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Hey listeners, welcome to our podcast, Matriarch's Journeys and Memoirs on issues, topics, introducing people in our field of work, which is violence against Native women.
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We're here to present the anti-violence, elimination of violence perspective from our over 40 years of work.
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It'll be my co-worker Cheryl Cohen and I, D.
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Rhodes Coaster, we both work for Women's Spirit Coalition, located here in Sunny Squim, Washington.
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Welcome to the podcast.
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In a time where violence against women is pervasive, especially native women, how do you keep going?
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First of all, there's a fallacy in your question.
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Oftentimes, because we're culture specific, I think people have a tendency to think that domestic violence and sexual assault is more prolific with the native population, and it's not.
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It's pervasive everywhere.
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We just happen to be Native women who want to provide safety and accountability within tribal communities and for American Indian and Alaska Native women and families who may not live near or on their reservation.
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So a large portion of who we serve is also those living off reservation in uh rural and urban communities as well.
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But the thinking or the thought that Indian countries suffers more from domestic violence, sexual assault isn't true.
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So it's everywhere and it's everywhere equally.
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So how do we keep going?
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You know, as a survivor myself and uh many of my relatives are survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, and even some murdered and missing Native women.
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I don't know.
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I guess when I when it happened to me, I didn't know it was happening.
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And I uh when it was over, I thought, you know, I better go find out what this is all about because I don't know what this is.
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I don't know what happened to me, but I don't like it.
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And so I was curious.
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There was a curious streak in me that said, I need to know more about this.
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And so then I began my journey specifically of finding out all I could about domestic violence, sexual assault.
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And this was the early 1990s.
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So what I discovered where I lived, I lived in Olympia at the time, the state capital of Washington, was that Washington law in the early 90s was just coming into focus around victim issues, victim services.
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So domestic violence victims, sexual assault victims, crime victims.
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It was all a movement that started in the 90s, and there was federal money and state monies being thrown at it.
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So, you know, a lot of agencies started cropping up to address that topic.
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And tribes were a little bit behind the eight ball, I think, on that, because it took another maybe 20 years before tribal communities really started developing their own domestic violence and sexual assault programs.
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And um, you know, funding for tribes and tribal programs was severely lacking, and still it's not a stable income that tribal programs get to count on every year.
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So there's high turnover.
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And just turnover uh for domestic violence and sexual assault advocates is really high.
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Uh, we always say if you've been five years in your job and you're still there, you're doing really well.
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It's not a job for most people.
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So most people are hired with no experience, no training, and they know within the first year whether it's something they can they can do or not do.
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So a lot of the crimes go unreported.
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And so there's a lot of unspoken trauma that kind of gets buried in families and communities around domestic violence and sexual assault.
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So it's not something that is readily reported.
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And then if it is reported, then we have all kinds of issues with our reporting systems, our data collection systems, who can respond, jurisdictional issues, you know, who has the legal authority to respond on or off reservation, and so on and so forth.
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So even if a victim gets to the point where she feels comfortable reporting and reaching out to somebody, then there's a whole bunch of system issues that aren't on her side and encouraging her to do that and do any kind of follow-through legally.
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So I know that's a long answer to your question, Bree.
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Wait till you hear my next question.
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Oh my gosh.
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But I just want to say what keeps me going is there's always work to do, uh, and that keeps me going.
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So um every day's different in in this field and my chosen field.
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So okay.
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What's the next one?
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Okay.
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All right, Dee.
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If you could go back and tell yourself something, the U version in 2002, when you began the Women's Spirit Coalition journey.
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What would you tell yourself given everything you've experienced now?
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That's a good question.
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And I even say this today, some 24 years later, that if I stop and think about things too long, I can scare myself.
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So things are very big and overwhelming at times.
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And when you're the executive director or founder, especially of a tribal coalition, tribal coalitions are uh I want to say in the big scheme of things, fairly new.
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They've been around since 2002, but they were a brand new idea.
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Nobody knew if they were really gonna work or how they would work.
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And so most of us who founded tribal coalitions in the early days, we just kind of bonded together and made it day by day, and we were making it up as we were going along, and we were shaping policies and legislature and creating what worked for us in Indian country, and we really didn't have a model to follow.
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And so we were really uh groundbreaking a new um approach to providing victim safety and offender accountability.
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So it has been difficult at times, but also it has been very rewarding and kind of to be a founder of something, a project, a program that has done so well over the last 25 years is really exciting.
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So it's really rewarding.
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I don't know.
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If I stop too long to think, even today, I can get caught up in the second guessing of myself and so on and so forth.
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So I try not to do that.
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That's a good answer.
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As the white person, I'm sitting here and I'm asking Dee all these questions.
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Dee, tell me about your lived experience.
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Dee, what do you think of this?
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Why do you think of this?
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It's a pattern, and I don't need to keep that going.
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So, Dee, do you want to ask me a question?
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Well, I think uh when we had your first interview, you talked about your experience with domestic violence and sexual assault.
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And I was very impressed the organization that you worked for had actually heard of it, but you came up from Oregon, so maybe tell the listeners a little bit about that.
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Yeah.
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I knew she was gonna do that.
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Um, let's see.
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I'm a trauma survivor and I work with kind of specializing, meaning I just really like it a lot, working with other survivors of trauma.
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Uh, lots of populations that are affecting by PTSD.
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I probably started in social work endeavors by working with urban youth, kids who needed a place to go that was an option, and if they didn't take that option, then it turned into like juvenile detention centers and jail and prison and all of the things.
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And so I got to work with kids, especially kids in foster care, lots of kids in care.
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And uh we worked with them outside in wilderness therapy endeavors.
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And I did that for a really, really long time.
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And my favorite job was I got to run a wilderness department.
