United Pekin: Center for Prevention of Abuse with guest Kevin Nowlan
Transcript from VLOG/Podcast Interview with Center For Prevention of Abuse COO Kevin Nowlan.
Keith McKeever 0:23
Alright, so we've got Kevin Nolan here from the Center for Prevention of abuse, and Kevin has a long history of working with Center for Prevention of abuse, going back to 2002 I believe I read
Keith McKeever 0:34
you've been a prevention educator, transitional housing supervisor, few other positions, but now you are The Chief Operating Officer, and you get to work with the great Carol, Myrna, a lot of other great staff over there. And, you know, Center for Prevention of abuse has been a long partner of ours here at the United Way, we're very proud to support you guys and all your efforts to well, there's a lot of different things that you do, so kind of want to start with some of the stats. Organization wide that you guys had last year, that you promote on your website. But 9460 nights in safe shelter provided last year, fiscal year, 24 2014 orders of protection. And 41,599 students reached through prevention education. I know some of that's like Aaron's law. I've got students here in district 108, and I don't actually just, I think yesterday or the day before was when we're recording this. My youngest actually sat through one of those presentations. So I know when the school district sent that out, I was like, Oh, I know exactly who's doing that, right? When I got the email from the from the school, without even clicking on the flyer, I knew exactly where that was coming from. So there's a lot of things that you guys do, but if you could just share with us, you know, what does the center prevent, Center for Prevention of abuse do for those who are not fully aware
Kevin Nowlan 1:49
absolutely so we have quite a few services.
Kevin Nowlan 1:53
I guess probably what we're people think of the most is our domestic violence work that we do, and that is a combination of both outreach type services, which would be groups, meet with people, one on one, clinical services, therapeutic services, and then shelter. We have a shelter in Peoria, and then we have a shelter in Pekin, where we provide immediate respite, respite for individuals that are fleeing domestic violence, a place, safe place they can stay. And then start working on some safety planning. Start working on some goals towards self sufficiency, absent of somebody abusive in their life. With our domestic violence program, we also have orders of protection assistance, which is one of the programs that we're so fortunate to have funding through the peak in the United Way with but an order of protection would be where people get a court order that requires an abusive individual to stay with them. People think of it like a restraining order, but in Illinois, it's called an order of protection. Well, sure, that
Keith McKeever 2:50
gets confused pretty, pretty frequently, yeah? So
Kevin Nowlan 2:52
absolutely, we know, you know, yeah, we
Kevin Nowlan 2:54
all know it's all that it all means the same,
Keith McKeever 2:56
and at the end of the day, as long as it works, right, yeah, that's, that's what matters, right? We
Kevin Nowlan 3:00
have a partner abuse intervention program which domestic violence is a learned behavior. So this is a program for people to unlearn how to be abusive to their partners. So that's 26 weeks of sessions. It's usually court ordered or mandated, but people can volunteer, and they attend classes to learn how to have healthy relationships with their partners. We have sexual assault services, where we provide therapeutic clinical services to individuals who have been assaulted, whether that's current or in the past, and they provide therapy to those individuals with that program. We also go into hospitals, so Anytime somebody's sexually assaulted, they presented at the emergency room, whether that's here in pegan or in Peoria, we send an advocate make sure that they understand the rights afforded to them, make sure they know the future services that are available to them at the center, but also walk them through evidence collection kit and their legal rights. In regards to that, we have a Safe from the Start program. We provide therapy to kids under five and under who have witnessed any type of violence, and that's through art therapy and play therapy. Because if we can, you know, work with them when they're young, then heal, you know, then better outcomes in the future, for sure, for that kids,
Keith McKeever 4:17
absolutely. Yeah,
Keith McKeever 4:18
we'll work towards it when you can, I mean, it's something like that, I'm assuming, to stay with you for life, but anything absolutely give them the tools to try and work with it, try and deal with it in some way, shape or form. You know,
Kevin Nowlan 4:32
give the parents those tools too, yeah, understand what their kids are dealing with, and how to intervene when things are happening at home. For sure, I
Keith McKeever 4:40
can only imagine the message in your mind of trying to deal with some of those things. So so
Kevin Nowlan 4:44
