Aurora resident and Naperville pastor is hoping that a recently-launched awareness campaign will help show domestic violence victims that their local churches and individuals they love are safe havens from abuse.
Neil Schori, pastor of Naperville Christian Church, has started Safe Faith Community and Safe Person Project to coincide with Domestic Violence Awareness Month and as part of a larger project started six years ago called Document the Abuse. The disappearance of Stacy Peterson, the wife of incarcerated former cop Drew Peterson, led to Document the Abuse, co-created with Susan Murphy-Milano, a domestic violence victims' advocate who died of cancer in 2012. Schori had counseled Peterson. "Together, we discussed Stacy Peterson's disappearance, and the issue of 'hearsay' that the defense so often brought up," Schori said. "We realized that there must be a way to help victims' voices be heard even in the worst-case scenarios where women were killed or incapacitated by their abusers." With Document the Abuse, individuals reporting abuse give videotaped testimony as part of an evidentiary abuse affidavit, or EAA, that can be used when the person disappears or there's some other crime. "It is done in two parts," Schori said. "The first part is a written … story of the abuse, with any supporting documentation (pictures, emails, voicemails, police reports, etc). Each page is notarized in the presence of at least one witness. The second part is a video verbatim of the document. Each victim who has completed this with me or another trained advocate has described it as a difficult but cathartic experience." According to Murphy-Milano's website, any person "who is likely to have contact with victims of domestic violence and the desire to be a point of contact for lifesaving documentation can be trained" to record an affidavit. Schori said he was inspired to start the latest campaigns because "churches and other faith communities are not known as being allies of shelters and victims of domestic violence." "I know many pastors who give lip-service to this sort of work, but aren't terribly interested in being a part of the hard work it takes to change the culture," he said. "The rates of domestic violence are the same in and out of the church, and I think that's a huge problem "Pastors need to have a zero tolerance for abuse in their churches, and give no safe haven to abusers. The Safe Faith Community project is a simple way for pastors to make a few simple promises to be there for victims of domestic violence. Churches that sign up will receive a decal to display on the entryway window of the main entrance of their buildings. It is an easy and non-threatening way to declare that they support victims, and it will be an easy way for victims to know where their church stands." Sarah Cervantes of North Aurora works and volunteers at Schori's church, and designed and runs the websites for the new campaigns. She said the church is "a safe place for victims of domestic violence," and said the Safe Faith Community project allows churches to list themselves as safe havens for the abused. The website safefaithcommunity.com asks church leaders to make promises, including learning to recognize the signs of domestic violence, never coercing or requiring a victim to reconcile with the abuser, connecting with a domestic violence shelter in their city, and sharing that the church is a safe place by putting a Safe Faith Community logo on their social media site or website. "We're never going to require someone to reconcile with their abuser, we are going to stand with them while they heal," Cervantes said. "But we get a lot of calls from other churches that aren't sure how to deal with a domestic violence situation. Part of that was forming the Safe Faith Community project, and that is a project that we want to see continue for years, to change the tide of how churches deal with victims of domestic violence and to raise awareness on ... what do I do when someone comes to me and tells me they're being abused." The Safe Person Project, at safepersonproject.com, is for individuals, whether involved or not with a church, and also urges those who know victims of domestic violence to make certain promises. "It's more of a personal promise that you're going to make by signing this, saying that, if someone comes to you who's being abused, those are the things you're going to do," Cervantes said. "I often hear from victims of domestic violence with the work that I do, a lot of women in particular are afraid to leave their situation, and part of the reason is a lack of support. "And that's not because their friends are bad people, it's because their friends don't know what to do. So if their friends can look at them and say, 'I don't judge you. I don't know what to do, but I do know that I'm not going to tell you that you have to go back or I know you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline, I do know you should document it.' It's at least a start, and it's at least something that will give the victim a little bit of confidence to start getting out of their situation."
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Author Oni T.
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