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I had an office that was covered in maps, backcountry maps, and that was like gold for me.
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I loved that.
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And over time I worked with other organizations, and between 2019 and 2024, I was the executive director of the oldest domestic violence agency on the West Coast named Bradley Angle.
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And we had to change a lot of things to stay relevant, to stay open financially.
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It was a really uphill battle for that organization.
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And when I stepped down, they had 37 staff members.
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I say that a lot as like a, I don't know, uh it's it's a bit of like a team trophy because the team was relatively small when I started and they had culturally specific programming options, but not a ton of funding to support staff wages.
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And in the nonprofit world, I've been in direct service for a really long time, not just leading it, doing it.
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I've had a caseload for the majority of my career at this point.
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And yeah, now that I'm on the other side and I don't carry a caseload, it is fun for me to figure out how to go upstream of everything that I see as a challenge.
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So foster care.
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You know, when I stopped my foster care path, I thought, how do I go upstream of foster care?
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And so then I thought, oh, domestic violence.
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And now it's like, well, how do I go upstream of domestic violence?
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It's like, well, I'm gonna fund, help fund prevention programs that address domestic violence.
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And so I've just done a lot of things, and it's as I get older, it's harder to talk about it more succinctly.
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You know, I think when I was 16 and someone asked, what do you do?
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And I said, I scoop ice cream and I shovel horse poop.
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Those are my jobs.
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That's easy.
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I could do it in an elevator pitch of 20 seconds.
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And now when someone asks me what I do, right, I'm a business consultant and I help teams and organizations and leaders achieve their goals.
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I think the dangerous part of hiring me often, and my wife tells people this all the time, is that if you tell me you have a goal, I'm gonna help you get that goal and you're gonna reach it.
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And that can be really scary.
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And if there's a leader who's not ready to reach that goal for all sorts of emotional reasons that are intertwined in business so often, personal and professional, it's it actually all is woven together in one in a human way.
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If you're not ready, then it's scary.
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And I don't know, Dee, I think you're ready.
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Or do you think you're ready?
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I'm not scared.
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I'm not scared.
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But as you were talking, I was thinking, you know, business is one thing.
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You can be all about business, right?
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And it's fairly, it's fairly clearly defined steps and goals in business.
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But then you mix in domestic violence and sexual assault and victimology, and that's a very emotional traumatized path that you're taking.
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So to mix those two together, I don't know if they mix well, but I know other people have done it.
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So but I don't think it's easy because it gets complicated.
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Because, well, as a founder and executive director, you're bouncing back between the business side of things and then the emotional client focused side of things.
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Uh and you have to be aware, I guess, and maneuver those two very different worlds, I think.
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So I, you know, domestic violence, sexual assault organizations, very complex.
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It's not for everybody, but you have to have a sense of both.
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You can't do one without the other and have a successful domestic violence sexual assault organization.
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So well, before we get started, Delphine, with your questions, tell us about your background.
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I am a uh victim survivor, and to be honest, I don't like either of those words.
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Um I feel very labeled with them, much as Dee doesn't like certain words.
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Um, resilience, victims and survivors, it kind of puts a pin on me, I feel.
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Um however, it it is a fact, it is what it is.
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I had been through numerous different relationships.
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They say that a victim goes back seven times.
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Um, I did not do that, but I can guarantee you I probably picked seven different people to follow in that case instead.
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And so moving forward and moving out, I did a lot of running and I did a lot of different careers.
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Um, I spent a lot of time in the optical field.
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And then my dream, though, growing up had always wanted to be a teacher.
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And when I finally found footing, I got my foot in the door with Head Start.
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And I decided it was time to make that goal come to fruition.
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But the more time I spent at Head Start, the more I realized I didn't want to be in that classroom.
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Um, I loved the children, I loved them completely, but I loved the families and being there at the doors for the parents.
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Uh, the first I was the office manager, I was the first point of contact for everyone, from the teachers to the admin to the families to the kids every time they came in that building.
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And then an opening came up for a family service provider, and my sister, knowing me better than I know myself at times, said, you know what, you'd be really, really good at that.
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And I did, I moved forward in that, and that led me to first real social work position to assisting the flant families in finding resources that they needed, getting their children into the program.
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And then within just a few months, six months of having that position, uh, my supervisor promoted me up to manage the family support staff, and I was going to be their trainer and help them figure out how to help their families.
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When I moved states from Colorado out here to Washington, I uh I wanted to stick in line with that.
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I ended up as parent with parents as teachers and it didn't quite fit.
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And then one of our lovely board members, Beatrice Arakawa, sent an email out uh that my sister received because she was working uh Lorel was Head Start at the time, and she forwarded it to me, and I got a call, and here we are.
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And I've been here almost September 30th, it'll be two years, and I feel like it's where I've always meant to be.
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Oh, very nice.
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My my mother told me over the weekend that my sister and I have difficult jobs, and I said, but I wouldn't change it for anything.
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I love what I do.
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You had um asked me where I see the Siahu Way in five-year plan.
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What are your hopes and dreams for that specific program?
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Oh, that's a big, big question because it has a bunch of different moving parts.
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Just in general, for any program to be effective and be a plus in a community, it has to be highly utilized.
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And actually, I was awake at four o'clock this morning thinking about something having to do with client utilization and money and facilities and anyway.
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So, my vision for the Family Safety Center is that we will have native victim survivor clients coming through the door and highly utilizing what we have to offer.
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And we talked about the challenges of reporting and coming forward and letting people know about your trauma and not wanting attention called to whatever it is you're going through in life that's difficult.
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The tendency, the human tendency, I think, is to go underground and hide when there are bad things happening in your life.
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Not to put yourself out in public and say, is there anybody out there that can help me because I'm going through, you know, X, Y, and Z.