we have adult protective services, and in that program, we go out and investigate and intervene in case of elder abuse or abuse of individuals who are disabled. And that's funded by the Illinois Department on Aging primarily, and they. Also fund another program of ours, which is a long term care ombudsman program, and we have advocates that go into all the nursing homes or long term care facilities and advocate on behalf of residents in there make sure that their rights are being afforded to them. There. We have a human trafficking program where we provide housing and casework for individuals who've been trafficked. And what you had mentioned earlier with Aaron's law is our prevention program. And you know, most of our programs are intervention type, right, where we're helping people have been victims, but I think we can all agree that if we can prevent this stuff before it happens, that's better. So that's why we're out seeing all those kids in the school talking about healthy relationships, sexual assault prevention, sexual harassment, bullying. So if we can work with the kids and intervene early and prevent early, then hopefully we have better outcomes in the future. Absolutely,
Keith McKeever 5:54
a couple of those other things you mentioned. It's important, I think, for people to realize about those things like the elder abuse and human trafficking, and be aware of those kind of things, to cut down on those absolutely, I know I've traveled recently. You go into airports and you see all the signs about, hey, recognize this and that. I think it was something about, you know, somebody has control over the documents and stuff like that. That's a sign. And, you know, I've got a background in law enforcement, and it's like, yeah,
Keith McKeever 6:24
there's a, there's
Keith McKeever 6:27
a lot of human trafficking. I
Keith McKeever 6:28
mean, that is correct me, if I'm wrong, and one of the top three or four illegal trades businesses, whatever world. I mean, it's, it's much bigger than most people mostly think about. It's huge. And it's here. It's definitely, it's here. I mean, you hear about it every now and then, but I think it's at a much greater scale than people want to think about. And the elder abuse, our senior population, the baby boomers, are, well, big percentage of our population. And, you know, think about cyber crimes and cyber threats and things that come through emails like it's it's so easy for people to be taken advantage of in ways like that. It's not just the old contractor knocking on the door and saying, I'll clean your gutters for X amount of dollars, and then they scam them.
Keith McKeever 7:10
It's it's digital. It's all so many different ways these
Kevin Nowlan 7:12
days. Yeah, usually it's a for elder abuse. It's a family or friend, you know, that's taken advantage of them unfortunately or or abusing them, and which makes it that much more difficult, too, in that, you know, the person that's caring for me is also the person that's abusing for me. So when the center comes in and says, we can offer these services, you know, it's well, who's gonna who's gonna take care of me, right? I know that they're abusing me, but, but who's gonna take care for me? And that's a hard hurdle.
Keith McKeever 7:39
I'm sure you battle the well, but they're a loved one, and they love me for
Keith McKeever 7:43
sure. I love them.
Kevin Nowlan 7:44
Want anything bad to have new right? So want the abuse to stop, right? Yeah,
Keith McKeever 7:48
that's gotta be really tough one to deal with, and I'm sure it's gotta be tough for for your staff to a lot of these cases, I can only imagine what they see on a daily basis and how they try to deal with it. So
Kevin Nowlan 7:59
so we just try to have the best culture we can in our workplace, because it is, I mean, this is some dark stuff you're dealing with. So to try to make the workplace as light as we possibly can, to keep that, that morale up, which is important, right? Because this is a high burnout kind of work and field and and to try to do as much as we can self care. We're talking about self care all the time, right? So take good care of yourself, and our co workers taking care of each other, because it's difficult work
Keith McKeever 8:29
I've often wondered at in my year here at the United Way that I think about what you guys do and some of our other partner agencies, and it's like, boy, some of what you and your staff deal with is some really heavy stuff. Yeah, you know, we're we get some phone calls every now and then, you know, some things, and we're only hearing a small piece of it, and then we'll refer the phone call or something out to to whatever agency needs to get that phone call. But we're only hearing a small piece of the story, and we know, it just goes so many layers deeper. And it's, there's a lot of people dealing with a lot of things, so you can only imagine how much deeper it gets so but onto the programs. You know, obviously, you got so many programs that you guys are dealing with, and a lot of great programs. Unfortunately, you know, I like to joke that we don't have a infinite number of large donors that like to cut us million dollar checks left and right. So we, you know, we fund the court advocacy, part of the court advocacy for you guys in the Carroll House of Hope, yeah, yeah. But what, you know, you kind of mentioned the order of protection. Are there any challenges or stumbling, stumbling blocks that people get into trying to get those? Yeah.
