Conversations with My Sisters' Keepers
TRIGGER WARNING -
THIS PODCAST CONTAINS THE STORIES & EXPERIENCES OF THOSE WITH LIVED EXPERIENCES OF GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE. CONTENT MAY BE TRIGGERING.
Welcome to "Conversations with my Sisters' Keepers," dedicated to normalizing the trauma recovery experience of survivors of complex trauma and gender-based violence (GBV). We bring awareness, share stories, and promote healing-centered conversations for lived experience professionals and allies in the gender-based violence and recovery sectors. By sharing authentic stories and experiences, we hope to break down stigma, promote understanding, and celebrate the self-discovery within healing.
Together, we’ll explore strategies, resources, and insights to support wellness, recovery, and leadership. Join us as we challenge stigma, celebrate autonomy, and normalize the healing journey.
Let’s build a community of understanding and empowerment—one conversation at a time.
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Conversations with My Sisters' Keepers
Danielle Churly (Part 2): Hope and Healing
What does it take to turn personal trauma into a beacon of hope and advocacy? This week, we sit down with Danielle Churley, a seasoned survivor advocate who has spent nearly a decade fighting against human trafficking and gender-based violence. Her incredible journey through various forms of abuse and exploitation has not only shaped her advocacy work but also serves as a testament to the resilience and strength of survivors. Danielle opens up about the ongoing process of trauma recovery, the importance of self-care, and the courage required to seek help, while also shining a light on the supportive role of community.
Danielle's story underscores the transformative power of trauma-informed support and the critical role that recognizing and validating the experiences of survivors can play in their healing journeys. Professional allies, even those without lived experience, can make a significant impact by offering encouragement and validation, helping survivors realize their potential and contribute meaningfully to their communities. Through personal anecdotes and professional insights, Danielle illustrates how creating respectful and nurturing environments is essential for survivor leaders to thrive and share their voices.
In a heartfelt segment, Danielle extends her gratitude to the coordinator of DART for her unwavering support and encouragement. Her belief in Danielle has been instrumental in her personal and professional growth, empowering her to participate in initiatives such as domestic assault review teams and community events like Heidi's walk and Orangeville's Take Back the Night. This episode is a touching reminder of the importance of mentorship and the profound impact that a supportive network can have on the journey of recovery and empowerment for survivor leaders. Join us for this enlightening conversation and gain valuable insights into how we can all play a part in supporting and uplifting survivors.
Welcome to Conversations with My Sisters' Keepers, the podcast where we bring awareness, share stories, and promote healing-centered conversations for lived experience professionals and allies in the gender-based violence and recovery sectors.
I'm Shamin Brown, and together, we’ll explore strategies, resources, and insights to support wellness, recovery, and leadership. Join us as we challenge stigma, celebrate autonomy, and normalize the healing journey.
Thank you for joining us today for Conversations with my Sister's Keepers. Today we have our sister's keeper, danielle Churley, who is a dedicated survivor advocate with nearly a decade of experience in the anti-human trafficking and gender-based violence fields. Her advocacy work spans consulting, public speaking and participation on the Dufferin Caledon Domestic Assault Review Team Survivor Panel. Danielle's personal journey through child abuse, intimate partner violence, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation and sex trafficking deeply informs her approach to advocacy. Danielle highlights systemic issues that perpetuate gender-based violence and champions the importance of continuous trauma recovery. She emphasizes the critical need for ethically engaging survivor leaders to prevent re-exploitation and support long-term healing.
Speaker 1:Currently, danielle is completing her social service work studies and aspires to further her education at the university level. Danielle has served as a residential support advocate and volunteer coordinator at Elora House, a safe house for survivors of sex trafficking, and has frontline experience through both her professional roles and her volunteer work. In addition to her advocacy, danielle is an aspiring poet, hoping to use her poetry as another powerful tool for raising awareness and fostering change. These conversations with my sister's keepers are crucial for survivors and survivor leaders everywhere. It's time to advance beyond trauma-informed and resilience-based narratives of surviving, thriving and leading, and to embrace a healing-centered focus on wellness and recovery. Today, we aim to challenge the stigma and judgment many survivors encounter during their healing process by sharing insights into our own recovery and wellness journeys. Welcome, danielle, and thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. I recognize how important this is and I want to help reduce the barriers for others. I am really passionate about talking about the importance of ongoing recovery and taking care of ourselves as survivors.