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So it kind of goes against the grain to reach out for help.
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But we want to be a place, and I'm glad you mentioned being a non non-judgmental place.
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It's so important for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault not to have to suffer through that community family, you know, judgment that comes their way because it's not their fault.
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And I think society in general tends to blame the victim.
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We have a big, a big mission, and that's to educate about domestic violence and sexual assault, to support the victim wherever she may be and whatever she chooses to do, hold offenders accountable, and I hate to say this, but most tribal communities and maybe communities in general tend to protect the offender and blame the victim.
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And so we've got to turn that around.
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In terms of where we're geographically located, I mean, Squim, I think, is not an inexpensive area to live in.
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So we're we're dealing with the local economic environment that we're in.
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We're a nonprofit, we're a small staff with a big job to do.
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All of those things are challenges, but I think once that we are victorious and moving forward, then that's a really great accomplishment.
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So that's what I want to see for the Family Safety Center, that it becomes synonymous with helping victims and survivors, at least in this three-county area.
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And by virtue of being an affiliate of the Family Justice Center model, which is international, and by virtue of being the first native program, we do hold a place in their history and our history as being a first one ever.
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And I like, I like being a first one ever.
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I like kind of blazing new ground and creating projects and programs that can be replicated across the United States and that other tribal programs and Native workers can look at and say, well, they did it, so can we.
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So that's kind of my hope for the Family Safety Center.
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And I look forward to being on that journey right alongside with you.
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Awesome.
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Let's do it.
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Can you share the story of the very beginning, why you started Women's Spirit Coalition?
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It's an interesting origin story because I was the grant writer for crime victim programs at the Thurston County Prosecutor's Office.
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So I would see a lot of RFPs and opportunities to apply for funding come across my desk.
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And I had a local tribal advocate forward me this one.
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It was from Office of Violence Against Women, it was the Tribal Coalition Grant, and this would have been around 2002, 2001.
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And it took me three times writing this grant to OBW before we were funded.
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So on the third try in 2006, we were funded by OBW.
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Part of the reason was, as I had mentioned, the tribal coalition initiative was brand new and they were still working at the details on the federal level.
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So the first couple of RFPs that came out said you had to be a tribal coalition under a tribe's umbrella.
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Well, in a previous job, I had worked for a consortium of tribes doing social services.
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At one time I had eight bosses, eight different tribes, and then that got whittled down to four different tribes, and it was just crazy making having tribal communities are very different, their governing structures are different.
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So it was like having four totally different bosses telling you what to do at the same time.
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And um, so I burnt out within that five-year burnout period, and I thought I will never do this again.
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So when the tribal coalition RFP came across my desk, the first one was under the umbrella of a tribe.
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And I filled out the application, but at the end I said, I don't want to do this under a tribe.
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I would rather do this as a separate 501c3 nonprofit, so that there's some independence and the tribe doesn't own me and what I'm doing.
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So it took a couple more iterations of that application, and then they changed the rules around who could apply.
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I still to this day think that the reason that we were approved the third time was the OVW program manager at the time, her name was Paula Julian, and she arranged to have a conference call with myself and my planning committee at the time.
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She checked in and she heard what we were about.
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And I know she greased the wheels so that we could get that grant on the third try.
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So, again, I talk about being the first one to do certain things and not being afraid to be a trailblazer and try something new and that sort of thing.
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And so that's kind of part of the origin story of Women's Spirit.
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You know, we've only got maybe 22 tribal coalitions across the US and Alaska.
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And that's not a whole lot for being in existence since 2001, you know, 25, 26 years ago.
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And not every state has a tribal coalition.
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And certainly there are different iterations of what a tribal coalition can look like.
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We chose the geographical area of Washington State to be our service area, but there are tribal coalitions that have multiple states, and then there are tribal coalitions that only have one tribe.
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So we're different in a lot of ways, but uh same in a lot of ways.
00:22:50.640 --> 00:23:00.559
So all of the tribal coalitions under federal law provide technical assistance, training, and consultation to tribal communities.
00:23:00.799 --> 00:23:18.640
And we all operate under an umbrella of wanting to provide for victim safety and offender accountability within the context of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, stalking, strangulation, murdered and missing Indian women.
00:23:18.799 --> 00:23:29.279
So we all sort of have the same marching orders going out the door, but then we're all very different in how we implement those practices.
00:23:29.359 --> 00:23:39.359
So given the history of violence against women, does it ever make you wonder why strong women are perceived as so dangerous to allow to thrive?
00:23:39.839 --> 00:23:41.039
Well, we know I.
00:23:41.519 --> 00:23:58.160
Why well as much as it pains to say this, because well, in Indian country, we're a matriarchal society, but most of the mainstream world is patriarchal.
00:23:58.400 --> 00:24:08.400
Going back thousands and thousands and thousands of years, there has been concerted effort to preserve that patriarchal structure.
00:24:08.720 --> 00:24:15.920
And women in general, you know, since before the witch trials and so on and so forth, have been seen to be dangerous.
00:24:16.160 --> 00:24:17.759
Why that is, I don't know.
00:24:17.920 --> 00:24:30.960
I think we're, you know, smart, intelligent, caring, empathetic, nothing really to be afraid of except if you're uh living in a male-dominated society, then I suppose, yeah.
00:24:32.160 --> 00:24:38.000
I don't know how to say it any other way, but you know, in Indian country, we're matriarchal.
00:24:38.160 --> 00:24:45.839
So women are respected, they're heads of the families, they're the ones that govern uh and so on and so forth.
00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:47.200
So that's our culture.
00:24:47.680 --> 00:25:02.960
When there's two bodies, one that's less powerful and one that's more, and you have a less powerful energy trying to take over a more powerful energy, just genuinely, it seems that violence is the common way to do that.
