Transcription:
00:05 – 00:27:20
Host: Zach Mathern
Hi, I’m Zach Mathern, a project architect with JLG architects, along with my colleague Isaac Karley, who continuing the Community Matters podcast, where we listen to gain perspectives to better serve communities in the entire people within communities. We are continuing to explore incarceration today from another perspective with Michelle Erickson, the executive director of the Abused Adult Resource Center, otherwise known as AARP, in Bismarck, North Dakota
00:27:24 – 01:01:24
Host: Zach Mathern
Michelle’s perspective helps to ground incarceration as a community issue. Arcs work in providing support services for survivors of domestic violence, while also supporting those convicted of domestic abuse. Demonstrates a holistic understanding of trauma and community supports. This conversation with Michelle explores the question how can we as a community, support rehabilitation and ultimately stop, repeat and generational offending? Michelle’s logical and empathetic nature gives us comfort to have this conversation about otherwise challenging subject matter.
01:01 -01:12
Host: Zach Mathern
Note there is discussion of abuse and violence in this episode. I’m grateful for our time with Michelle and I hope you gain perspective from our conversation.
01:12 – 01:20
Host: Zach Mathern
Episode two The Community Matters Podcast JLG Architects.
01:20 – 01:46
Guest: Michelle Erickson
I’m Michelle Erickson, I live here or live in Mandan, but I work in Bismarck, North Dakota. I am the executive director of the Abused Adult Resource Center, and I’ve been there 17 years. I pretty much am a North Dakota, and I will just say that I lived here most of my life. I’ve been involved, actually, in the prison system through working part time for DOCR as a side job for a few years.
01:46 – 02:14
Guest: Michelle Erickson
I wrote pre-sentence investigation reports on offenders, so I kind of got to see that side of it, as well as working with victims. With my job, so kind of familiar with both sides of the coin, but also, you know, just understanding how people grow up in a, in a situation where from the time their kids, they’re in trouble and then it just keeps going and going.
02:14 – 02:35
Guest: Michelle Erickson
And how agreed with some of the things you said about how we have to somehow either break that cycle or make it possible that we don’t need incarceration. But where does that start? You know, where do you where do you start getting people involved in positive experiences so they’re not ending up in, in and out of jail over the years.
02:35 – 02:;55
Host: Zach Mathern
All right. Thanks for that intro. I think that really leads into my first question. Just generally, I’d like to know a little bit more about what specific services does the abused Adult Resource Center provide and who in our community needs those services.
02:55 – 06:42
Guest: Michelle Erickson
Sure, I can talk about AARC all day, so I will try to make it not terribly long. Our agency has been around in the community for over 45 years, and at this point we have about 70 employees and we operate out of eight buildings, actually. So our basic services are crisis intervention. That’s our number one is just, you know, talking to people that are experiencing situations such as domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, stalking, dating violence, those interpersonal crimes.
And, you know, we just want to find out what’s going on and what people need. So we sort of have this motto of meeting people where they’re at. We’re not going to tell you, you need to do this or you need to do that. We want to know what you need help with, and then we’ll try to figure it out.
So from there, we have options like emergency shelter, transitional housing. We’ve got some other housing programs where we help people get into apartments in the community, and then we provide some rental assistance as well as some case management. We have a seven unit apartment building for singles or efficiency apartments, and there’s no staff on site. So it’s basically an apartment building, but you still are open to getting the rest of the services, case management and whatnot.
We can help with applying for protection orders. We’ll sit through the the hearings with our clients. We work on them, work with them on safety planning so that if they are going to stay in a situation that’s not super healthy, at least maybe they can stay a little bit safer, know what to do so they don’t end up in a situation like that.
Again, we also have a supervised visitation facility. So when there’s parents that might have a court order not allowing them to be in the same room with each other, they can still have healthy and safe parenting time through our facility. And then it’s monitored and documented by our staff. We also have a thrift store, seeds of Hope, which contributes about 30% to our 2.7 million annual budget.
So it’s really important to us. And through that store we do a few other things. We provide clothing for anybody in the community for a new job or an interview. And so particularly how this might relate to the topic at hand is that we see a lot of people come out of incarceration, and then there may be in a halfway place or, you know, a transition center or just getting out on the streets and they’re leaving without anything, and they want to get a job or, you know, they have interviews coming up and they have nothing decent to wear.