Speaker 1:I love that. Thank you so much. We're talking a little bit about your story and kind of what things that look like for you, some of those extra layers to that healing journey, some of the things that you've struggled with along the way, both in early recovery and now yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:It's impacted, like many aspects of my life, and there's been quite a few things that I have struggled with along the way and some I've definitely overcome over the years and some I still am working on. It definitely impacted the way I was able to love myself or to care for myself, especially within the beginning, or even reach out and ask for help. I think that it took a lot of courage and a lot of reassurance from the people around me that I needed the support and that I wasn't being selfish by taking it and reminding me that it was worth it and mattered. I felt like the world would, or people would see me in a light I didn't want to be seen and they would think of me in a way that, like I was already thinking about myself and I would be judged or met with anger instead of grace. And it didn't turn out to be that way at all. When I seeked help, I got the support and love and grace that I needed. I think it took a lot of work to get there. A lot of internal work, therapy, self-care, learning who I was again and finding myself past the trauma, as well as the domestic assault review team, has had a giant impact on my life overall and has shaped a lot of how I've been able to overcome things.
Speaker 2:I started on Dufferin-Calladon domestic assault review team after the first time.
Speaker 2:I was exploited and abused and I remained on it.
Speaker 2:I took some steps back when I was going through those things again, but I always was met with understanding and grace and welcoming arms allowing me to show up in the field in the way I was able to at the time and what I was ready for.
Speaker 2:And the coordinator of it, laura she was a huge piece of that too, because she supported and encouraged me and encouraged my being. My recovery encouraged me to take steps back when I needed to and to come back when I was ready. It's been paramount to me, my recovery and to my journey to have somebody who does the coordination and is on the team, like Laura, who may not necessarily be a survivor themselves but works in the field and meets us at that level and shows up as a peer and is able to encourage our strengths and to allow us to do it at our own pace and also have a group of women who get it and understand and who all want to do the same thing and advocate and make change and understand the different levels of things that can come up or everybody's story is different Like it's just to have that space. I've been incredibly lucky, lucky and incredibly grateful for it.
Speaker 1:If I were to, ask you what's helped you most in your recovery, would you say that's it, or is there something else as well?
Speaker 2:I would say that, as well as just connection and other survivors and the people who I love, who love me, and the professionals in my life, and the people who I love, who love me, and the professionals in my life and the connections that I've built throughout the recovery journey have been a huge part of that, and other survivors are the ones that I have grown with and learned with and recovered with and been able to like, learn how to laugh and share joy again and to be happy, as well as the ones I've leaned on and cried to and been able to break down and be my most vulnerable self and be okay with that and every step of the way, like I just I'm incredibly grateful for the survivors that have come into my life. I I think it is a sisterhood and I actually wrote a poem early in my recovery about survivors and I titled it Soul Sisters, because that's how I feel.
Speaker 2:I think that that connection is so vital and being able to see the survivors in my life grow and to fight for themselves and to have their strengths and their skills and to be able to learn from them has helped me, in turn, be able to fight for myself and be motivated to continue and to want to do this kind of work and to get involved and to be a part of something really important.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So there's kind of two pieces to this. When we think about how we're growing and how we're moving away from our experiences of victimization, I think there's that personal piece, that recovery piece. And how do we like re-experience or even experience in the first place? Who knows what our background was right? But how do we get to a place where we know what our background was right? But how do we get to a pace where we know safety and joy and confidence and comfort in our own skin, which is one piece. And then the other piece is how do we learn the colonial, capitalist language of workplaces and deal with the office politics and the fake people and the scary dynamics of you can lose your job in a second, which means you can't provide for your family and you're stuck doing things that maybe don't feel authentic or that you don't understand and no one's explaining.
Speaker 1:And for me I found that's where peers have really come in, when I get to sit down and have a bitch fast and I don't have to be professional and I can say what the F is this Like? Systemically it might make sense, but in reality being a survivor if I were in that client's shoes, that is not okay. Right and being able to come from this, because if I do that with people who don't have lived experience, often I'm told your trauma is getting in the way. But reality, it's my humanity. It's my humanity that is reacting to something that feels inhumane, because I've experienced some level of it perhaps yes, but it is still my humanity reacting to something that feels inhumane and being able to sit with someone else who understands injustice that I'm reacting to, maybe not trying to fix it, but at least creating a space that normalizes it and tells me that I'm not unprofessional or crazy for having strong feelings about having to do things that don't feel right.