00:25:03.119 --> 00:25:13.119
And so when you see patterns of violence enacted against communities, or or sometimes within communities, we're pushing down the most powerful.
00:25:13.359 --> 00:25:19.279
We're keeping that low, um, shamed, quiet, silent.
00:25:19.839 --> 00:25:40.079
And I just have to think after so long of doing this, if it could have shifted like you're discussing, where you're saying the matriarchal was top dog, but then it becomes so dangerous to rule with that genuine power, then if it can be done and it can be flipped, why can't we flip it back?
00:25:40.400 --> 00:25:43.200
Well, what you're talking about is power differential.
00:25:43.440 --> 00:25:50.480
And you're talking about, you know, what does it constitute to have power just in general?
00:25:50.640 --> 00:26:00.720
You know, if most of your numbers are on the less powerful side, but they're trying desperately to exert power, you're gonna see a rise in violence.
00:26:01.039 --> 00:26:06.319
We're still dealing with it today in the world, so the political system the way it is.
00:26:06.559 --> 00:26:23.279
You know, you see all the resulting negative ramifications of a smaller, less powerful group trying to exert their power, or at least pretend they're more powerful, uh, you know, in any government context.
00:26:23.359 --> 00:26:25.680
And I don't think there's an answer to that.
00:26:25.759 --> 00:26:28.079
I think the conflict speaks for itself.
00:26:28.559 --> 00:26:37.759
You know, I think if we had our druthers and we could live in a peaceful world and coexist in a peaceful way, why wouldn't we change that?
00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:38.799
Or would we?
00:26:38.960 --> 00:26:40.000
That's the question.
00:26:40.319 --> 00:26:44.160
There are gonna be people who don't want to see that happen.
00:26:44.240 --> 00:26:46.640
So there's always gonna be conflict.
00:26:47.279 --> 00:27:07.839
I am uh reminded periodically that when I personally or this organization is going through difficult times, I'll have people remind me that there does exist evil in the world, and the um purpose of evil is to attack good.
00:27:08.799 --> 00:27:26.160
So, and I just had my sister down at uh Puel remind me of this a few months ago that that when I talk about difficult times that we're having or things that we're going through that don't seem fair, that we're doing good.
00:27:26.400 --> 00:27:29.279
And as long as we're doing good, we're gonna be attacked.
00:27:29.359 --> 00:27:41.200
And I I have to remind myself that as long as we're doing good, we are offering the world something that someone is gonna find threatening and want to try and squash.
00:27:41.359 --> 00:27:43.759
So when we are attacked, we're doing good.
00:27:43.920 --> 00:27:45.279
Just remember that.
00:27:50.400 --> 00:27:56.559
Hey listeners, thank you for tuning in and supporting our work here at Women's Spirit Coalition.
00:27:56.720 --> 00:28:00.559
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00:28:00.880 --> 00:28:04.400
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00:28:04.559 --> 00:28:20.079
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00:28:20.640 --> 00:28:22.559
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00:28:23.200 --> 00:28:27.599
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00:28:43.759 --> 00:28:50.000
I like for your boy clearing my mind.
00:00:06.559 --> 00:00:20.800
Hey listeners, welcome to our podcast, Matriarch's Journeys and Memoirs on issues, topics, introducing people in our field of work, which is violence against Native women.
00:00:21.039 --> 00:00:30.480
We're here to present the anti-violence, elimination of violence perspective from our over 40 years of work.
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It'll be my co-worker Cheryl Cohen and I, D.
00:00:34.159 --> 00:00:41.439
Rhodes Coaster, we both work for Women's Spirit Coalition, located here in Sunny Squim, Washington.
00:00:41.600 --> 00:00:43.439
Welcome to the podcast.
00:00:45.679 --> 00:00:57.359
In a time where violence against women is pervasive, especially native women, how do you keep going?
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First of all, there's a fallacy in your question.
00:01:03.039 --> 00:01:16.719
Oftentimes, because we're culture specific, I think people have a tendency to think that domestic violence and sexual assault is more prolific with the native population, and it's not.
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It's pervasive everywhere.
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We just happen to be Native women who want to provide safety and accountability within tribal communities and for American Indian and Alaska Native women and families who may not live near or on their reservation.
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So a large portion of who we serve is also those living off reservation in uh rural and urban communities as well.
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But the thinking or the thought that Indian countries suffers more from domestic violence, sexual assault isn't true.
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So it's everywhere and it's everywhere equally.
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So how do we keep going?
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You know, as a survivor myself and uh many of my relatives are survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, and even some murdered and missing Native women.
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I don't know.
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I guess when I when it happened to me, I didn't know it was happening.
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And I uh when it was over, I thought, you know, I better go find out what this is all about because I don't know what this is.
00:02:24.800 --> 00:02:27.520
I don't know what happened to me, but I don't like it.
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And so I was curious.
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There was a curious streak in me that said, I need to know more about this.
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And so then I began my journey specifically of finding out all I could about domestic violence, sexual assault.
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And this was the early 1990s.
00:02:44.960 --> 00:03:00.400
So what I discovered where I lived, I lived in Olympia at the time, the state capital of Washington, was that Washington law in the early 90s was just coming into focus around victim issues, victim services.
00:03:00.639 --> 00:03:05.120
So domestic violence victims, sexual assault victims, crime victims.
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It was all a movement that started in the 90s, and there was federal money and state monies being thrown at it.
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So, you know, a lot of agencies started cropping up to address that topic.
00:03:19.360 --> 00:03:35.120
And tribes were a little bit behind the eight ball, I think, on that, because it took another maybe 20 years before tribal communities really started developing their own domestic violence and sexual assault programs.