And we kind of feel like anybody will feel more confident going into that interview or that first day of their job if they have a nice outfit, a clean pair of shoes. So definitely, yeah, we do that for anybody in the community. They don’t have to be one of our clients. Our clients that move out of our shelters into their own apartments will help them furnish their apartments through seeds of hope at no cost.
So they get to kind of go pick out, you know, their bedding and their towels and pots and pans and those kind of things. And then we operate an education and employment program. So if somebody wants to go back to school or learn to write a resume or get some retail experience, we sort of do that in conjunction with seeds of Hope.
One of the newer programs we started last year was the Domestic Violence Offender Treatment, which was kind of new for us because normally we work with the victims, but we also kind of felt like if we could offer this service, it would be another way to decrease violence in the community.
06:42 – 06:57
Host: Zach Mathern
That’s so interesting, because that’s a topic that Isaac and I thought of, like, you know, there’s there’s people that are victims and they need help. But then is there empathy for the abusers themselves? Do they need help? Right. And where does that come.
06:58 – 9:58
Guest: Michelle Erickson
So that that program is actually in our century code. And it’s a if you’re convicted of a domestic violence crime, then you’re ordered to take a offender treatment course, the one that we offer, which is the one most places in North Dakota, offers an evidence based program out of Duluth. And it’s a 24 to 26 week program. There’s an accountability piece where that offender has to pay for those classes, but we’ve tried to make it reasonable so that it’s affordable, and then they have to show up and they have to participate.
And the Grand Forks Community Violence Intervention Center has been doing it for several years, and they track people for two years after they leave that program. And recidivism rates have been down dramatically for those that have completed that program. So we felt like it was a natural fit for us. Even though we started out as a victim provider, victim service provider, why wouldn’t we want to help the offenders not do what they’re doing again?
So yeah, so that last year was our first year, I believe we had 17 enrolled throughout the year and we had nine graduates. So we’re starting out slow. But I think it can only grow. And I think it’s a good way to to to make a difference through the offender in the community as well.
What are the things that you sell to legislators to, to sort of prove the value of these programs? Is it recidivism? I guess both on the offender side and both on the victim side?
Sure. You know, if the domestic violence centers closed down in the state, people are going to die. It really just comes down to that. We’re there answering the phone 24 hours a day. We’re providing those situations for people or those places for people to go in those situations. And, you know, it’s really about the health of the state.
Like we as a state, I believe we had 5000 new victims of domestic violence last year. And it might have even been more because it is more because we’re seeing people from, say, the year before that weren’t brand new. So we’re doing a lot of the work to keep the state safe. And if we weren’t there, who’s going to do it?
So we’ve testified. We’ve been testifying in the last few weeks in different on different bills and things like that. The other programs that are mandated in the Century Code that are in relation to domestic violence is the supervised visitation and then crime victim witness. Not all of the programs do that, some do one, some due to some do all three here for us in Bismarck, we’re doing two.
We’re doing the supervised visitation and the offender treatment. So, you know, throughout the state there’s 20 domestic violence programs and there’s 53 counties, and we’re covering them all. So it would only seem prudent that the state, you know, possibly kick in a few more dollars to keep people safe.
09:58 – 10:39
Host: Zach Mathern
The the list of services that AARC provides is longer than I even knew about myself. It’s pretty comprehensive, which is awesome. I want to just ask you personally, like, you know, you mentioned like 5000 new cases. You have all these lists of services just in general. What do you think? Why do you think these services are necessary?
Like what is occurring in our in our community that this abuse and these challenges are happening and people are being victimized in these ways.
10:39 – 13:37
Guest: Michelle Erickson
So from my part time work with DOCR, I think I really realized I my position at the time was to interview people that had been convicted of sexual crimes, rape, sexual harassment, GSI, gross sexual imposition. And what I found through doing many, many interviews over five, six years was that a lot of those adults had either trauma as children, in some way.