Kevin Nowlan 9:44
So first of all, like we appreciate the support of the Pekin United Way, right? It's, it's instrumental in the work that we're doing. So thank you for that. So over here in Tazewell, we have advocates in the courthouse and those and. Kits help individuals get orders of protection. So somebody comes into the courthouse, right, and they send them up to see us, right? And our job is to help them with the paperwork, okay, which is, you know, the legal paperwork, paperwork, and there's lots of different remedies, they call it, that you can petition for on these emergency orders to start out everything from the house that they're living in to the children to, you know, finances to the gun to, you know, there's lots of different remedies that can petition and our our caseworkers job is to walk through all that stuff with them. First and foremost, our case, where his job is to talk to them about what's happening to them and work on a safety plan right away. How? How can I keep myself safe as best as I possibly can from this person? So that might be a code word with the kids, or it might be a light on at the house that the neighbor knows to call the police, or it might be taking a different route to than my regular route to work every day. Or it might be letting the school know what to be alert of and right, having backup documentations copied because they'll get destroyed. You know,
Keith McKeever 11:15
I mean, a lot of things can be replaced. You know, you can, for sure. You
Keith McKeever 11:18
know, just hurdles to it. But
Keith McKeever 11:19
you can, you can find another place to live, you can find another car, but you don't get another chance of life.
Kevin Nowlan 11:24
No, that's for sure. So then they help them get these emergency orders. Just to give you a frame of reference, I know you mentioned our numbers as a whole, but just in Tazewell County alone, our last fiscal year, we had about 700 folks that came through the courthouse here, right over here at the courthouse, get ordered, not very far away. And that was about 760 orders that were filed last year and in Tazewell County Courthouse. And then our staff provided about 2000 hours of services to those folks that came through. So, you know, it's, it's, it's a big number, right? It's a big number. So then they help them get the emergency orders. Now, what happens from that point is the individual who, they call it the respondent, but it's the person that the order is against, right? The abusive party, right? Then they have, they get served with the order, and as soon as they're served, that emergency order goes in effect. And in essence, it's things you can't you have to stay away from that person, right? You can't come near them. You can't call them. You can't do what they call third party contact, which is, I'm just going to pass a message through a friend instead, or, you know, Facebook, or whatever the social media that they're using. And I'm sure people try just about everywhere. Oh, they do it all, yeah, but those are all violations at that point, as soon as that person served with that emergency order, those are violations of the order, which is a criminal charge at that point, right when they violate those but then a hearing is set up, and then a hearing, and they call it a plenary hearing, which is the person that's served with that order gets a chance to respond to it, right? And the judge then determines, you know, should this emergency order continue into a plenary order? And if so, then it goes for two years, excuse me, two years, and it's extended for and with those same remedies that were on that order. So in that case, then it just gets extended, and hopefully it works. Ultimately, it is a piece of paper, right? But that piece of paper then comes with criminal liability for the person for violating what's in effect. And you know, when somebody's arrested over and over and over again for violating it, then maybe they'll stop doing it. And it does come with consequences, jail time and everything else that comes along with that.
Keith McKeever 13:55
Yeah, eventually that all stacks up. And, you
Keith McKeever 13:58
know, this doesn't look good to a judge or jury, if you've been, you know, repeatedly offending, right? For all that so and judges like resume, you know, not a good one.