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And um, you know, funding for tribes and tribal programs was severely lacking, and still it's not a stable income that tribal programs get to count on every year.
00:03:50.719 --> 00:03:52.639
So there's high turnover.
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And just turnover uh for domestic violence and sexual assault advocates is really high.
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Uh, we always say if you've been five years in your job and you're still there, you're doing really well.
00:04:06.639 --> 00:04:08.560
It's not a job for most people.
00:04:08.719 --> 00:04:17.519
So most people are hired with no experience, no training, and they know within the first year whether it's something they can they can do or not do.
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So a lot of the crimes go unreported.
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And so there's a lot of unspoken trauma that kind of gets buried in families and communities around domestic violence and sexual assault.
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So it's not something that is readily reported.
00:04:35.279 --> 00:04:51.600
And then if it is reported, then we have all kinds of issues with our reporting systems, our data collection systems, who can respond, jurisdictional issues, you know, who has the legal authority to respond on or off reservation, and so on and so forth.
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So even if a victim gets to the point where she feels comfortable reporting and reaching out to somebody, then there's a whole bunch of system issues that aren't on her side and encouraging her to do that and do any kind of follow-through legally.
00:05:07.600 --> 00:05:10.959
So I know that's a long answer to your question, Bree.
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Wait till you hear my next question.
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Oh my gosh.
00:05:14.720 --> 00:05:20.959
But I just want to say what keeps me going is there's always work to do, uh, and that keeps me going.
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So um every day's different in in this field and my chosen field.
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So okay.
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What's the next one?
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Okay.
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All right, Dee.
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If you could go back and tell yourself something, the U version in 2002, when you began the Women's Spirit Coalition journey.
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What would you tell yourself given everything you've experienced now?
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That's a good question.
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And I even say this today, some 24 years later, that if I stop and think about things too long, I can scare myself.
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So things are very big and overwhelming at times.
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And when you're the executive director or founder, especially of a tribal coalition, tribal coalitions are uh I want to say in the big scheme of things, fairly new.
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They've been around since 2002, but they were a brand new idea.
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Nobody knew if they were really gonna work or how they would work.
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And so most of us who founded tribal coalitions in the early days, we just kind of bonded together and made it day by day, and we were making it up as we were going along, and we were shaping policies and legislature and creating what worked for us in Indian country, and we really didn't have a model to follow.
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And so we were really uh groundbreaking a new um approach to providing victim safety and offender accountability.
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So it has been difficult at times, but also it has been very rewarding and kind of to be a founder of something, a project, a program that has done so well over the last 25 years is really exciting.
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So it's really rewarding.
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I don't know.
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If I stop too long to think, even today, I can get caught up in the second guessing of myself and so on and so forth.
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So I try not to do that.
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That's a good answer.
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As the white person, I'm sitting here and I'm asking Dee all these questions.
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Dee, tell me about your lived experience.
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Dee, what do you think of this?
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Why do you think of this?
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It's a pattern, and I don't need to keep that going.
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So, Dee, do you want to ask me a question?
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Well, I think uh when we had your first interview, you talked about your experience with domestic violence and sexual assault.
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And I was very impressed the organization that you worked for had actually heard of it, but you came up from Oregon, so maybe tell the listeners a little bit about that.
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Yeah.
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I knew she was gonna do that.
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Um, let's see.
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I'm a trauma survivor and I work with kind of specializing, meaning I just really like it a lot, working with other survivors of trauma.
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Uh, lots of populations that are affecting by PTSD.
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I probably started in social work endeavors by working with urban youth, kids who needed a place to go that was an option, and if they didn't take that option, then it turned into like juvenile detention centers and jail and prison and all of the things.
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And so I got to work with kids, especially kids in foster care, lots of kids in care.
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And uh we worked with them outside in wilderness therapy endeavors.
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And I did that for a really, really long time.
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And my favorite job was I got to run a wilderness department.
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I had an office that was covered in maps, backcountry maps, and that was like gold for me.
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I loved that.
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And over time I worked with other organizations, and between 2019 and 2024, I was the executive director of the oldest domestic violence agency on the West Coast named Bradley Angle.
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And we had to change a lot of things to stay relevant, to stay open financially.
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It was a really uphill battle for that organization.
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And when I stepped down, they had 37 staff members.
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I say that a lot as like a, I don't know, uh it's it's a bit of like a team trophy because the team was relatively small when I started and they had culturally specific programming options, but not a ton of funding to support staff wages.
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And in the nonprofit world, I've been in direct service for a really long time, not just leading it, doing it.
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I've had a caseload for the majority of my career at this point.
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And yeah, now that I'm on the other side and I don't carry a caseload, it is fun for me to figure out how to go upstream of everything that I see as a challenge.
00:09:59.919 --> 00:10:00.960
So foster care.
00:10:01.039 --> 00:10:04.960
You know, when I stopped my foster care path, I thought, how do I go upstream of foster care?
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And so then I thought, oh, domestic violence.
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And now it's like, well, how do I go upstream of domestic violence?
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It's like, well, I'm gonna fund, help fund prevention programs that address domestic violence.
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And so I've just done a lot of things, and it's as I get older, it's harder to talk about it more succinctly.
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You know, I think when I was 16 and someone asked, what do you do?
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And I said, I scoop ice cream and I shovel horse poop.
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Those are my jobs.
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That's easy.
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I could do it in an elevator pitch of 20 seconds.
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And now when someone asks me what I do, right, I'm a business consultant and I help teams and organizations and leaders achieve their goals.
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I think the dangerous part of hiring me often, and my wife tells people this all the time, is that if you tell me you have a goal, I'm gonna help you get that goal and you're gonna reach it.
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And that can be really scary.