Maybe they were sexually abused or beaten and they were never really a protected or be given the help that they needed. And, you know, I think about there’s one case that sticks out for me about a guy that was 32, maybe when I interviewed him at the prison, and he had literally been in some kind of incarceration since he was six.
He aged out of, you see, at the Youth Correctional Center with a fifth grade education. He’s thinking like a ten year old. Yes, he’s making those choices. And yes, he’s breaking the law. But was he equipped to make adult decisions? I think that’s up for discussion. So I think it’s just important that we start with kids like they we have to model that behavior of not being abusive, of being kind of being respectful.
As for children, so that they are seeing those positive role models rather than the negative ones. And I’m not faulting the correctional system. I think they’re overworked. They’re overloaded. Their caseloads are ridiculous. I think it’s just a matter of how do we keep it from happening, from kids getting into the system at that age to begin with and, you know, tackling those problems.
That probably was a little off track. But I think that a lot of the things, a lot of the people that I’ve seen with us in 17 years are people that have had trauma from childhood. I’ve worked with a couple of clients the entire 17 years I’ve been there, and they’re patterns are repeated, but it’s the offenders that know who to look for.
Vulnerable people, people with no family connections, people that are lonely, offenders are very good at picking out those people that are vulnerable, and they’re going to rely on them for housing, for money, for rides, for food. And I don’t think victims realize until it’s almost too late that they’re in a situation that’s dangerous. And then, you know, those that are able to reach out for help were there last year, I know we helped.
We had about 1000 new victims in our seven county area, and we had 230 that we were helping this year from the year before. Okay, so about 1200 people were working with.
13:38 – 14:06
Host: Zach Mathern
Of those people. I guess we’re thinking of a conversation about incarceration. Is there a large overlap in terms of either folks that are previously incarcerated, or is it more so their abusers are incarcerated? Can you talk a little bit about is there an overlap between your services and incarcerated individuals?
14:06 – 14:33
Guest: Michelle Erickson
You know, I think we’ve had I don’t know what an actual percentage would be, but we’ve definitely had a lot of victims who have had, you know, maybe drug charges and a lot of the times that’s tied into the abuse. So say the offender is having her purchased drugs for him, you know, and she’s doing that because if she can get those drugs, then she knows she’s not going to get beat up.
14:33 – 14:34
Host: Zach Mathern
Sure.
14:34 – 16:16
Guest: Michelle Erickson
So she’s willing to risk getting in trouble for her own physical safety, if that makes sense. So what we do is if we have somebody that comes to us and they need shelter and they say, well, I have a warrant, we don’t not help them. We just work with them on how to take care of that warrant. So maybe we have to figure out a way for somebody to watch their kids so they can go serve their time on weekends, or help them figure out a way to raise money to pay their fines.
We definitely see a connection between abuse and incarceration. Maybe not always on the victim’s side, but there’s so many challenges, you know, with if the offenders incarcerated and they share kids, how does the offender get to see his kids? You know, which is a pilot project we tried to launch a few years ago with the New England Women’s Correctional Center, was going out there to provide supervised visitation because we knew they were caseworkers, were overloaded, and we listened to the women out there talk about not seeing their kids for months or even years.
And, you know, it didn’t pan out, but it was a good project. And I think we learned a lot about what it’s like for women specifically to be incarcerated and not have access to their children. So that’s an area I would like to see more attention to, because if there’s a protection order in place, they can’t have conversations about their kids or take their kids out to the prison because that other parent has a protection order that states they aren’t allowed to have contact with that other parent.
So then who’s going to do that? So that’s where we see a lot of our overlap as well.
16:17 – 16:47
Host: Zach Mathern
Okay. I want to talk a little bit about getting back to.
The support you provide. Maybe for you use the term offenders.
Is there stigma or challenges in your organization or just in how that’s perceived as like helping someone who has done something bad.
16:47 – 16:50
Guest: Michelle Erickson
From a community aspect or.
16:50 – 17:16
Host: Zach Mathern
Yeah, from the perspective of maybe either the folks that you work with at your organization or more of the community’s perspective on that and how maybe asks like seniors doing something that they shouldn’t be doing, if this is someone that needs to be punished versus someone that needs help to do better, is there stigma or conversation around that?
