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
Sandy Skelaney (Part 1): Creating Safe Spaces for Survivor Leaders in Anti-Trafficking Work
In today's episode, Sandy Skelaney takes us on a remarkable journey through the evolution of anti-trafficking work, sharing invaluable insights from her two decades on the frontlines. As a highly recognized public sector leader and TEDx speaker, Sandy brings a unique perspective that bridges victim advocacy, technology innovation, and organizational leadership.
The conversation begins with Sandy's early pioneering work during the formative years of the modern anti-trafficking movement. Sandy developed a deep appreciation for survivor leadership that continues to guide her approach today. Her candid reflections reveal the challenges and triumphs of building comprehensive victim services from the ground up.
Sandy offers a fascinating historical perspective on how our understanding of human trafficking has transformed. This context provides listeners with a crucial framework for understanding both the progress made and the work still needed in the anti-trafficking movement.
The discussion takes a compelling turn as Sandy explores technology's dual role in human trafficking — how emerging technologies are often the first tools used for exploitation but can also become powerful instruments for protection. This insight drives her current work at the Parasol Cooperative, where she develops tech solutions to counter gender-based violence and tech-facilitated abuse.
Sandy offers practical wisdom on implementing trauma-informed supervision, building organizational communities based on restorative justice principles, and addressing the systemic funding challenges that lead to burnout.
Whether you're a professional in the anti-trafficking field, a survivor leader, or simply concerned about these issues, Sandy's blend of lived experience, professional expertise, and technological innovation offers essential guidance for moving this critical work forward.
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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 me today. Today, we have Sandy Scalini with us. Sandy Scalini is a nationally recognized public sector leader, distinguished educator and TEDx speaker, with over 20 years experience building and leading victim services programs and multidisciplinary responses to human trafficking. An early anti-trafficking pioneer, sandy developed a deep understanding of technology's role in both the exploitation and protection of survivors and a passion for working in the emerging tech policy and innovation space. As the Paracel Cooperative's Chief Operating Officer and Head of Partnerships, sandy contributes valuable non-profit leadership and victim advocacy to safeguard lives through building technology solutions. Sandy has shared her experience with tens of thousands, leading workshops and giving talks on topics ranging from trauma-informed care and sex trafficking to digital safety planning, emerging technology and blockchain legislation. In her free time, she is completing her doctorate in Florida International University's Public Affairs Program, researching blockchain policy, dao governance and AI ethics. Welcome, sandy, we're so happy to have you here with us. Thanks so much for having me.
Shamin Brown: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, we can normalize the ongoing and cyclical nature of the recovery experiences. What are your thoughts about that statement?
Sandy Skelaney:I think what you're doing here with this podcast is very important work. I started my journey in the anti-trafficking space back when the Palermo Protocol was being debated. I was working at ECPAT International. I worked with GEMS up in New York when GEMS was less than 10 people on their staff. Very young still, working with GEMS really gave me kind of that early introduction to just how important survivor leadership is in the field back when other organizations were not actually focusing on that. They were really a pioneer in that space.
Sandy Skelaney:I've kind of carried that lesson with me when I went down to Miami and started Project Gold at Kristi House in Miami which is Florida's first response to child sex trafficking that existed. It was mental health and advocacy drop-in center, a lot of programs for youth that were sexually trafficked. And I wore all the hats organizing the conferences and advocating policy. And I wore all the hats organizing the conferences and advocating policy and I've built programs and I've done the case management and I've run the groups and I've done street outreach. I've hired, supervised, wrote the protocols for our advocacy case management, opened a safe house.
Sandy Skelaney:That was in the early 2000s. That was in the early 2000s. I've worn every hat in this field, including consulting with multiple organizations that also started doing their anti-trafficking programs. I think that what you're touching on this idea of how can you navigate, being a survivor in this space and also with maybe other people, professionals that aren't survivors of trafficking, maybe survivors of other things, are likely survivors of other things I think it fills a critical gap in knowledge and understanding and getting people to where they want to be.