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And if there's a leader who's not ready to reach that goal for all sorts of emotional reasons that are intertwined in business so often, personal and professional, it's it actually all is woven together in one in a human way.
00:11:09.200 --> 00:11:11.039
If you're not ready, then it's scary.
00:11:11.200 --> 00:11:13.440
And I don't know, Dee, I think you're ready.
00:11:13.519 --> 00:11:14.399
Or do you think you're ready?
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I'm not scared.
00:11:15.360 --> 00:11:16.000
I'm not scared.
00:11:16.320 --> 00:11:20.159
But as you were talking, I was thinking, you know, business is one thing.
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You can be all about business, right?
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And it's fairly, it's fairly clearly defined steps and goals in business.
00:11:29.360 --> 00:11:40.159
But then you mix in domestic violence and sexual assault and victimology, and that's a very emotional traumatized path that you're taking.
00:11:40.399 --> 00:11:46.480
So to mix those two together, I don't know if they mix well, but I know other people have done it.
00:11:46.559 --> 00:11:50.080
So but I don't think it's easy because it gets complicated.
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Because, well, as a founder and executive director, you're bouncing back between the business side of things and then the emotional client focused side of things.
00:12:02.559 --> 00:12:11.519
Uh and you have to be aware, I guess, and maneuver those two very different worlds, I think.
00:12:11.679 --> 00:12:17.279
So I, you know, domestic violence, sexual assault organizations, very complex.
00:12:17.360 --> 00:12:20.879
It's not for everybody, but you have to have a sense of both.
00:12:20.960 --> 00:12:27.200
You can't do one without the other and have a successful domestic violence sexual assault organization.
00:12:27.440 --> 00:12:39.919
So well, before we get started, Delphine, with your questions, tell us about your background.
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I am a uh victim survivor, and to be honest, I don't like either of those words.
00:12:45.440 --> 00:12:50.000
Um I feel very labeled with them, much as Dee doesn't like certain words.
00:12:50.080 --> 00:12:56.080
Um, resilience, victims and survivors, it kind of puts a pin on me, I feel.
00:12:56.159 --> 00:12:59.200
Um however, it it is a fact, it is what it is.
00:12:59.440 --> 00:13:02.080
I had been through numerous different relationships.
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They say that a victim goes back seven times.
00:13:05.919 --> 00:13:13.039
Um, I did not do that, but I can guarantee you I probably picked seven different people to follow in that case instead.
00:13:13.279 --> 00:13:17.919
And so moving forward and moving out, I did a lot of running and I did a lot of different careers.
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Um, I spent a lot of time in the optical field.
00:13:20.720 --> 00:13:23.759
And then my dream, though, growing up had always wanted to be a teacher.
00:13:23.840 --> 00:13:28.000
And when I finally found footing, I got my foot in the door with Head Start.
00:13:28.240 --> 00:13:32.799
And I decided it was time to make that goal come to fruition.
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But the more time I spent at Head Start, the more I realized I didn't want to be in that classroom.
00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:47.360
Um, I loved the children, I loved them completely, but I loved the families and being there at the doors for the parents.
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Uh, the first I was the office manager, I was the first point of contact for everyone, from the teachers to the admin to the families to the kids every time they came in that building.
00:13:57.919 --> 00:14:07.519
And then an opening came up for a family service provider, and my sister, knowing me better than I know myself at times, said, you know what, you'd be really, really good at that.
00:14:07.759 --> 00:14:20.960
And I did, I moved forward in that, and that led me to first real social work position to assisting the flant families in finding resources that they needed, getting their children into the program.
00:14:21.360 --> 00:14:37.200
And then within just a few months, six months of having that position, uh, my supervisor promoted me up to manage the family support staff, and I was going to be their trainer and help them figure out how to help their families.
00:14:37.919 --> 00:14:44.879
When I moved states from Colorado out here to Washington, I uh I wanted to stick in line with that.
00:14:45.039 --> 00:14:48.639
I ended up as parent with parents as teachers and it didn't quite fit.
00:14:48.799 --> 00:15:02.320
And then one of our lovely board members, Beatrice Arakawa, sent an email out uh that my sister received because she was working uh Lorel was Head Start at the time, and she forwarded it to me, and I got a call, and here we are.
00:15:02.399 --> 00:15:07.919
And I've been here almost September 30th, it'll be two years, and I feel like it's where I've always meant to be.
00:15:08.080 --> 00:15:09.200
Oh, very nice.
00:15:09.440 --> 00:15:15.600
My my mother told me over the weekend that my sister and I have difficult jobs, and I said, but I wouldn't change it for anything.
00:15:16.159 --> 00:15:17.200
I love what I do.
00:15:17.519 --> 00:15:24.799
You had um asked me where I see the Siahu Way in five-year plan.
00:15:25.279 --> 00:15:27.840
What are your hopes and dreams for that specific program?
00:15:28.240 --> 00:15:33.919
Oh, that's a big, big question because it has a bunch of different moving parts.
00:15:34.480 --> 00:15:44.080
Just in general, for any program to be effective and be a plus in a community, it has to be highly utilized.
00:15:44.399 --> 00:15:56.879
And actually, I was awake at four o'clock this morning thinking about something having to do with client utilization and money and facilities and anyway.
00:15:57.120 --> 00:16:11.759
So, my vision for the Family Safety Center is that we will have native victim survivor clients coming through the door and highly utilizing what we have to offer.
00:16:11.919 --> 00:16:27.120
And we talked about the challenges of reporting and coming forward and letting people know about your trauma and not wanting attention called to whatever it is you're going through in life that's difficult.
00:16:27.360 --> 00:16:35.200
The tendency, the human tendency, I think, is to go underground and hide when there are bad things happening in your life.
