October is both Domestic Violence Awareness Month and Breast Cancer Awareness Month. For that reason, this issue is dedicated to both. Inside you will find a story about one organization that helps survivors leave dangerous, volatile situations and one about new mammogram technology at a local hospital. Staff Writer Taylor O’Connor speaks with Domestic Violence Solutions about the importance of having a detailed exit plan and protection orders that can be legally enforced and Marian Regional Medical Center about the ways it’s making women more comfortable during breast cancer screenings and more.
Domestic Violence Solutions helps survivors leave dangerous situations with tools like a safety plan and exit strategy
Although Santa Barbara County’s Domestic Violence Solutions conducts groundbreaking work to help survivors leave their situations and work by their side during recovery, the organization’s work isn’t something employees can shout from the rooftops.
“It’s a different area to work in because as an organization, we have a broad set of services [but] it’s never really something we are public about. It has to be done in private and where safety is the paramount of our concern,” said Domestic Violence Solutions (DVS) Interim Executive Director of Operations Ken Oplinger. “For any sort of trauma, in order to process and deal with it, one thing that doesn’t help is a public spotlight on them.”
Unlike other nonprofits, personal testimonies aren’t an option for Domestic Violence Solutions to discuss the tools they provide or to help raise funds, he added. Instead, DVS works behind the scenes to make sure survivors have the tools they need.
“Every so often people go through it and they want to talk about it, and that’s great. We want to have that opportunity, but we don’t want to force them. It’s up to the person if they want to share that story to help people out,” Oplinger said. “They need to be able to deal with it in their own terms. We can’t help the community by showing trauma, we can only say we are a resource that addresses that.”
DVS responds to crisis calls; provides emergency shelters for victims, in-house counseling and job and life skills courses, and courtroom support; and partners with several organizations to provide legal aid and animal fostering services—all of which are seeing a jump in demand, Oplinger said. From June to the end of August 2022, Domestic Violence Solutions’ northern Santa Barbara County office received 133 referrals and five medical referrals, whereas South County received 25 referrals and two medical referrals, Director of Programs and Client Services Veronica Cubillo said.
“Our North County office is busier with crisis calls,” Cubillo said. “We get more requests to respond out to these needs, and it directly impacts our availability and being able to serve our clients at the shelter.”
Cubillo said that detailed exit planning and emergency protective orders help ensure safety and distance for survivors from their aggressors. Those are two of several tools that can help a survivor leave a situation.
Crisis calls to the domestic violence hotline number initiates DVS programs and services, which can go one of two ways: The individual will have a clear-cut exit plan, and they will discuss how to fulfill that, or the individual does not know how to proceed and is unsure of what help they need, Cubillo explained. They will then discuss the reasons for the call and what they may need to think about for their escape as well as any roadblocks.
“We want to know if they are in a home, who lives in the home—sometimes there’s children or other family in the home,” she said. “We want to know if they [other family members] are safe, or if they would be an obstacle for the departure. We want to know who is around them.”
Next, advocates will encourage slowly making copies of important documents and storing them outside of the home, like at work, in their car, or at a friend’s or neighbor’s house, Cubillo said. DVS doesn’t encourage taking the original documents because it’s can be a “clear red flag” to the aggressor that the individual is trying to leave.
“If there are children involved, making sure to schedule this exit around school time or after school or [during] extracurriculars. Sometimes kids are very aware of what’s going on in the home and that will impact the exit plan,” she said. “Sometimes kids are very close to their aggressor. If they are more on the side of the survivor, they may be making it a little easier to make that exit.”
An exit plan should be laid out clearly with a time frame, documents, and other details along with a backup plan in place in case the first strategy fails, Cubillo said. While working on their strategy or for those not ready to leave, DVS checks in at times when it’s safest to speak and uses code words while having the conversation.
“We won’t say we’re calling from DVS in case their phone is monitored or filtered. For those it’s more tricky,” she said.
If they’re unable to take a phone call but can use a phone or tablet, myPlan is an app available to domestic violence survivors that can help curate safety plans, but it’s disguised as a health and fitness app, Cubillo said.
“Individuals outside of the domestic violence situations are able to do assessments to see if they’re in danger. It’s available in different languages, and people are able to create safety plans and keep it there so they can change it or alter it as they need. I highly encourage it to many individuals,” she said.
