PROVIDENCE – Last week, I participated in a focus group in which the Katie Brown Educational Program, or KDEP, brought together a group of college administrators.

Much of KDEP’s work has been in grades 5-12, where teams of educators talk to young kids and high-schoolers about healthy relationships.

Their mission is to raise awareness about dating violence and teach young people about interactions that are healthy, respectful and egalitarian.

Because the Katie Brown program will soon be starting a pilot program at colleges, they’ve run several focus groups in preparation.

As college administrators, we had plenty to say about the incidence and prevalence of campus sexual assault and violence. There was much agreement among the participants about the campus culture and the climate that enabled sexual violence to occur.

We also agreed, that despite the fact that the majority of college students know someone who’s been the victim of sexual or domestic violence, most people don’t actually talk about those topics. Stigma around these issues is huge.

By the numbers
Interviews conducted by the Avon Foundation for Women found that about 54 million Americans report that they had been victims of domestic violence – one-third of all the women in the nation.

The Avon Foundation also reported findings that 32 million women had reported that they had been victims of sexual assault, a similar statistic to the one-in-five women reported by other researchers.

A 2010 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that about one in three U.S. women have experienced some type of intimate partner violence; the World Health Organization estimated that one in three women around the world would be the victims of sexual violence at some point in their lives.

These figures are staggering; one would think that they would be the cause for much discussion.

That’s not the case.

A conversation that hasn’t happened
Avon’s survey found that while 60 percent of Americans say they know a victim of sexual assault or domestic violence, 57 percent have never actually discussed either issue with their friends.

When it comes to parents, a staggering 73 percent of them said they had never had a conversation about domestic violence or sexual assault with their children under the age of 18.

What’s even more disturbing is that when the survivors of these crimes try to initiate a conversation about domestic abuse, these efforts are not always well received.

Fifty eight percent of the victims who told someone about their experience with sexual or domestic violence said that no one made any attempt to help them.

As Carol Kurzig, the president of the Avon Foundation for Women, said: “That silence leaves victims trapped by the shame, stigma and fear that these crimes carry. If we can encourage more people to start talking, we can end that cycle and bring these issues to light in a new way.”

Sojourner House
Recently, I talked with Vanessa Volz, the executive director of Sojourner House, an organization whose mission is to end domestic violence. Sojourner House has grown significantly since its early beginnings 40 years ago as an all-volunteer hotline.

In the 1980s, Sojourner House bought a house and was able to create a shelter for victims of domestic violence. They’ve been a direct service provider for a long time and, in additional to the shelter that still exists today, they’ve added transitional housing for victims and their families.

The shelter is meant as a short-term stay but the transitional housing allows residents to remain for a much longer period of time. During that time, residents are supported and assisted with a variety of services, with the goal of helping residents to move out on their own.

The direct service that Sojourner provides is secondary prevention. The organization is also involved in primary prevention with middle- and high-school students, like the Katie Brown Educational Program.

Getting the conversation started
Clearly, it’s too late to begin conversations about healthy relationships with college students, so these educational programs should be a priority.

Due to the stigma around domestic violence, especially this year with several high-profile cases – from Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice to NASCAR driver Kyle Busch, from campus sexual assault cases at Hobart and Amherst colleges to Vanderbilt and Brown universities – getting people engaged shouldn’t be so difficult.

The ongoing work of local domestic violence programs such as Sojourner House also needs additional community support to cope with the increasing demand for services. This spring, for the third year in a row, Sojourner House is launching a fund-raising effort, The 100 Campaign, to support its transitional housing efforts.

Volz told ConvergenceRI that it takes an entire community to help families rebuild after they’ve experienced abuse by a partner or spouse. “If everyone contributes a little, it can have a huge impact,” she said.

The effort to provide transitional housing to victims and their families, something that other domestic violence advocacy programs do not do, recognizes that shelters may not be the best environment and climate to help women emerge from the crisis situation caused by domestic violence. Shelters are often a temporary situation; transitional housing enables the women to live independently, to have the time to learn new skills, to have a lease in their own name for the first time. 

The 100 Campaign is a statewide effort to raise funds to keep the apartments open for families in need. It’s also an opportunity to raise awareness and visibility about domestic violence. 

The one-in-five statistic about the number of women who have been victims of sexual assault should make us cringe; the fact that three-quarters of all parents have never talked with their children under 18 about domestic violence or sexual assault should serve as a call to action to get the conversation started.

Let’s get activated, raise awareness and contribute.

For more information about Katie Brown Educational Program, visit their website, www.kpep.org. For more information about Sojourner House and their “The 100 Campaign,” visit www.sojournerri.org.