Shamin Brown:Creating a more supportive space. That's the hope. I want to just go back to some of these acronyms we're using. We spoke about Palermo Protocol, ECPAT, GEMS. Can you break those down for us a little bit?
Sandy Skelaney:The Palermo Protocol was the international agreement in 2000, signed onto by United Nations member states, that basically created our internationally recognized definition for human trafficking internationally recognized definition for human trafficking. Before that different countries had their own policies, their own laws related to prostitution or labor exploitation or all kinds of things, not necessarily aligned. Palermo Protocol is really that kind of pivotal agreement that then other nation states went and launched their federal legislation that kind of was based on that. We saw a huge uptick in anti-trafficking organizations being formed, initiatives, things like that in the field.
Shamin Brown:You said so many interesting things. Talk about Project Gold, which is in Miami, the Palermo Protocol where does that apply and where are you? Have you done most of your work in the US or have you done work in other places?
Sandy Skelaney:Yes, I went to my first experience in the field of working at ECPAT International, which stands for End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking in Children for Sexual Purposes, and that's in Bangkok, Thailand. So I was actually working out in Bangkok and organizing international advocacy and working with direct service organizations on the ground throughout the world. From there I went to GEMS, which is Girls Educational and Mentoring Services, one of the first and most pioneering organizations that works with girls and youth that were sexually trafficked and that was up in New York, but after that I ended up in Miami in the early 2000s. I've been down here ever since.
Shamin Brown:I heard a lot about the girls', education and mentoring when I was doing my bachelor's, like 10 years ago. It was one of the programs that I zored in on when I was thinking about what does support look like for sexually exploited youth in a space that was really just learning about and entering into a space in that work where those folks were being acknowledged as victims instead of being criminalized. Right, there was some work happening still in terms of how systems were approaching things.
Sandy Skelaney:It's absolutely wild to have been in this space long enough to say that when I started doing trainings, presentations and things like that, my script was actually to convince people that 12 yearyear-olds were not criminals that should be arrested for prostitution. To actually witness that transformation of people arresting 12-year-olds for prostitution to recognizing them as victims of abuse, it's been really mind-blowing for me all that history.
Shamin Brown:History is important. It is very important in terms of how we want to move forward Over the next three years. The goals of the Canadian G100 Anti-Human Trafficking Wing are to promote the lived experience leadership and autonomy to support wellness of lived experience staff. To develop survivor-led, informed and facilitated prevention and intervention programs. And to identify ally organizations invested in survivor leadership. They're pretty lofty goals. Not sure if we're going to make them, but we're going to move towards them, which is really what goals are for. Process is definitely always more productive when you're focused on process rather than outcome and allow for things to be flexible and shift and grow with the need.
Shamin Brown:In general how do you feel about these goals of G100 Canada? Do you think there's any gaps, barriers, things to consider.
Sandy Skelaney:They sound like pretty solid goals to me. My personal work right now is in a technology nonprofit. I'm always going to say technology is the gap. I've been in this field so long that I've been watching emerging technology come into play and be the first to be used to exploit people. I've watched law enforcement and others using emerging technology to do investigations to help you know, before we're able to regulate or have policy on it. I think that this space is just moving so fast and we don't have enough understanding of it, knowledge of it tools, to be able to like address digital harms and things like that. It's always the priority for me and that's how come I got into the tech space. After all these years of working direct services with victims and survivors, I was drawn to the idea that we just needed more expertise in supporting survivors of sex trafficking abuse, trauma, addiction or mental health, some of your own personal experiences, whatever you're comfortable with sharing, that may have contributed to your passion for this work.
Sandy Skelaney:I'm not ashamed to say that I am a survivor of child sexual abuse, but I want to caveat that by saying also that I don't use that. Very rarely Do I use it to speak publicly to identify myself as a survivor in that way. I don't necessarily use that as a piece of my identity that I share with people. People do or don't, however it serves them right. I've survived a lot of other things. I know very few women especially, but people in general who have not survived something traumatic.
