FRIENDS ARE REACHING OUT!

It's F.A.R. OUT!
By Ellie Kimaro

Consider for a moment what our community would be like if we valued our life-long, resilient friendships as much as we did our romantic relationships. We would never ditch our friends when we started to date someone new. We wouldn't be so quick to brush them off as "just friends." We wouldn't take our friendships for granted, assuming that they will always be there, no matter how much or how little time and attention we put into maintaining them. We know that dating relationships are, often, fleeting...but our friendships can be our most precious and stable relationships. What would it look like for us to start treating them with as much intention and value as they merit?

For example, imagine if we had a commitment with our friends to share with each other anything and everything that was going on with our partners. Not that you would talk about everything, but you could. And that agreement was not only clearly articulated amongst your friends, but also with all current and future partners. Having this shared value of openness and honesty could have several potential benefits. It would act as a deterrent for us to be consistently behaving poorly in our relationships. It would also flag potential problem areas if you noticed there were aspects of your relationship that you were reluctant to share with your friends for fear that it might cast your partner (or you) in a bad light.

How are these issues relevant to domestic violence? Well, in 1999, the National Institute of Justice funded a qualitative research project that brought together the NW Network, Seattle & King County Department of Public Health, and the UW School of Public Health. The NW Network's involvement in this collaborative project was led by Danica Bornstein, one of our community advocates. Through focus groups and one-on-one interviews with LBT survivors, we gathered a lot of information about their experiences, needs, and gaps in services.

Time and again, survivors reported that isolation was the cornerstone tactic in their experiences of abuse. This isolation takes many forms, but the end result is always the same-severed ties between the survivor and her support network. Without that access to support, perspective and feedback, the abuser has total, unimpeded power to dominate their partner.

For a survivor who's considering leaving her relationship, the thought of rebuilding those lost connections and relationships can feel completely overwhelming and insurmountable. That's where the NW Network's new project comes in. Survivors in the research study repeatedly stated that they wanted concrete ways to increase the queer community's capacity to support survivors. This feedback informed the design of our new community building project, a discussion series called Friends Are Reaching OUT (F.A.R. OUT!). The goal of this project is to build capacity within our community to resist isolation and sustain meaningful connections. We hope to create a community culture that values open and honest communication, and reinforces the importance of friendships in resisting domestic violence.

F.A.R. OUT works with queer-identified survivors and their closest friends and family. We meet with each support network, on average two to three times. We hope to create a space where people can discuss agreements and strategies that they currently have (or might adopt) to solidify their values of staying connected to each other. Group members might have conversations about:

• How does support happen within our group?
• How has domestic violence impacted relationships with my friends?
• How can we hold ourselves, and each other, accountable in our relationships?
• What would it take to build friendships that are more resilient than and outlast abusive relationships?
• What would it mean to have open and honest dialogue with our friends and family about our intimate relationships?

Topics vary from group to group depending on what they want to get out of their conversation, and whether there is someone who is currently surviving an abusive relationship.

If you or a friend are queer-identified and have experienced an abusive relationship, and your friends or family would be interested in having some of these discussions, please give us a call at (206) 568-7777. We can help you get your support network together, and then we'll meet with you and facilitate getting this conversation started. It's a free, fun way of having proactive conversations, strategizing, and clearly articulating what your agreements with each other are/could be. While it may be a small step that each of us can take, the ripple effect of these conversations would be ones of resilience, accountability, openness and connection -- All characteristics of a liberation-oriented community.