Once someone has exited their home, plans must be adjusted for their safety while at a domestic violence shelter, or in their secondary location. Restraining orders are extremely beneficial to maintaining safety, but they go through the court system and can take days or weeks to enact. In the meantime, individuals can have an emergency protective order in place—an option a lot of survivors are unaware of, Cubillo said.
“An emergency protective order is very much like a restraining order, but for five to seven business days given automatically by law enforcement,” she said. “However, the sticky part and downfall is these are only offered and granted to an individual when there has been a physical incident or criminal threats have been made.”
An order in response to psychological and emotional abuse is not likely to be approved. If the person suffered a physical incident, it’s up to a judge, who can make a very “black and white” ruling. The benefits of an protective order is it acts as a temporary restraining order until one can be put in place, Cubillo said, which can take up to a week.
“Even though there’s a restraining order, there has to be a plan in or around if the aggressor hasn’t been served, or it remains difficult to enforce the order,” she said.
Throughout the whole process, a domestic violence advocate will be with the survivor to help them with any necessary court appearances, and to help guide them in retelling their trauma, she said. It’s very difficult for victims to write what happened to them in a concise way.
“It’s important for everyone to know this matter’s very sensitive, and [these are] important resources to utilize or know for their future or somebody else’s future,” she said. “It’s important to know at least our crisis line number, and if they have any questions to creating a safety plan, download the myPlan app to help guide them.”
Taylor O’Connor can be reached at toconnor@santamariasun.com.
Marian Regional receives new mammogram technologies to detect breast cancer at earlier, smaller stages
Thanks to an anonymous donor, Marian Regional Medical Center recently acquired new mammogram technologies to detect breast cancer at earlier stages.
The first is 3Dimensions Mammography System, available at Mission Hope Breast Imaging Center, takes high quality, clear images, from which radiologists can detect smaller cancers that would have slipped through the previous system, radiologist Ramanjyot Muhar said.
“I do think it’s one of the best machines out there on the market. I love looking at the images from here because they are beautiful, and any small abnormality can stick out here,” she said. “We take a sense of pride in detecting cancer early and have a positive outcome.”
Before, people would come in for a mammogram and the center used 2D imaging technology, which wasn’t as accurate and could bring up false positive cases, Muhar said.
“We would have called people back when it wasn’t anything. It raises a lot of anxiety, and [now] the amount of that has decreased. It reduces call-backs and increases detection of cancer,” she said.
The new imaging technology also makes it more comfortable for someone to have their screening done thanks to a curved paddle that sits on the breast tissue in a less compressive way and it detects more areas on the breast tissue, Muhar added.
“The machine we had was older and we were not visualizing abnormalities like we are now. Because we are a cancer-specific center, we need[ed] that machine,” she said.
Alongside 3Dimensions, the Brevera Breast Biopsy System is another new piece of equipment that shortens biopsy procedures and reduces the amount of breast tissue doctors have to take, Muhar said.
During previous procedures, doctors would have to take biopsy samples, leave the room, take an X-ray to confirm what they are looking for, and then come back to the patient. Now, Muhar and other radiologists can see what they are removing from the breasts and don’t have to leave the patient’s side or repeatedly remove more breast tissue for testing, she said.
“The other thing the techs tell me is it’s much easier for them to use, and we can see more patients during the day. With the ease of the machine for the technologists, we are able to see more patients and care for more people in the community,” Muhar said.
These are newer machines to the Central Coast area, but not unique to Marian, she noted. Patients don’t have to go only to the center in order to receive this type of testing, rather it’s just that their location “caught up, finally.”
“This is something that we needed for a while, and we have it now and it’s great. It increases the confidence for the radiologist when looking at mammograms; technologists have mentioned they like working with the machine as well,” she said. “The biopsy portion really was something we needed here. The biopsy table we had before really needed to be upgraded.”
Muhar encouraged people to schedule a mammogram at 40 and every year following because it detects cancer at smaller sizes and improves prognosis. If younger people in their 20s or 30s feel something, Muhar said they should talk to their doctor to see if they need to get screened at the center.
“It’s better now than ever. Patients feel bad they had something, but at the end of the day you have to be thankful you are arriving at the time you did.”
Taylor O’Connor wrote this week’s Spotlight. You can reach her at toconnor@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 6-13, 2022.