Shamin Brown:I feel as though what I'm hearing you say is that you have this personal experience that has contributed to your passion for the work and keeping people safe, but professionally it's not something that you contributed to your passion for the work and keeping people safe, but professionally it's not something that you bring into your work with you in terms of using self-disclosure or those types of pieces to have an influence or have an impact.
Sandy Skelaney:I think that my experience is definitely something that's given me insights.
Shamin Brown:There's a couple things that I noticed around lived experience.
Shamin Brown:For those of us who are professionals with some form of lived experience, especially in the field that we're working in, some folks later on, when they establish themselves professionally, feel much more hesitant to associate themselves with lived experience, because they're often identifying lived experiences like early recovery experiences.
Shamin Brown:For myself, lived experience is just something that's happened, experience that it's there, but it's not meant also to be an identity that defines me. However, it's not an identity that I want to hide, because in my own recovery, however, it's not an identity that I want to hide because in my own recovery, it was people with lived experience that were social workers, that were business owners, that were doctors, that shared that piece of themselves with me, privately, one-on-one right, and we can do that as professionals where and when it's appropriate. We feel comfortable. But it was those things that really inspired me to be more, because I thought we're coming from the same place when I had no self-esteem and I had no self-love and I had no vision for a future for myself, but having these people who were in positions of power and authority that could help me, that could support me, my wellness, all these things, and knowing that we came from very similar places. We are healing from very similar experiences or challenges that come after trauma being able to feel seen and heard in that.
Sandy Skelaney:I think it can be a very important piece of having those individual conversations. If you're working with survivors or helping other people that are going through it, absolutely I think that can be helpful. It has to be appropriate and it has to also be done with the understanding that transparency and counter-transparency are absolutely real things that can be very damaging to relationships and to people you're trying to help. That line of what's appropriate to share and not is also very important.
Shamin Brown:And for folks that are openly lived experience and are disclosing that to their workplaces, their co-workers, their community and just live in a space where everybody knows that they're also held to a fairly high standard. People's experience of that is that they were constantly being judged through a lens of their past, just because they're not necessarily hiding their past. I'm thinking about Rachel Lloyd's book Girls Like Us. Rachel Lloyd is the founder, I believe, of Girls, education and Adventuring. When I read that book there was this part where she talks about sometimes she wanted to let go of that lived experience title and she couldn't because she wanted to inspire folks. But she shares a story of being in the White House. She made it to the White House and some dude who's there with her kind of like you know, oh, you ever think you'd make it from the streets.
Sandy Skelaney:Senator, whatever, thank you, please. It was a legislator that said to her this is a long way from the street, isn't it?
Shamin Brown:So inappropriate, Like who are you to devalue all of my successes, all of my hard work, all of my challenging myself to heal and overcome triggers and be in this space with these people of power and for you to bring up my lowest moment? You need to expect this.
Sandy Skelaney:You can't control the world. We can't cancel everybody. You only are able to manage and control how you react to things. Be a little thinking with some foresight into what is this gonna do for me in the future. What is it gonna do for me if I'm airing this stuff publicly?
Shamin Brown:Yes, If we are engaging people from a space of asking for them to be lived experience practitioners. What is our responsibility? From one human to another? To create a space of respect and dignity for them to do so, Because it's not just a choice of the person, it's also choice of the people who are engaging them. So how are you engaging them respectfully? How are you making sure that you're keeping them safe in the work that you're asking them to do?
Sandy Skelaney:It's a good idea to always actively engage people, to become more trauma-informed in general, across the board, through the whole population. I think it would benefit the entire world if we were more mindful about how we interacted with absolutely everyone in our lives. I want nothing more in the world than for that to happen. The reality is that's not what happens. We need to be prepared. If we're working with survivors, if we are survivors, we need to have the full understanding and knowledge that goes into what does it mean to put ourselves out there, to be public about information, to be public about the details? What does that mean in the short term? What does it mean in the long term? How is your life going to change in 10 years? And that stuff that you said 10 years ago is still online. It's still available for everybody to see, because the unfortunate reality is people do treat you different.
