Collin County Junior League hosts family violence conference

The Collin County Junior League’s Council on Family Violence hosted its 10th-annual Facing Family Violence Conference last Thursday and Friday at Collin College’s Spring Creek Campus.

Twenty-nine speakers in disciplines ranging from law enforcement to clinical psychology spoke at the event. Multiple sessions ranging in topic from teen dating violence to expert witness training were held simultaneously in five different rooms throughout both days of the conference.

Diane Stephens, chair of the Collin County Council on Family Violence, said the conference was held to bring awareness to the issue and help organizations work to prevent further instances of family violence.

“It’s very prevalent in Collin County, because family violence doesn’t know socioeconomic class,” she said. “It doesn’t know race. It doesn’t care what kind of car you drive. … It happens behind closed doors, so people don’t know about it, can’t see it [and] can’t hear it.”

Bridgett Vinson-O’Neal – director of program services for Hope’s Door, Collin County’s only comprehensive family violence shelter – said the shelter receives about 200 referrals in a two-month period. The group frequently speaks to corporations, schools, the media and law enforcement as part of its efforts to increase awareness of the domestic violence problem in Collin County, she said.

“A lot of times people hide behind ‘Oh, it won’t happen in Collin County,’” she said. “Collin County is one of the richest counties in America, so people think it won’t happen here.”

One of the first sessions at the conference focused on a family-shattering event not normally associated with traditional family violence: teen suicide.

Dr. Sarah Fourerbacher, clinic director at the SMU Center for Family Counseling, said the seeds of suicide-causing clinical depression can be sown in children as young as infants, especially when influenced by outside factors such as domestic violence between parents.

In teenagers, depression can be aggravated or introduced by bullying, especially since the advent of social media has allowed students to share information about classmates not only with one another, but with the whole world via the Internet.

“It’s so different than when we were in school,” Fourerbacher said. “[When I was in school], I didn’t want to show up at school and have even my best friend knowing about something I was embarrassed about.”

While teens usually exhibit warning signs before attempting suicide, many do not, Fourerbacher said. Warning signs include expressing a desire to die or sleep forever, giving away personal possessions and experiencing emotional upheaval caused by an outside factor such as the loss of a loved one or a traumatic break-up.

Parents can help, Fourerbacher said, by listening to their children if they exhibit signs of depression and engaging with them through shared activities, adding that parents should not be afraid to ask their children about possible signs of depression.

“Just talking about it may make that person feel less alone,” she said.

The Council on Family Violence was first conceived in 1999 as an opportunity to bring multiple agencies working on family violence issues together to collaborate and share their research, said Jennifer Jameson, president of the Junior League of Collin County.

“It was obvious different agencies weren’t communicating,” she said. “… Today is more for them; training the faith community, education, social services and [law enforcement professions].”

In 2001, the group began meeting monthly, bringing together representatives from those groups to increase communication. The group completed a coordinated domestic violence response plan in 2002.

For information about the Collin County Council on Family Violence, visit www.ccc-fv.org.

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