Kevin Nowlan 14:09
Judges don't like when they say, Don't do this and you do it anyway. So
Keith McKeever 14:14
that's for sure. Yep. That definitely makes sense, yeah.
Kevin Nowlan 14:18
So, yeah, they keep very busy at that courthouse. I mean, it's, it's all day long, people coming in and and hearings all day long. So, but you know another, you know important our caseworkers do a wonderful job over there is, is making sure they get hooked up with other services, and they might be center services, shelter services that are peak and shelter, the Carroll, House of Hope, or any other services that might be available to them, which is the domestic violence counseling or therapeutic services. Or maybe it overlaps into elder abuse, right? It certainly can. Or maybe it overlaps into human trafficking, or maybe it overlaps into some of our other programs, the kids, the kids that witness the violence, right to get those clinical services. For the kids, but our other community partners here in Pekin as well, right, or in Peoria, or throughout our service area, whether that's the Boys and Girls Club or the Salvation Army, or whoever that might be, to get, you know, some relationships established there through referrals to get them hooked up with some other services as well. And
Keith McKeever 15:20
we've got a lot of lot of great partners that are, that's one thing I've been struck with in the year here, a lot of great partners that are willing to collaborate and work together and absolutely figure out solutions to the many problems that are out there, you know. And it's not unique problems here, it's problems everywhere, but,
Keith McKeever 15:37
you know, hey,
Keith McKeever 15:38
put our heads together. And hey, there's a problem. Let's find a solution. So absolutely,
Keith McKeever 15:42
you mentioned at the Carroll House of Hope, and you know it's been around for a long time, but some people may not be aware of it.
Keith McKeever 15:50
What exactly is that? Could
Keith McKeever 15:53
you explain what?
Kevin Nowlan 15:54
Sir, it's an emergency shelter. We have an emergency shelter in Peoria, and we have one in Pekin, and the one in Pekin is called Carroll house hope, and that name comes from Dr Wright, who's a long term physician here in Pekin, who donated the building originally in honor of his daughter who passed away. His name was Carol so we have been providing emergency shelter there for a long time. An emergency shelter is designed to be a safe place to go due to violence at home, domestic violence primary. But you know, it can be sexual violence or it could be trafficking as well, but it's primarily domestic violence and it's a safe place to go. It's usually the worst day in somebody's life when they're showing up there they come in, we provide emotional support to that individual. Make sure that they know what's happened to them is not their fault. I'll make sure that they know that there is hope, and then make sure that they work on a safety plan there as well, right away. I mean, we are always working on safety plans immediately, yeah, because the most dangerous time for an individual and abusive relationship is when they leave, because the abusive partner domestic violence is all about power and control. One person controlling another and the abusive partner, often their identity is based on being controlled and charged, you know, and when somebody leaves them, they've lost all of that, yeah, the control. So that's when they become the
Keith McKeever 17:27
most either physical and mental control, absolutely whatever. Yeah, right. So financial control, whatever the case may be, yeah?
Kevin Nowlan 17:33
So that that safety plan is step one. I mean, we gotta work on that right away. And then from there, it's the emotional support, but then it's starting to working on, you know, a technical term would be a service plan, but really it's, what do we want? You know, what do we want? And it's not us deciding what you want, it's them deciding what they want for themselves, because they need to have that feeling of control back in their life. So then our case workers job is to kind of, you know, not not guide isn't even the right term. But what are you wanting for yourself? Well, I'd like my own place, or I'd like a job, or I'd like to continue with my education. All right, I'd like to move. I'd like to go be with closer to family. He's cut all my family off. I'd like to be closer with them. And then our case workers job is to help them achieve the goals that they establish.