Sandy Skelaney:I can't count how many fundraisers and galas I've been to where they have a survivor speaking, a survivor of domestic violence, a survivor of human trafficking and homelessness, and they tell this harrowing story in a luncheon or something.
Sandy Skelaney:And they have six kids and they have a minimum wage job and they're barely surviving and this is their life now after experiencing the abuse. But they're saying I experienced this, I got help from this organization that's funded by this program and now I'm doing better, but I'm still struggling. I still need a job. The funders are all sad, inspired and want to talk to this person and give her a hug and all of these things, and they want to give money to the organization that hosted her, but nobody's offered her a job. They're running companies, they're running law firms right? They don't offer her a job because what they see is a dependent.
Sandy Skelaney:I'm thinking of one particular moment where that really made me very angry, because I just feel like it's hypocritical in some ways. But it was very enlightening to me that if you're up in public and you're talking about your experiencing and you're going through all the details without crafting your message, without honing your ability to come across as a professional, without being kind of stable or secure in your life now and proud of your life now, the result of that is going to be maybe pity. I don't think that that's why survivors want to get up there and share their message.
Shamin Brown:We go back to this idea of the responsabilization of wellness. It's up to the lived experience person who has exited often is entering the field with the organization that they healed with, so it's a safe place. They're moving into this workspace, but the expectation is always that you need to be healed enough. You need to know how to do this, you need to know how to do that, but these organizations know exactly where these people are at. They've been working with them in their recovery. When do the people who are engaging the services, are they ever accountable? Yeah, they should be. In a utopian world they should be, but don't expect that. Why aren't we also saying that about trauma survivors that are working in trauma fields? Ideally, they should be perfectly hold, but don't expect that. How do we support them?
Sandy Skelaney:This is the conversation I want to change we can work towards change, but we need to know and understand it the way it is so that we can respond in a way that's going to be not harming us Working in the field, working in victim services organizations. That is now shifting the focus from just general public to the victim services organizations. And you said one thing. You said victim services organizations know the people that they're working with, what they've been through. They do not all know they are supposed to be a safe space. They are not all a safe space.
Sandy Skelaney:You have multiple different departments in nonprofit organizations. You have one department that's responsible for raising money, for raising the awareness of the organization, for making a narrative around their impact. You have another one that's doing the direct services, the people on the first one. They're not trained in social work. They have basic training and trauma-informed. You would think if they're in this organization and being in the organization, you hope that they're going to pick it up. But it's not the same as somebody that's been trained social worker. It's not the same as somebody that's been trained social worker. It's not the same as somebody that understands what transference is, what counter transference is. So you definitely have to understand, like somebody that's trained in motivational interviewing. Somebody that's trained in trauma focused cognitive behavioral therapy is going to have a much different way to be intuitive and aware of what survivors need and how to respond to that than somebody that does fundraising.
Sandy Skelaney:What oftentimes happens is there's a tension in the organization that if you have survivor leaders in the organization or survivor advocates working in the field, a lot of times they're then asked to participate in this kind of marketing role because it's very powerful.
Sandy Skelaney:People want to hear this, they want to hear the stories, they want to hear the successes, they want to hear that people can heal.
Sandy Skelaney:There is a pressure from that side of the organization to get these stories, to get people to speak and talk about it.
Sandy Skelaney:If the people in the organization are not proactively advocating everywhere they go for the survivors that they're working with talking about outside the organization and inside the organization, then it's going to have impacts for your clients. But also, if you're working with people in your staff, then other people on the team should be noticing when these things are happening and they should be actively advocating. Because if you just put your hands up and say that's my other department, I don't have anything to do with that, I can't do anything, then that is a problem. So you need to if you're working in the organization, and the people that are closest to be able to see that and understand that are going to be the advocates and the mental health professionals, because I would say that they're probably more in tune to noticing nonverbal cues, noticing when people are being triggered, noticing when something is trauma-informed or not trauma-informed, because they've been working in this all the time. I think that that's absolutely important. Even the best organizations that I know have erred.