00:16:35.440 --> 00:16:43.360
Not to put yourself out in public and say, is there anybody out there that can help me because I'm going through, you know, X, Y, and Z.
00:16:43.759 --> 00:16:48.000
So it kind of goes against the grain to reach out for help.
00:16:48.320 --> 00:16:54.399
But we want to be a place, and I'm glad you mentioned being a non non-judgmental place.
00:16:54.639 --> 00:17:09.440
It's so important for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault not to have to suffer through that community family, you know, judgment that comes their way because it's not their fault.
00:17:09.680 --> 00:17:13.359
And I think society in general tends to blame the victim.
00:17:13.599 --> 00:17:36.160
We have a big, a big mission, and that's to educate about domestic violence and sexual assault, to support the victim wherever she may be and whatever she chooses to do, hold offenders accountable, and I hate to say this, but most tribal communities and maybe communities in general tend to protect the offender and blame the victim.
00:17:36.240 --> 00:17:38.240
And so we've got to turn that around.
00:17:38.480 --> 00:17:46.640
In terms of where we're geographically located, I mean, Squim, I think, is not an inexpensive area to live in.
00:17:46.799 --> 00:17:52.319
So we're we're dealing with the local economic environment that we're in.
00:17:52.480 --> 00:17:57.279
We're a nonprofit, we're a small staff with a big job to do.
00:17:57.519 --> 00:18:08.640
All of those things are challenges, but I think once that we are victorious and moving forward, then that's a really great accomplishment.
00:18:08.799 --> 00:18:20.079
So that's what I want to see for the Family Safety Center, that it becomes synonymous with helping victims and survivors, at least in this three-county area.
00:18:20.240 --> 00:18:36.480
And by virtue of being an affiliate of the Family Justice Center model, which is international, and by virtue of being the first native program, we do hold a place in their history and our history as being a first one ever.
00:18:36.559 --> 00:18:39.039
And I like, I like being a first one ever.
00:18:39.359 --> 00:18:54.960
I like kind of blazing new ground and creating projects and programs that can be replicated across the United States and that other tribal programs and Native workers can look at and say, well, they did it, so can we.
00:18:55.200 --> 00:18:57.839
So that's kind of my hope for the Family Safety Center.
00:18:58.240 --> 00:19:01.119
And I look forward to being on that journey right alongside with you.
00:19:01.440 --> 00:19:01.839
Awesome.
00:19:01.920 --> 00:19:02.640
Let's do it.
00:19:03.039 --> 00:19:10.240
Can you share the story of the very beginning, why you started Women's Spirit Coalition?
00:19:10.640 --> 00:19:21.440
It's an interesting origin story because I was the grant writer for crime victim programs at the Thurston County Prosecutor's Office.
00:19:21.599 --> 00:19:28.480
So I would see a lot of RFPs and opportunities to apply for funding come across my desk.
00:19:28.640 --> 00:19:34.480
And I had a local tribal advocate forward me this one.
00:19:34.960 --> 00:19:45.119
It was from Office of Violence Against Women, it was the Tribal Coalition Grant, and this would have been around 2002, 2001.
00:19:45.680 --> 00:19:50.960
And it took me three times writing this grant to OBW before we were funded.
00:19:51.039 --> 00:19:56.079
So on the third try in 2006, we were funded by OBW.
00:19:56.319 --> 00:20:06.960
Part of the reason was, as I had mentioned, the tribal coalition initiative was brand new and they were still working at the details on the federal level.
00:20:07.119 --> 00:20:14.640
So the first couple of RFPs that came out said you had to be a tribal coalition under a tribe's umbrella.
00:20:15.279 --> 00:20:22.240
Well, in a previous job, I had worked for a consortium of tribes doing social services.
00:20:22.400 --> 00:20:36.319
At one time I had eight bosses, eight different tribes, and then that got whittled down to four different tribes, and it was just crazy making having tribal communities are very different, their governing structures are different.
00:20:36.400 --> 00:20:41.599
So it was like having four totally different bosses telling you what to do at the same time.
00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:48.960
And um, so I burnt out within that five-year burnout period, and I thought I will never do this again.
00:20:49.200 --> 00:20:57.440
So when the tribal coalition RFP came across my desk, the first one was under the umbrella of a tribe.
00:20:57.599 --> 00:21:03.759
And I filled out the application, but at the end I said, I don't want to do this under a tribe.
00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:14.000
I would rather do this as a separate 501c3 nonprofit, so that there's some independence and the tribe doesn't own me and what I'm doing.
00:21:14.160 --> 00:21:22.799
So it took a couple more iterations of that application, and then they changed the rules around who could apply.
00:21:23.039 --> 00:21:40.559
I still to this day think that the reason that we were approved the third time was the OVW program manager at the time, her name was Paula Julian, and she arranged to have a conference call with myself and my planning committee at the time.
00:21:40.799 --> 00:21:44.160
She checked in and she heard what we were about.
00:21:44.240 --> 00:21:50.160
And I know she greased the wheels so that we could get that grant on the third try.
00:21:50.480 --> 00:21:59.599
So, again, I talk about being the first one to do certain things and not being afraid to be a trailblazer and try something new and that sort of thing.
00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:03.519
And so that's kind of part of the origin story of Women's Spirit.
00:22:03.680 --> 00:22:13.039
You know, we've only got maybe 22 tribal coalitions across the US and Alaska.
00:22:13.279 --> 00:22:21.839
And that's not a whole lot for being in existence since 2001, you know, 25, 26 years ago.
00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:26.000
And not every state has a tribal coalition.
00:22:26.160 --> 00:22:32.400
And certainly there are different iterations of what a tribal coalition can look like.
00:22:32.720 --> 00:22:46.000
We chose the geographical area of Washington State to be our service area, but there are tribal coalitions that have multiple states, and then there are tribal coalitions that only have one tribe.