Keith McKeever 18:24
Okay, all right, cool. Now we got it. Now. We got a game plan. Do
Keith McKeever 18:26
we know what you want? Let's, let's figure out how you're going to get from point A to point Absolutely. Now I would assume,
Keith McKeever 18:33
hey, making assumptions, but I'm going to assume anyway, that
Keith McKeever 18:38
the other residents of the Carroll house
Keith McKeever 18:42
by and large, when somebody comes in, you know, there's a lot of, you know, open arms and support from them, of like, Hey, we got you right. It's okay. We're here. We've been through it, you know. And you know, we're on this path too, and we're figuring it out. And we're right here with you, step by step, for
Kevin Nowlan 18:59
sure, you're absolutely right. And we offer, you know, a formal mechanism for that too, right, which would be support groups, right, where individuals that have gone through the same situation get together. And, you know, one of our staffs there kind of, kind of facilitate the process, but an opportunity for individuals to talk with each other who have gone through the same sort of circumstances. And it's kind of amazing too, because when people are going through domestic violence, you know, there's a lot of self blame. Self esteem has been tore, tore down to the ground, right? Because that's important for an abusive partner. Got to tear down their self esteem so they don't leave me. Nobody wants me. Nobody else had had me. I'm worthless. I'm good for nothing, right? Building that self esteem is important, right? And when they hear from other people in the group, they hear the same tactics used for their it's almost like a playbook for abusive individuals that. Use these same tactics because they're, they're reliable tactics that work for abusive people. But when they start hearing it, Oh, you went through the same thing, they did that to you, just like they did to me. You know, they gain, Oh, I see, and some understanding of what's being done to them. It's not their fault, right? It's not their fault.
Keith McKeever 20:20
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. It gives them, you know, light, light bulb comes on, and they finally see the perspective of, like, oh, okay, you know, was not alone. Thought it was me all this time, but it's not me. So, so what are, what
Keith McKeever 20:34
are the future plans for the well,
Kevin Nowlan 20:37
we're excited. We've got some future plans. The city of Pekin has been a wonderful partner. We were just with the city, working with the city, and we've actually been provided with some city owned land, and we're going to build a new emergency shelter here in Pekin, which is important, because we need a little bit more space, and we want to make sure that we are up to speed as fully accessible as we possibly can be, so it's welcoming to all individuals that would need our services. We don't want any barriers to people coming in that need emergency shelter. But in addition to the shelter, we also want to have more of a footprint with all of our other services, so our sexual assault or human tracking, or adult protective services or long term care ombudsman, where we want to have, you know, staff that are available here in peak, where people don't have to to cross the river to Peoria to get some of those additional services, right? That invisible barrier, That invisible barrier, right? And it goes every time. It goes both ways. Yes, it does. Yeah, it is strange. It's
Keith McKeever 21:43
only 2020, minutes to Peoria, but That invisible barrier of the river, I don't, I don't get it there. But also,
Kevin Nowlan 21:49
you know, with working closer with our community partners here in Pekin and municipalities and and just to have a place where we can have a gatherings and events and meetings and trainings to just have more of a footprint right here downtown Pekin, so that we can make sure that we're doing our best to serve not only the residents of Pekin, but Tazewell county too awesome. So we're excited about that. Yeah, I
Keith McKeever 22:17
can see why that'd be great to to have
Keith McKeever 22:19
that and that that expands your number of beds.
Keith McKeever 22:24
It does by quite a bit, doesn't it?
Kevin Nowlan 22:25
Does we explain. We're hoping to get Bob to 23 beds, and we're currently at 16 so and to make it a little bit more conducive to where, you know, to feel more homey, right, where each bedroom has its own bathroom instead of a shared bathroom, and more of a communal living space for people. And just just to make it more home, like, you know, make them more feel more homeless, institutional
Keith McKeever 22:53
kind of thing, yeah, outdoor, temporary, right? Kind of thing, yeah, we
Kevin Nowlan 22:58
want people to feel comfortable,
Keith McKeever 22:59
yeah, right. Well, it
Keith McKeever 23:00
does important. And in such a situation where your whole life has been turned upside down, and, you know, and you're finding yourself live in a new, strange environment, trying to pick up the pieces and figure everything out. And, gosh, I can only imagine, you know, it's everything, yeah, everything was your life. So, so I was real curious. You know, as long as you've worked for the center and you've been around your house of hope and all these different things, what have you noticed, or how has that impacted your view of things? What
Keith McKeever 23:30
kind of impact have you seen out of it?