Speaker 2:I very much relate to that as well, as I've started to learn how to re-navigate the world. Like that I'm in and getting back into the professional field, having my survivor friends and survivors in my life to be able to discuss these things with and talk through and talk about the systemic issues and colonialism and capitalism and how those things impact so much of our world, and even the similarities in certain ways to exploitation and how a capitalist society and jobs run. And having the support of somebody who gets it, who's been through it, who doesn't think I'm seeing it through a lens of trauma, but through lived experience, and being able to have that connection and that like non-judgmental, like understanding space, has been incredibly important to me. It's been a huge part of my journey too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I love that and I think there's a lot of value. Like you spoke earlier about Laura, I'm just going to keep going back to her because it stands out for me right that you were just like very clear early on in this discussion about your recovery that that was a person that made sense for you and made life make sense for you right During hard times, despite the fact that she did have expectations, let's say right of you in terms of your volunteership. And I think that having folks to have that bitch fest with is super important to normalize this professional learning curve. But in terms of professional growth, I don't know where I would be without lived experience and non-lived experience. And I want to highlight non-lived experience for a moment, just because it's a weird thing, but it does hit different when someone without lived experience thinks you're fabulous, yes, and there is another professional who doesn't have, who doesn't understand what you've lived through, looks at you, someone that you admire, and says you're actually worth it, right, like it just hits different. And to have those people that are going to advocate for you, that are going to promote you, that are going to fight for you I was invited to do a project with someone that I think is amazing.
Speaker 1:I was telling her like you're like a giant to me, I'm like an ant, yeah, and I was really insecure and she had stopped in the beginning, before we did the thing, and she said I'm sensing that you're not your usual confident self and it was the topic.
Speaker 1:I felt really nervous about the topic and she said I just want to remind you that I didn't invite you here just because you're a survivor.
Speaker 1:I invited you here because you're brilliant and I believe in you and you deserve to be here. I just want to remind you because I can see that you're feeling a little bit, you're lacking confidence and you earned the right to be here. And that was so important for me because, who knows, I may have been so nervous and so insecure in that moment that I could have burned the house down and screwed up what I was moving into, not because I'm not equipped to do it, but because self-sabotage, imposter syndrome, shame, stigma, trauma were like alive and well in my self, in my body, that day. And thank God that somebody was able to recognize that and say, hey, you deserve to be here and you're worthy, and not just someone who could recognize that because they were also a survivor and resilient and strong in those ways, but because they were a professional that felt that I made a meaningful difference in the community that felt that I made a meaningful difference in the community, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I think that Laura has definitely been one of those people for me and has really uplifted and encouraged my skills and strengths and reminded me throughout the whole process that I have this strength, that I am capable of these things, that I have this strength, that I am capable of these things, that I have something worthy of saying.
Speaker 2:I experienced that a little bit, too with working at a Laura house and under Louisa and Nicole, who aren't necessarily lived experience, but they saw something in me and believed in me and, yeah, knew that I had something to contribute and me to be a part of Alora House and I was incredibly lucky to be able to be uplifted and encouraged and to have more than one person who was in the professional realm, who could see things that I couldn't necessarily see all the time or that I struggled to see within myself for a while, and really again walk through the journey with me and continue to and continue to uplift me and encourage me and remind me of my strengths and what I have to offer the world, which has been huge, and to know, like they don't necessarily have lived experience, but they work in the field they are respected and admired and for them to recognize that, even outside of having lived experience, I think is incredible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes yeah, beautiful, so powerful. Hey, the nature of relationship and what this trauma, informed, supportive, healing centered relationship can actually look like and do in the life of anyone. Right, it's just, it's such a powerful thing and I love that we're talking about that and highlighting what that looks like. If you were to give advice to an organization that works with survivor leaders, what advice would that be?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would definitely say there's a few things Supporting survivors and their wellness and recognizing their different skills and diverse stories and different needs and being able to meet them where they're at and having the room for them to be able to grow and to learn and to come into survivor leaders a huge thing that can really make an impact. And I think it's so important to have somewhere where there is that level of respect and admiration, but there's also a recognition of what we've been through as survivors and a recognition of the ongoing healing journey and how important that is as well too, and keeping ourselves well so that there isn't relapse or burnout or re-victimization. And I also think, along with that, it can be really hard financially. Coming out of being trafficked and being compensated fairly for our time and for our skills and for our knowledge is incredibly important. It can be easy to pay the bare minimum and just get through, but I almost believe that is, in a sense, re-exploiting us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there ifs, ands or buts about that, sorry yeah yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I think what we have to share is so important and valuable and the skills we have to share is so valuable, and that should be reflected as well through the compensation, through the recognition, through how we're treated in the workplace, through the supports. It is so paramount to make sure survivors are fairly compensated, that they're being supported. It is important to recognize where they've come from and how far they've come to, I think, and to really build them up and to allow for space to grow and to learn and to have our voices heard and to be able to share. And I think that's why the domestic assault review team has been so paramount to me in my professional journey and why they've done so well and why I speak so highly about it, because they've been able to do a lot of those things very well.