00:22:46.160 --> 00:22:50.559
So we're different in a lot of ways, but uh same in a lot of ways.
00:22:50.640 --> 00:23:00.559
So all of the tribal coalitions under federal law provide technical assistance, training, and consultation to tribal communities.
00:23:00.799 --> 00:23:18.640
And we all operate under an umbrella of wanting to provide for victim safety and offender accountability within the context of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, stalking, strangulation, murdered and missing Indian women.
00:23:18.799 --> 00:23:29.279
So we all sort of have the same marching orders going out the door, but then we're all very different in how we implement those practices.
00:23:29.359 --> 00:23:39.359
So given the history of violence against women, does it ever make you wonder why strong women are perceived as so dangerous to allow to thrive?
00:23:39.839 --> 00:23:41.039
Well, we know I.
00:23:41.519 --> 00:23:58.160
Why well as much as it pains to say this, because well, in Indian country, we're a matriarchal society, but most of the mainstream world is patriarchal.
00:23:58.400 --> 00:24:08.400
Going back thousands and thousands and thousands of years, there has been concerted effort to preserve that patriarchal structure.
00:24:08.720 --> 00:24:15.920
And women in general, you know, since before the witch trials and so on and so forth, have been seen to be dangerous.
00:24:16.160 --> 00:24:17.759
Why that is, I don't know.
00:24:17.920 --> 00:24:30.960
I think we're, you know, smart, intelligent, caring, empathetic, nothing really to be afraid of except if you're uh living in a male-dominated society, then I suppose, yeah.
00:24:32.160 --> 00:24:38.000
I don't know how to say it any other way, but you know, in Indian country, we're matriarchal.
00:24:38.160 --> 00:24:45.839
So women are respected, they're heads of the families, they're the ones that govern uh and so on and so forth.
00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:47.200
So that's our culture.
00:24:47.680 --> 00:25:02.960
When there's two bodies, one that's less powerful and one that's more, and you have a less powerful energy trying to take over a more powerful energy, just genuinely, it seems that violence is the common way to do that.
00:25:03.119 --> 00:25:13.119
And so when you see patterns of violence enacted against communities, or or sometimes within communities, we're pushing down the most powerful.
00:25:13.359 --> 00:25:19.279
We're keeping that low, um, shamed, quiet, silent.
00:25:19.839 --> 00:25:40.079
And I just have to think after so long of doing this, if it could have shifted like you're discussing, where you're saying the matriarchal was top dog, but then it becomes so dangerous to rule with that genuine power, then if it can be done and it can be flipped, why can't we flip it back?
00:25:40.400 --> 00:25:43.200
Well, what you're talking about is power differential.
00:25:43.440 --> 00:25:50.480
And you're talking about, you know, what does it constitute to have power just in general?
00:25:50.640 --> 00:26:00.720
You know, if most of your numbers are on the less powerful side, but they're trying desperately to exert power, you're gonna see a rise in violence.
00:26:01.039 --> 00:26:06.319
We're still dealing with it today in the world, so the political system the way it is.
00:26:06.559 --> 00:26:23.279
You know, you see all the resulting negative ramifications of a smaller, less powerful group trying to exert their power, or at least pretend they're more powerful, uh, you know, in any government context.
00:26:23.359 --> 00:26:25.680
And I don't think there's an answer to that.
00:26:25.759 --> 00:26:28.079
I think the conflict speaks for itself.
00:26:28.559 --> 00:26:37.759
You know, I think if we had our druthers and we could live in a peaceful world and coexist in a peaceful way, why wouldn't we change that?
00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:38.799
Or would we?
00:26:38.960 --> 00:26:40.000
That's the question.
00:26:40.319 --> 00:26:44.160
There are gonna be people who don't want to see that happen.
00:26:44.240 --> 00:26:46.640
So there's always gonna be conflict.
00:26:47.279 --> 00:27:07.839
I am uh reminded periodically that when I personally or this organization is going through difficult times, I'll have people remind me that there does exist evil in the world, and the um purpose of evil is to attack good.
00:27:08.799 --> 00:27:26.160
So, and I just had my sister down at uh Puel remind me of this a few months ago that that when I talk about difficult times that we're having or things that we're going through that don't seem fair, that we're doing good.
00:27:26.400 --> 00:27:29.279
And as long as we're doing good, we're gonna be attacked.
00:27:29.359 --> 00:27:41.200
And I I have to remind myself that as long as we're doing good, we are offering the world something that someone is gonna find threatening and want to try and squash.
00:27:41.359 --> 00:27:43.759
So when we are attacked, we're doing good.
00:27:43.920 --> 00:27:45.279
Just remember that.
00:27:50.400 --> 00:27:56.559
Hey listeners, thank you for tuning in and supporting our work here at Women's Spirit Coalition.
00:27:56.720 --> 00:28:00.559
Communicate with us, give us your feedback, ask your questions.
00:28:00.880 --> 00:28:04.400
Matriarchs podcast at womenspirit.net.
00:28:04.559 --> 00:28:20.079
M-A-T-R-I-A-R-C-H-S podcast, P-O-D-C-A-S-T, at women's spirit w o-m-s-i-r-i-t.net.
00:28:20.640 --> 00:28:22.559
So it's dot n e t.
00:28:23.200 --> 00:28:27.599
Hope you'll take advantage of that and let us know what's up in your world.
00:28:27.759 --> 00:28:33.119
You can also locate us at w dot women spirit.net.
00:28:33.519 --> 00:28:41.519
So follow us, like us, share us, subscribe to this podcast to help us reach more listeners, and we'll see you next time.
00:28:43.759 --> 00:28:50.000
I like for your boy clearing my mind.