Shamin Brown:Oh, absolutely. And same thing for me. I've actually handpicked and identified organizations because of the work that they're doing and the desire to learn, but you still see gaps. Likewise, there's gaps in my work. There's gaps in your work. There's always going to be gaps, but I think it's more about the intention to grow, the intention to grow and the motivation that's driving that intention.
Shamin Brown:You just talked a little bit about some of these different skills that are helpful for folks to have in supporting lived experience staff. They need trauma-informed supervision, support and mentorship. They want it. I've been hearing that from 95% of the lived experience people that I work with. We need to think about the disclosure, what that causes, what the risks are those different pieces? That's something that can be learned in some sort of pre-employment system. There's steps here to what we're doing and we've been doing it the same way for over 20 years and we're hurting people. I'm still curious about some of your lived experience and you talked about some of these things already in terms of victim services and working polaroid, some of your education and expertise type lived experiences around all the fields, because we were talking about sex trafficking, I think, for the most part, when we're identifying victim services and survivors. Am I correct in that, or are there other populations that you work with?
Sandy Skelaney:Most of my work has been in the area of sex trafficking, especially child sex trafficking overlaps with human trafficking, labor trafficking of course, and I've also done with mindfulness programs as well.
Shamin Brown:And technology. I've also done with mindfulness programs, as well and technology, Parasol and Ruth. Those are focused on gender-based violence. Right.
Sandy Skelaney:Sexual assault. Yeah, parasol Cooperative builds technology that helps protect people from domestic violence and human trafficking, and technology facilitated abuse. There's just incredible overlaps in all of those areas.
Shamin Brown:What brought you into like gender-based violence work.
Sandy Skelaney:Honestly, I just took a class in college and it seemed incredibly interesting to me. I was doing women's studies and sociology classes the ones that they're looking to ban down here in the United States. In my early days of college, when I was still very young, I took those classes and I was like I really want to work in this field. I really want to help women who are being abused. It wasn't even until many years after that that I came to terms with and knew even that I was also a survivor. I see that actually reflected with students that I teach.
Sandy Skelaney:I teach at Florida International University a class on sex trafficking. I have for eight years now and I frequently get students who come in. That's the first step into adulthood. You're going from being a teenager under the wing of your parents to being on your own and independent adult. These kids, especially young women, come into my class. I teach them about the adverse childhood experiences, study, the risk factors to trafficking, how trauma impacts the brain. This is all brand new and so a lot of times they realize afterwards like wait a minute, what I've experienced, that's what that was, and I think that's pretty normal.
Sandy Skelaney:So people say how did you get into this. I'm like I've always been drawn to this Helping women, cross-border migration issues. My uncle is a refugee from Laos. That was really fascinating to me too, and then sex trafficking in particular was that area that I felt I could work in, I could help. That was really fascinating to me too, and then sex trafficking in particular was that area that I felt I could work in, I can help. It was very emotionally intense. Not a lot of people can handle that, and I can. The deal really got sealed when I worked with young survivors personally Tell me more.
Shamin Brown:I like those stories.
Sandy Skelaney:I was organizing the first National Summit of Commer exploited youth with GEMS back in 2002. I had some youth assistants that were working with me who were survivors also, and they were like tell me your story, tell me your story. And I was like I don't have a story, I'm not a survivor of trafficking. They're like no, no, no, tell me your story. So I told them a little bit about I'm not a survivor of trafficking. They're like no, no, no, tell me your story. So I told them a little bit about my story, which wasn't trafficking, but they really related to it. I was like wait, what do you mean? And then it kind of hit me at that point that I have gone through a lot of stuff and a lot of my stuff is also relatable, not in exactly the same way, but also working with them, seeing just how incredibly resilient and strong and ambitious they were to do something with their life at 16. It was just really inspiring and honestly fun.
Sandy Skelaney:It was really fun to be around too.