Kevin Nowlan 23:33
Well, personally, the impact that I've seen is more a recognition of understanding and walking in people's shoes, understanding that when somebody is having a bad day, we don't know all that's going on with that person, understanding that when I see things taking place in a grocery store out in the community, that kind of just set off a red flag to me, you know, but professionally, I think the impact that I've seen is, is the dramatic change in people's lives, right? That have taken place due to, I say, our services. But it's, you know, it's people doing this themselves too, it's them taking part in these services, right, and, and, and the changes in their lives as a result of moving from unhealthy relationships to being happy in independence and Sometimes moving into healthy relationships, seeing the kids that maybe I worked with when they were little, right? And then hearing their stories when they come back as an adult to make a donation or a volunteer. And, you know, maybe it's, you know, I don't really. Remember, necessarily, I remember them as a youth, but and remember the work that we did, that I did with them, but them coming back and and saying, You changed my life, you know. So, you know, that's important, you know. And that and that keeps me vested, right. And I think it keeps our employees vested in, you know, we don't always see the impact of the work being done, because we're there in a time of crisis, often, right? But it is nice to hear from people that use our services, that come back and say, you know, you changed my lives, and often now, when I, you know, when I tell people what I do and where I work, and I just know them from, you know, a friend or a family member or just event or a training or something or other, and tell them where I work and they sell, I'm familiar with this center. Awesome. Yeah, I would,
Keith McKeever 26:04
I would imagine, you know, that would give
Keith McKeever 26:07
you a lot of pride in knowing that
Keith McKeever 26:11
how much impact that makes, especially on the kids as they move forward, the perspective that they get of
Keith McKeever 26:19
getting to help and seeing
Keith McKeever 26:23
what an unhealthy relationship is, if they've unfortunately had to experience an unhealthy relationship with their parents or guardians or whatever, and then go through the rest of their life after counseling and all that, and hopefully, it gives them perspective of what an unhealthy relationship is and a healthy one, and they can go on and find those healthy relationships, and when they get married and have kids or whatever, they can start a new trend in a positive way, break the cycle. Break that cycle because that's, you know, that's all we need to stop all these bad, negative things. We need to break the cycles. Absolutely,
Kevin Nowlan 26:56
it's a learned behavior. It can be unlearned. It can be unlearned and and it can be broken. So that's the goal of of all of our services, right? Prevent it in the first place, hopefully, but if not, intervene and learn those skills to be in healthy relationships so that we can break the cycle and and End Abuse. Yeah, you know.
Keith McKeever 27:21
And sometimes I like to think about, you never know,
Keith McKeever 27:26
even professional, you know, not even professionally, even personally. If
Keith McKeever 27:29
you go volunteer, you do anything, you never know what one action and helping somebody, what
Keith McKeever 27:35
kind of positive effect that has.
Keith McKeever 27:37
I agree to that generation, next generation, four or five, six generations down the road. So you know, whether it's your line of work or volunteering, whatever, you have no idea what those possible positive ramifications are. So last thing I'll ask you, Kevin is, is, what else would you like to share about the center anything horizon, or
Keith McKeever 27:58
anything else that you guys do? Or,
Kevin Nowlan 27:59
well, we're keen, busy, but I guess ultimately, I just want to come across and make sure that everybody's aware of, you know, how thankful we are to the Pekin United Way, and not only the United Way of Pekin, but all the people of the community that support the efforts of the United Way, and by providing their their Support, just that they're aware of the good work that's being done in the community as a result. So thank you, and thanks to all the people that support the peacock United Way. Thank you.
Keith McKeever 28:32
Thanks for coming on and sharing with us and educating people on you know what's new in Center for Prevention of abuse and what you guys have for services? And we appreciate it. Appreciate the
Kevin Nowlan 28:42
opportunity. Thank you. Applause.