Speaker 1:Can you give me some specific examples of what that looks like for an organization to be doing those things? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:It is a number of things. One of them that comes to mind. A specific example would be when I, for example, had gone through school or going through school and there is things like the survivor application grant for survivors who go back to school Having Laura be willing to sit down and fill out that application with me and make me aware of it to make sure that all the aspects of my life are being looked at and that I have the supports I need and if I need something else to make sure that I receive that, or I'm referred or that I can call somebody at Family Transition Place, or even with being fairly compensated for my time, or even with being fairly compensated for my time looking at if we're doing a full day training like how much would that be to take time off of work and compens been met with grace and understanding and still like hearing from people and still hearing about the dates and being encouraged when I'm ready, that the door is open, being kept in the loop.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely, because you're still part of the community. You haven't been ejected or disposed of because you're struggling. Yes, yeah, yes. When you talked about Laura helping you with that application, what I was thinking was that in my own experience when I was in school most recently for my master's degree I had folks in who had their masters and doctorates just spend time with me on the phone, right, support me as I was trying to figure out what do I want to do for my thesis and what does this thing mean and what does that thing mean. And sometimes I would cry because they're like do a lit review. And I'm like what's a lit review? And I'm like Googling for three hours trying to figure out what a lit review, right, yes, yeah, in those early years, right, learning curve. And then you're parenting and you're working and you're doing this and you're doing that and just knowing that again, you're not in it alone, right, like I found that really helpful. And then also within contracts, I've had two separate contracts with two different people in different organizations who have invited me to come in as a consultant. But when I've said I need support in these ways, they've opted to promote and support survivor leadership by offering me those supports, as opposed to moving on to find someone who's finished their degree, maybe doesn't have lived experience, and just made those accommodations to that.
Speaker 1:I've had folks support me and different things that I've written, for example, different reports or whatever that I've written for their organizations. I've had folks, hey, in different things that I've written, for example, different reports or whatever that I've written for their organizations. I've had folks, hey, we want you to set up like these, 12 meetings, but they've given me like a step-by-step instructional because I'm like I've never really done that before. Can you give me an idea of what you need from me? And so not making me feel stupid, not dumping a bunch of stuff on me that I can't handle because it's new and I don't have, not because I can't handle it, but because I haven't done it and I need some mentorship and instruction.
Speaker 1:I learn fast but I can't paint without crayons. Yeah, just having folks at so many different levels, I think is what I'm trying to say here that can support, right, they can support with that application, they can support in the job role, they can support, but it's that mentorship and I love that holistic what you're saying. Right, there's more than one piece. Yes, there is more than one piece.
Speaker 2:Early recovery.
Speaker 1:I had folks helping me with daycare. I was going to coalitions that had daycare there, so I didn't have to miss right. I could bring my kids and still participate, so those sorts of things also depending, participate.
Speaker 2:So those sorts of things also depending on where you're at in your journey make a huge difference, absolutely Like having those people meet you where you're at and help build you up and guide you along the way and walk with you.
Speaker 2:It's so important. It has really impacted me and I very much relate to that, even with schooling and going to different people who I've met in the field, who don't necessarily have lived experience but have done a lot of the schooling and things, and being able to talk through them, talk with them through things and to bounce ideas off of them or ask them about things that maybe I'm just learning about or getting to know, and even with the public speaking and stuff. Laura, laura, whenever I do anything through the domestic assault review team or do any speaking that's requested through them for me, she offers to sit down and to go over any of the speeches that I write. She offers to support me with that, to be there to help guide and encourage and uplift me. That has helped with my confidence and ability to speak on my story and figure out where I'm at and what I'm ready for and what I'm not ready for and when I'm ready for those things and has made a huge difference too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm hearing almost some personal mentorship in there too, around that like self-reflection and self-awareness and what am I ready for and what can I handle and who am I now? Some support with some of that and giving you the resources to help you pursue your who you want to be, your chosen future. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so what would you say? What advice would you give to other survivor leaders?
Speaker 2:I think the advice I would give is one take care of yourself and put yourself first and do the things that you need to for you and do things at your own pace. Don't let people push you into something you're not ready for. You know what you're ready for and when you're ready for it, and find the people who support you and uplift you and who can be a safe place to go to when you need extra support, when you might feel triggered or when you just need to be uplifted or need some advice. That has been a huge, pivotal thing for myself and I think as well as like I struggled with this at the beginning of getting into survivor, leadership and stuff is the weight of the world Isn't on your shoulders.