Shamin Brown:There are people with lived experience that don't recognize until later that they'll be in the field and be at a trafficking conference and be like right. So that's definitely something that happens as well. When we go back to that supervision and mentorship piece, I don't think that that should just be for lived experience people. I think that when we trauma-informed care, the main principle is to assume that everybody has trauma. If we have people in organizations or workplaces that are actually saying, yes, this has been my life, I have been impacted by this and it's a fairly severe traumatic experience, why not build our trauma informed care around their feedback, not because they're special, but because everybody there may or may not have had that experience and may or may not be disclosing it or easily readily identifiable. But how do we actually make this trauma-informed care and assume that everybody has this form of trauma or some form of trauma within a gender-based? And then going back to the youth, I love how you said that you shared your story. Even though your story was different, they responded to that. I think that's fantastic.
Shamin Brown:I've had that experience myself. I've had somebody who's been a domestic violence survivor and sometimes, hallelujah, that that's the only experience that they had. Because I don't want to talk to someone who's experienced domestic violence within the context of trafficking. I want to talk to someone who understands just domestic violence, because that's the piece I'm trying to sort out in my life right now. Or sexual abuse, or what have you? Because, as someone who's sexually exploited, you experience financial abuse, spiritual abuse, domestic abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, etc. And to know that healing experience. There are pieces that are the same. You're not as broken as you think you are, because look at this amazing woman who's had this similar experience. So maybe I'm not totally crappy. I think that being able to show people who we are and be open with people in the ways that are comfortable for us, about not our trauma but our recovery.
Shamin Brown:So I love those things that you were saying about youth and the story, the picture that you're painting, because that's what those things make me think of. We don't necessarily have to have the same lived experience as the people that we're working with. We draw from the lived experience that we do have. Maybe you had a terrible relationship with your parents in your teen years and you understand the desire to run away. It doesn't have to be severe and we're not glorifying trauma. We are sharing healing. You talked about that being emotionally challenging for you in that work. What are some of the things that you struggled with along the way? Is there anything that's still a challenge for you now in this work?
Sandy Skelaney:It is very difficult to create a program, run a program, fund a program that is able to have those wellness aspects, those safety nets for the people that are working with you, like your staff, I've always advocated for onsite therapy and all kinds of stuff, but I never was very successful at making that happen. It's like advocating for smaller caseloads, advocating for online onsite therapy, advocating for mindful Mondays, whatever it is. What I was able to accomplish, I think, was providing that kind of mentorship. One of the things that I did with my team, because my program was a part of a larger organization I've built and led programs where our team was doing direct services. I've also been a part of programs that are leading a network of organizations doing direct services, so both indirect and direct services. I've also been a part of programs that are leading a network of organizations doing direct services, so both indirect and direct services.
Sandy Skelaney:It's always a challenge with funding. You have to justify to funders. If you're only going to make case managers work with 10 people, that's not a lot for funders. So then you end up overburdening your caseworkers because you have to prove that your metrics are good. It's always a challenge. From a survivor victim services organizational management perspective.
Shamin Brown:It's hard to decolonize in a colonial system. So I hear you talking about funding and right away I think oh, that's government, that's that neoliberalism, that's the hustle culture. Like what do you mean you're not burning yourself out? Like what are we giving you money?
Sandy Skelaney:Right, yeah, for sure, again, again. Another thing that staff and managers and supervisors in these organizations, or leaders, hopefully can advocate and be intentional about, and just really be a squeaky wheel about it, because instead of accepting that this is the way it is and this is the norm, we should be pushing back and saying this is not the norm to burn people out. So when I see that we have therapists that are working full time providing therapy to trafficking survivors and then not getting paid enough to support their family, so they have to go home after survivors, and then not getting paid enough to support their families, so they have to go home after work and they have to do online sessions with private clients or they have to write the reports for Department of Children and Families or whatever it is that they were picking up for extra hours so that they can make money just to support their kids, that is not acceptable.
Shamin Brown:Yeah, how effective are they in their work, then? And it's almost like we've created this revolving door or our system has. Where people get well, they build themselves up, and when I say get well, it could be from anything. We all have challenges to transpire in life, and so people get well and they get into a good place and they burn themselves out and they fall apart. But in the process of that, the people that they're serving, the people that they're building relationships with, they are inspired, they are hope driven as a result of these relationships and then they are watching people be disposed of, displaced, unsupported, judged.