17:16 – 17:42
Guest: Michelle Erickson
I don’t know that. I remember when we first started talking about it a couple of years ago, about whether domestic violence programs should be doing this offender treatment work, and there were some programs that thought, gosh, are victims even going to come to us if they know we’re helping the offender? But in reality, a lot of the time the national average is a victim will leave 7 to 9 times before they leave for good, a situation that’s not healthy or dangerous.
17:42 – 18:00
Guest: Michelle Erickson
And so obviously we know they’re going back in some situations. So wouldn’t it be beneficial to get to that offender and be able to hopefully help that offender so that if she does go back, it doesn’t happen again? I mean, it just seemed like a no brainer to me, to be honest.
18:00 – 18:00
Host: Zach Mathern
Definitely.
18:00 – 18:28
Guest: Michelle Erickson
But again, I have a criminal justice degree and I kind of see some of those both sides of the coin, I guess, like, why wouldn’t we try and help so that somebody doesn’t end up back in prison? I mean, it helps with the recidivism rate. It helps with the overcrowding. It helps with relationships with family dynamics. Not to say that every person that goes through that program is going to be successful, but at least it’s an opportunity.
18:28 – 18:35
Guest: Michelle Erickson
And again, it’s a choice. So if you make the choice, maybe you’ll be able to have a decent life going forward.
18:35 – 18:46
Host: Isaac Karley
Michelle, what is that? What does it actually look like to to help sort of rehabilitate somebody in that way once they’ve done something that’s sometimes quite heinous?
18:46 – 21:27
Guest: Michelle Erickson
You know, it’s about the offenders saying, yes, I did this, I want to change. I know I shouldn’t hit the person I love, help me do that. And so it’s really around peer support too. So this 24 week program is like a rolling program. So if you enter into the program and the group is in lesson three, you complete the rest of them and then you go back and do one and two.
So as you’re coming in, there’s people that are on lesson eight and lesson 14. And so they’re holding each other accountable and saying, hey, you can’t say that about your partner in this group, or hey, you can’t say that you’re going to do this when you go home. You know, it’s about being being accountable for your behaviors. And I think all of those lessons are based around different strengths and being aware of respect towards your partner, about your responsibility as a partner and those kind of things.
So it’s definitely even though there’s facilitators, I think it’s really powerful to have other former offenders holding other people accountable. It’s peer support, right. And so that’s where it’s going to make a difference for somebody is if they’re willing to be open and listen to their peers and then follow through on their program.
Just from your understanding of maybe the doctor or other correctional systems, if you have any, does does this sort of peer support and that sort of focus on community and building community in that way with offenders? Does that is that a priority, do you think in sort of different carceral systems throughout the country or the region?
I, I’m not sure if it is in I mean, I’m, I don’t work in that system, so I’m not sure I could speak to that, but I feel like places like center Inc., you know, where it’s kind of once they get out and then they go to this kind of, I don’t like the word halfway house, but kind of this program, like a transitional program before they’re back inside.
I think maybe that’s where they’re getting more of it because they’re encouraged to, you know, go to a meetings or get a job or volunteer or things like that. So maybe that’s where it’s happening a little bit more is before they enter back into society. But not everyone goes through that transition phase either. There’s people really straight out of jail, back to the street or back to their homes, and there’s no in in my understanding, there’s no sort of.
You know, many times when people are arrested for a domestic violence incident, they’re spending maybe a couple days in jail and that’s it.
21:28 – 21:30
Host: Isaac Karley
So and then they’re just back to.
21:30 – 21:57
Guest: Michelle Erickson
Life and they’re just back to their, their regular life. And then it happens again. So, I don’t know that there’s time in the system maybe on some of those, unless they’re long term incarcerations to build that community, which is not a fault of the incarceration system. I think it’s just the time frame of, of how long somebody incarcerated, you know.
Got you, got you.
21:57 – 22:12
Host: Zach Mathern
It’d be coming back a little bit to the folks that you’re helping, potentially victims. What what terminology do you use to describe? Are they clients? Are they to use?