Speaker 2:There's a lot to be said in collaboration and leaning on others and having that team or group of people to, to like, have you to be able to contribute, and there's a lot to be said for having various perspectives and diversity within whatever you're doing, and that collaboration piece can be huge and it can be healing for us as well too. I think just, yeah, making sure, like that you feel comfortable and that you're you feel respected and that your time's being compensated, because it can be really easy to feel like you or like at least in my experience, feel like I've had to take opportunities to get further or to get my leg in the door, but realizing maybe those opportunities weren't necessarily right or something didn't feel right about it. Like you get to decide where you go from here and what you do and how you do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. I love that, and there's so much that you said there too. That's connected to some of those struggles in recovery because, as much as it's like you get to decide, I feel like we get to decide, but we still haven't worked through a lot of the stuff that influenced our decisions, influenced to make decisions that didn't support our well-being, and so there's that, the insecurity, there's the lack of self-worth. I know one for me that I'm continually working on now is like feeling I have a bad judgment of character, right. I shouldn't say I'm continually working on it now, because it's not in the same. It's changed who I am.
Speaker 1:The work that I've done on it has changed who I am now. So now I have really firm boundaries around who I let into my life and who I don't. But early recovery it was one of those like why do I keep making the same mistake thing, right, where I couldn't trust the people that I let into my life and I couldn't trust myself to choose wisely, and so then you got to lean on people, you got to ask for help, but every time I did it was an ugly experience. So, learning how to navigate that space and understand who I am and what I need, and then setting really firm boundaries in my life around what I allow.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah, I think that's been huge for me as well, and learning what healthy and unhealthy looks like and being able to trust my gut and instincts and what I think myself as a person. I'll play into that too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Oh my gosh, I can talk to you for apps, man, right.
Speaker 2:I love it. I feel the same way. Two more things.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna throw at you. I'm curious is there a message of encouragement or guidance that you want to leave for the survivors who are still fairly early in their recovery journey? So we're thinking about that early recovery journey before we are sure 100% that we're moving in the direction we want to be going in.
Speaker 2:I would start with saying it's not an easy or a quick process whatsoever. It's an ongoing life thing, but in my experience it is so worth it. And outside, on the other side of those things, there can be such beautiful moments and beautiful people and beautiful things in your life to experience and for me that has made all the difference. See some of that light in the world again. When I was so focused on the darkness for a long time and figuring out how I wanted to recover and what that looked like, Learning to trust yourself and I know that takes time, but that your story, what you've been through, what you need and I really struggled with this in early recovery was like listening to everybody but myself, even though at times I knew exactly what I needed and what I wanted, just putting that on the back burner. But as soon as I learned how to start advocating for my needs and my wants and fighting for myself, I started to gain the strength to recover, to feel empowered to do the things I needed to lift myself back up again.
Speaker 2:And there's people to lean on and to help you through that and it's always okay to pick yourself back up and reach out for help. There are people who are going to be there and who will love you through it and who will not judge you and get you through the parts where maybe you can't love yourself and you're judging yourself. And you deserve that. You're worth it. You have. You're worth so much like no matter what you decide to do in life, where you decide to go, your life, your story and what you do with it is so important. You're important to the world and I believe in you and I am sending so much love to all of the. Just to consider to leave, that shows a ton of strength and you're worth it. Even if you can't see it right now, I'm telling you you are worth it and there'll be people in your life who see you're worth it as well too. And to take that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, love it. Yes, all right, I'm going to give you an opportunity to give one person non-lived experience. If you can, a shout out, someone who's made an incredible impact on your life, I'd love you to tell me a little bit about who they are, and we're just going to tell them. Thank you yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:The first person that comes to mind is Laura Moscatellio, who is the coordinator of DART, because she's just had such a profound impact on who I am and where I've gone in this profession and what I've been able to come through, and I just I will always be grateful that I crossed her paths and I often say that, like, every survivor deserves a Laura in their life, like to have somebody who believes in them, who encourages them to follow their dreams. I couldn't be more appreciative for the opportunity to be a part of the domestic assault review team and to be able to speak at Heidi's walk and to be able to speak at Orangeville's upcoming take back the night and have these opportunities prevent the present themselves and, um, for her to encourage me through it all.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, thank you, laura. Thank you, thank you so much for joining conversations with our sisters keepers, where we have real women, real lives and real talk.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. I enjoyed being here.
Speaker 1:Awesome.