Shamin Brown:I think the hugest thing, when we think about organizational support and lived experience people and the work that they're doing, is really ensuring that there is emotional safety and social support, because people need to be safe enough to say I need a break, I don't understand what this thing meant or how to do this thing. Help me grow, help me learn, without feeling like now I'm going to be blamed or judged, I'm going to be told I'm not smart enough to be here, I'm not prepared to be here. I talk to lived experience folks who talk about being in rooms where they're providing support and feeling really overwhelmed because all of this big language is being used and it makes them feel like they have no value and they're not smart enough to be there. And always I say that's not true, because there's things you know that they will never know because they can't, because they haven't lived it, and that's a different kind of knowledge.
Shamin Brown:But to be in a room trying to make change and feel like that like how do we create safer spaces so that people can come and grow, but also so that they can receive, they can hear the things, how do we communicate nonviolently, how do we say it in ways where we're now nurturing growth instead of stimulating shame? And that's where that social support comes in. And let's create relationships with one another. Let's also attach you to whatever external resources are available where you have like minded people and you can have a community where you have like-minded people and you can have a community where you feel safe enough to explore the things that you need to. I just think that there's this additional piece around we want you to be well, but we want you to figure it out on your own.
Sandy Skelaney:I think you just hit it on the head is the word community. We individualize the work, we count the caseworkers, we count the clients, we count the money. Everything has a pipeline, but what we don't focus on is the community of work and the community of people you're helping and what that looks like. There are things that you want to work toward that are bigger system issues, and you want to be intentional and you want to be vocal about it and active, but there are things in your circle, in your immediate control, and that's where we really need to focus. So, for my part, I was running a program with victim advocates, with some survivor advocates as well, and we were serving hundreds of youth that were survivors of sex trafficking. I had to create a safe space, a community. We had to replicate a sense of a healthy family for the youth that were coming in our door, and what that meant was we can't have catty, petty backstabbing.
Sandy Skelaney:We can't do moaning and complaining about this and that in the work. We can't have staff issues and staff potential burnout and compassion fatigue just go unnoticed and undealt with. That, to me, was super important. I was mentoring. We were doing our staff meetings, our group meetings. We were very intentional and clear about what we wanted to do for our clients. We had to be healthy as a unit. That meant taking care of each other and looking out for each other as well. It has to be an intentional act.
Sandy Skelaney:As a supervisor or manager or even if you're not, you can suggest those things, you can help try to create them, but as a supervisor or manager, it's imperative, I think, to be able to create that space. We would use restorative justice principles for both staff and for youth. What that basically means is we would recognize that maladaptive behaviors or whatever that we're seeing are actually the result of probably being triggered or some kind of underlying issues and mental health issues or traumas or something like that. This is part of being trauma informed. The response isn't to punish the person for doing something that is undesirable, like isolating them, talking to them on the side the mom is going to have words with you in a workplace kind of setting. We take the person aside to the supervisor. Supervisor has a talk with them In a restorative justice setting. We take the person aside to the supervisor. Supervisor has a talk with them In a restorative justice setting. We have a group talk. We come to an understanding in the group how this behavior or how whatever happened has affected everybody. We come to an understanding about, maybe a little bit about where it's coming from and then we come to a group kind of decision about what should be done next. How can we support this person, how can we make some changes so that this doesn't happen again. It becomes like a group consensus, as opposed to one person being blamed for being a bad person or doing something bad and needs to get punished, and they just need to change their behavior so that everybody else is happy.
Sandy Skelaney:I don't think that's productive at all. This is the root of cancel culture, which really gets under my skin, honestly. But if you're expecting I'm going to be okay If you change your behavior, then we're not making any progress because we haven't understood where it's coming from. We haven't had insight as to the fear, anxiety or whatever that prompted it. The person who did that thing is not going to understand what kind of impact that has. They're not going to develop that empathy, to understand how that's impacted the community around them and things like that. The change comes from a fear of something bad happening to you as opposed to a place of understanding and developing compassion and empathy. You're not going to change your behavior out of empathy or communion. You're going to change it out of fear.