22:12 – 23:16
Guest: Michelle Erickson
I guess my favorite one would be survivors. You know, we see a lot of people maybe come to us as a victim, but to be able to move on and, and maybe get their own place in a job and they’re feeling healthy and happy and their kids are safe. And, you know, those are survivors. And I think I’ve heard over my years, people say, you saved my life.
I didn’t save your life. I gave you the pathway to do it or give you the resources to do it. But you made all the choices and did the hard work. I think survivors are crazy amazing. And how tough it is to leave a situation where maybe you’re dependent on that other person, not only for finances, but transportation and, you know, buying groceries.
And then you have to start over with the clothes you left with. And so anytime we have somebody that is coming to us and, you know, it says, I need help and we help them and they get on their way and they’re a little bit of a success story. I think that’s amazing.
23:16 – 23:45
Host: Zach Mathern
Yeah, I think that’s inspiring. I think, you know, words matter and that’s a topic that’s come up in, in our work and related to jails and prisons is, you know, do we call these people criminals or does that, does that itself make something real? You know, like if you’re constantly called a criminal, it may be hard to see yourself as something else.
23:45 – 23:48
Host: Zach Mathern
So, you know, calling them residents.
23:48 – 23:50
Host: Isaac Karley
Or them for that matter.
23:50 – 23:51
Host: Zach Mathern
Say that again, Isaac.
23:52 – 23:53
Guest: Michelle Erickson
Or a victim, for that matter.
23:53 – 23:54
Host: Zach Mathern
Right, right, exactly.
23:54 – 24:14
Guest: Michelle Erickson
And that’s why I don’t love the victim. I think in the past years ago, you know, it was always a victim, victim, victim. But that’s why I think I like survivor. Actually had one lady say she was a thriving and and I thought that was awesome too. But yeah, labels are for wine, right. You know, I think I just I hate labels in general.
24:14 – 24:26
Guest: Michelle Erickson
So I think there are people there are people that need resources or people that need help. There are people that need support. And that’s what we’re here to do. I guess.
24:26 – 24:42
Host: Zach Mathern
Your organization provides, you know, quite a few various services, from shelter to education planning. Are there any gaps you see in in what you’re able to provide or what’s provided, you know, more broadly in Bismarck command?
24:42 – 28:04
Guest: Michelle Erickson
And so one thing I’m involved in and have been involved in since I started there is the Missouri Valley Coalition for Homeless People. And so a lot of us really interconnect with services, youth works, ministry on the margins, community action. We all offer different services, but we all connect really well. And three of the areas that we’ve identified through our strategic planning of unmet needs overall in the community are transportation, low barrier shelters and child affordable child care.
And that really rings true for us as well. A lot of the jobs that some of our clients are doing are working or retail or overnight stocking or fast food. And, you know, those aren’t 8 to 5 jobs. And when we don’t have a bus system that runs past 630 at night or, you know, public transportation, there’s not a real good taxi service here anymore, makes it really difficult for our clients that live on the south side of town to go to North Walmart for their job.
So that’s overall in the community, an issue. When I say low barrier shelter, we don’t have a shelter in this community that allows you to be under the influence or a sex offender or some other, you know, maybe a really strong mental health diagnosis. There’s no shelter that allow a person with those issues to stay. And that’s really a disservice to our community.
It’s a basic need to have a roof over your head. Even if it’s just for a night. And so that’s definitely something that our community here is lacking. Fargo’s got great programs. There’s other really great shelters in the state to. And that’s what we need. We have variations of shelters, but nothing that really incorporates that low barrier Ministry on the margins is a great example.
They’ve been operating a coffee house since last year, kind of an overnight sit stand kind of place, so you can get in out of the elements and, and have a cup of coffee and, you know, just be safe. However, it’s not a shelter. It’s not somewhere you can live. It’s not somewhere you can sleep. It’s just kind of a out of the elements type place, but it’s filling a gap.
They’re seeing sometimes 50 people a night coming through there. So and shelter is definitely necessary. And then affordable childcare. My son just had twins Thursday and they have a two year old and three kids and daycares $2,100 a month. So if you don’t have some kind of really good job, it’s almost impossible to pay for daycare. And we see that with our shelters a lot.
