for our victims advocates.

You know, I wanna get to a point where, you know, I know I'm dreaming, but to the point where we're like, you know, we don't need that anymore because our teens are growing up healthy now. They know and they understand what healthy relationships are. Adults understand how to, at minimum, guide them in the right direction.

But with that, we'll end. I know. Again, I really, really appreciate the conversation. I think for me, because I am a teacher and all of you are obviously teachers as well, the education to our kids is so important because if we can't change the lives of the abusers as adults, if we can start at least changing those dynamics and breaking those cycles, we can have a healthier outcome for kids.

So thank you again and I want to thank our colleagues. I know we were ping ponging, but I really appreciate all of the Members of the Committee. And with that, we'll go ahead and end. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.