Shamin Brown:It's a trauma response because you're trying to avoid shame and judgment. I think that what you're talking about, too, is like when we are able to create that kind of safety for change to happen, we're affecting their nervous system. If they can be in the correct state, learning is optimal there. If you're in fight, flight, freeze, if you're always feeling like you need to hide, you need to mask, I've got to overthink this thing I'm going to say, or this thing I just did say, right, then you're not in a space where you can learn. So being able to create a safe space where you can regulate yourself enough to absorb that learning is key.
Sandy Skelaney:For the staff for survivor advocates, on staff, for the survivors that you're working with as clients. I think this is it's absolutely imperative not just to talk those words, but to also model them, and with that, though, so this is a little bit of my soapbox.
Shamin Brown:I really believe in the value of rupture and repair in all relationships and if I'm going to be accountable for my growth and I'm going to walk the talk and walk the walk, my expectation and my hope is that those people that I'm going to allow influence into my growth and who I am as a professional or a personal person is that those people are also going to do the same, that they're going to be able to acknowledge when they've made mistakes, when they've caused me harm, that they're going to reconnect and have those conversations again to create safety, to become a support in my circle that I can actually trust. Survivor or non-survivor, we all have experiences where we are experiencing shame and feel a little bit silenced and a little bit shut down. I do believe. When we think about sexual violence specifically, we know research shows that it affects our emotional safety, our ability to emotionally regulate and our ability to have attachments and trusting relationships. So even more so than we need to be engaged in relationships where we're not just expected to grow ourselves, but that growth and the rupture and repair piece, the acknowledging of the need for growth, is a reciprocal experience.
Shamin Brown:Were there any other things? I mean, we've talked about quite a bit now around these struggles in terms of funding and getting trauma-informed care kind of up and running in organizations and what some of the barriers are to that, as well as like some of these wonderful pieces that you've established around supporting folks that are learning and growing in the field. Are there any other struggles that you can identify personally that you've had in your career in terms of your own wellness and your own adapting to this emotionally intensive field? Because research also says that working in this field is considered an occupational risk for indirect trauma. So I'm sure that there's been some time for you to kind of figure out how do I navigate this yes, vicarious trauma is a thing.
Sandy Skelaney:It's very real. I've certainly had it. I still can see in my head very vivid memories of some of the clients that I've worked with showing up at the hospital to help them and things like that. I had startle reflex activation and other p signs just working in the field Compassion, fatigue all of the things that you would expect from somebody.
Shamin Brown:What were the signs that you needed to do something?
Sandy Skelaney:I was in a very high stress role in the sense that I was running the program opening a safe house, trying to also get funding, also having direct interactions with survivors and the youth themselves, because when you're good at what you do, they want to run with you.
Sandy Skelaney:Also, managing the whole staff and including survivor advocates, it's a very high stress situation. The primary kind of way that impacted me is I became irritable faster. I had very high expectations for people and I was very short with my patience, not for my staff, never for the youth, the people standing... that I felt like were standing in my way to get things done.
Sandy Skelaney:I had a short frustration tolerance. I see that a lot in this work, by the way, especially survivor leaders on the field, the grassroots people it's very, very difficult, I think, for people to do this work and be very patient, extremely happy about collaborating with everybody, even if they don't meet your standards for integrity and things like that. There are some people that are just like I can play nice with everybody and do this work because I'm super passionate about it and it's great, and so I admire them because they're able. Everybody loves them right, they get anything they need because everybody wants to help them. But it's also if you are feeling very, very attached to the outcomes for the people you're working with and the integrity of your program, then it's very difficult to maintain that level of positivity and optimism and collaborative openness Because what you're seeing is other providers are not doing their job right, awesome.
Shamin Brown:Thank you for your own story and your own time, and thank you to the audience for joining us at Conversations with our Sisters Keeper Sandy Scalini today. We're really happy to have you here, sandy.
Sandy Skelaney:Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure.
