Episode 18: Laura Fernandez, Clinical Director of Sanctuary for Families

On this episode of en(gender)ed, our guest is Laura Fernandez, the Clinical Director at Sanctuary for Families, a leading service provider and advocate for survivors of domestic violence, sex trafficking and related forms of gender violence in New York City.  At Sanctuary, Laura provides leadership, management, and strategic direction for all clinical services citywide, including individual and group counseling, crisis management and intervention, and a program for survivors who serve as mentors for others.  More than 5,500 individuals receive life-saving clinical services at Sanctuary each year. We speak with Laura about the work she does with survivors, how to recognize symptoms of abuse in survivors, and how each of us may better support survivors in our own lives.

During the show, Laura and I touched upon the following topics:

• Sanctuary for Families' Vacation Cutting Bill that makes it illegal to send your child out of the country to get female genital mutilation (FGM) procedures
• The need for future laws to make it illegal to send your child outside of the country for forced marriage
• Current child marriage laws in NYS and across the country
• Sanctuary for Families' current advocacy efforts with regard to child marriage, FGM, trafficking, strangulation, etc.
• How they use Jackie Campbell's "Danger Assessment" for safety planning of victims
• The various Power and Control Wheels used for psycho-education of the survivor to help her understand the dynamics of abuse, including the post-separation power and control wheel and the abuse of children wheel
• Their guiding framework of crisis to stabilization to self-sufficiency
• My reference to the Deborah Epstein resignation from the NFL as a domestic violence consultant and her interview with NPR sharing examples of how the NFL cultivates a culture of misogyny

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