Services & Successes

Counseling for Former Abusers

Prevention Education in the Schools

Restorative Justice--Building Healthy Communities

Reaching the Twin Cities Community...and Beyond

Helping Clients in Unique Situations

Reaching the Most Vulnerable--Our Children

Honoring Harriet Tubman

Counseling for Former Abusers

     Five years ago, Tubman started its first group for abusive men who want to change. Since then, the agency has served over 775 men and 132 women who made the commitment to change their lives in this way.

     For a growing number of brave men and women, family violence and abusive behavior are no longer dark secrets that poison their home. Bob Eddy of Elk River is a good example. Bob participated in Tubman’s Holistic Counseling Program after being arrested for domestic abuse. Bob had what he calls a “strenuous marriage” where arguments would often spin out of control. He credits the techniques he learned in Tubman’s program with helping him stay violence-free. “People understand alcoholism,” he said. “People can detect it, know there are programs out there, and encourage those with an alcohol problem to get treatment. But people still see family violence as a personal, family issue.”

     Bob and other successful Tubman program attendees told their stories on a special Dr. Phil broadcast this past January featuring Tubman’s unique program as conceived by Tubman Director of Counseling Resmaa Menakem, M.S.W.

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Prevention and Education in the Schools

     Bullying at school directly affects approximately 30 percent of children in grades 6-10 who are victims, bullies, or victim/bullies. Even more sobering, the U.S. Department of Justice reported that one out of four violent episodes are now being perpetrated by teen girls, up 15 percent from just one generation ago. Tubman is committed to stemming the tide of violence among young people and setting them on course for a lifetime of healthy relationships.

     Tubman Family Alliance sends trained educators into Minneapolis, Saint Paul and suburban Ramsey and Washington County Schools. Through a six-week structured classroom program and one-on-one youth counseling, the educators work to open the lines of communication so the students will feel comfortable talking about their experience with violence, both to the educators and their peers in and out of support groups. When a rapport has been established, Tubman staff work to educate the students about the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships; dynamics of power and control; and positive conflict resolution skills. The Violence Prevention Program gives the students the skills and power to help them choose alternatives to violence and enjoy healthy relationships as they mature.

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Restorative Justice--Building Healthy Communities

     In 1998, Tubman Family Alliance became the first family violence prevention agency in the United States to use restorative healing practices to address criminal domestic violence cases. The process involves Peace Making Circles, wherein those affected by the crime gather to work out a “sentence” that is tailor-made for the offender. At the heart of the process is full community engagement in not only holding the offender accountable, but also in working with him or her to heal and become a successful member of the community. Foremost in this process is meeting the needs of and being responsive to the safety of the victim. Circle participants, several trained by the First Nations people of the Yukon, Canada, include judges, community members, law enforcement personnel, probation officers, prosecutors, and Tubman advocates.

     Restorative justice practices take the resolution of a crime from the realm of the typical punitive approach of the courtroom, and place it into a setting focused on repairing harm, restoring communities, and promoting individual healing. Since Tubman’s initial endeavor with restorative justice, more than 25 domestic violence cases have gone through Peace Making Circles in Washington County. In 95 percent of these cases, offenders have not committed any further violence crime. Even more exciting, last year, referrals to community-based Peace Making Circles have increased by over 100 percent.

     The judicial system now better understands the advantages of this approach in addressing the complex issues surrounding domestic violence. This approach also offers the real possibility of saving dollars spent on repetitive police intervention and incarceration.

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Reaching the Twin Cities Community…and Beyond

     With Clear Channel Communications and Go East Design as corporate partners, Tubman has engaged the entire metro community in a major public service campaign for the past three years. The most recent message, “Don’t Look Away. StopFamilyViolence.com” blanketed the Twin Cities with 100 billboards and 600 radio spots, and generated a dramatic spike in traffic to the Web site, which provides links to metro shelters and legal programs. With the goal of educating people to recognize signs of abuse at work, home, and anywhere else. Tubman encouraged community members to listen to those suffering alone, offer help and point them to StopFamilyViolence.com.

     The site has been visited by individuals worldwide seeking access to online family violence prevention, intervention information, and services. StopFamilyViolence.com is gaining a reputation as the premier portal for family violence prevention services and resources.

     The new site is designed to triage users directly to the specific information they need. It is this immediate, convenient, and confidential access to information and the critical resources of the agency that makes Tubman’s new site so important-especially for those in an abusive relationship or those who know someone in an abusive relationship.

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Helping Clients in Unique Situations

     Each client is special, but recently Tubman offered support in unique ways to an exceptional woman. After six year of abuse, Boston University graduate student Bree Schuette escaped her Russian husband in St. Petersburg and returned to St. Louis Park. Tragically, she was forced to flee without her four-year-old, American-born daughter.

     Tubman rallied the necessary resources, making connections with Russian public officials, attorneys, and media representatives in an attempt to reunite Bree and her daughter. She returned to Russia to file charges against her husband, gaining custody and winning the legal rights to her daughter, whom she is still fighting to bring home.

     This scenario is different from the thousands we encounter every year only because Tubman “went public” in order to collaborate with foreign governments. Furthermore, Bree’s story shatters two myths about domestic violence: that it only happens to those in poverty, and that a crisis shelter constitutes the only solution.

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Reaching the Most Vulnerable--Our Children

     It’s been 18 months since the launch of the intervention services known as the Minnesota Child Response Initiative (MCRI). Initiated in April 2003, the program trains clinicians and advocates to work directly with Minneapolis police supervisors to report directly to the scene following an incident of family o r community violence where children are present. MCRI teams have responded in-person to the homes of 250 families. Amazingly, more than 60 percent of these families have never received social services or counseling before, despite the fact that most have a history of prior 911 calls for domestic violence incidents. Initial findings show that immediate intervention at the scene does reduce future 911 domestic violence calls. After reviewing police reports for the eight- to 12-month period following an incident, families who received MCRI’s acute intervention logged over one-third fewer subsequent calls to 911 than families who did not receive services.

     The MCRI program was the feature of the broadcast “Family Matters,” Tubman’s joint production with Twin Cities Public Television, which aired in Spring 2005, supported in part through the Jane Searcy Thompson Volunteer Involvement Fund. 

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Honoring Harriet Tubman

     Last June, Tubman unveiled the second in a series of Harriet Tubman story panels at our Minneapolis location. Nearly 200 people, including Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, were on hand to celebrate this new piece of public art in the northeast corner of the Lyndale neighborhood. Created by Minneapolis artist Seitu Jones, the stunning 10-foot steel silhouette of Harriet Tubman is inscribed with the words of this wise and fearless hero, its final words, her motto.

Children,
If you are tired, keep going.
If you are scared, keep going.
If you are hungry, keep going.
If you want to taste freedom
Keep going.

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