You know, if we have a mom in there with four kids, it’s almost easier and more economical to not work. Because if you’re going to go work at a fast food place for $15 an hour. How are you going to pay for daycare for four kids? It just doesn’t make financial sense. So childcare is another big issue. We’ve noticed with a lot of the clients in the community.
28:04 – 28:23
Host: Zach Mathern
I want to ask a little bit more about AARC and maybe specifically, what help does AARC need to improve and maybe extend the services you provide more people? Is it money? Is it it’s.
28:23 – 28:24
Guest: Michelle Erickson
Always money.
28:24 – 28:28
Host: Zach Mathern
Help from legislators to.
28:28 – 30:57
Guest: Michelle Erickson
You know, I think we, you know, a lot of let’s just take our budget, for instance. We’re about 55% grant funded grants, whether they’re state, local, federal, all have criteria, all have reporting requirements, all have specific things that they allow you to do. So some of the areas that we’re short in is, say, legal assistance. You know, when we help somebody get a protection order, we’re not attorneys, but it would be really nice to be able to call up an attorney and say, hey, I have this client.
She really left with the clothes on her back. She’s in this situation. She just needs somebody to sit with her and make sure that she doesn’t get railroaded. In this court hearing. We don’t really have access to that. We’ve we have a few attorneys that will work with payments and things like that, but we don’t really have just somebody that will pick up pro bono cases like that.
Legal aid of North Dakota is financially strapped sometimes and aren’t able to help either, but we try to use the resources that are out there. The child care piece. We provide a little child care at our shelters. But yeah, if we had a child care center, that’d be amazing because then, you know, our clients could all work if they wanted to and know their kids were being taken care of.
You know, our facilities when I became director for almost four years ago now, I swear, everything is breaking down. Furnaces and air conditioners and tubs have to be replaced and showers. And so I don’t think people always realize, yes, you have these shelters and it’s great, but they also take a lot of work to maintain and and keep the lights on.
So that’s where seeds of Hope comes in for us. It’s really important. Like I said, 30% of our budget, unrestricted dollars, you know, pays for salaries of our our store employees, pays for upkeep of some of our buildings and all of that. So, yeah, it’d be great if there was like a fund for, you know, just maintenance of your properties.
We own our shelter, we own our office building, we own our apartment building, we lease our transitional center, we own our store. So the director prior to me was there 40 years. She built it pretty much from the ground up, starting with two advocates up to where we are now with 70 employees. So it’s taken a lot to build it, and now it takes a lot to maintain it.
30:57 – 31:19
Host: Zach Mathern
Yeah, this is really a challenging work. There’s a lot of aspects to it obviously, and we’ve talked about some of them. Just I’m curious, you personally, why are you doing this type of work? What’s your vision for it? Why are you inspired to be doing this every day? Because it’s very hard.
31:20 – 32:37
Guest: Michelle Erickson
Housing and homelessness has really been my biggest passion for while I’ve worked there. It just intertwines with the domestic violence and everything. But it’s just kind of that impact that you can have on others, whether it’s small or big. I don’t think you ever know how you affect somebody’s life, you know? And it could just be like a passing comment to somebody, you know, I like your outfit.
That could have turned that whole person’s viewpoint around for that day. And I just think it’s it’s important to be good humans. Like no one should suffer from lack of food or lack of housing or, or be in situations that aren’t safe or dangerous. And I guess I, I grew up in a really good family. I had great, I have great parents, I have three sisters, lots of nieces and nephews, and we really didn’t have any of those situations in our family.
But I’ve known a lot of people that have, and I’ve seen a lot of situations that can go very badly when those resources aren’t available. So I guess it’s my part to do what I can do to help others not have to suffer any of those situations.
32:37 – 33:01
Host: Zach Mathern
It’s fantastic. Maybe to close out. Are there any notable or a notable success story or an inspirational story from the successes of it that might be inspiring to potential supporters or policymakers? Thinking about the services that Arc provides?
33:01 – 35:05
Guest: Michelle Erickson
I mean, that’s really what makes the job worth doing, to be honest, is when somebody has a success and it doesn’t have to necessarily be. Their entire life has been turned around. But, you know, if you’ve never had to go apply for food stamps or housing assistance or, TANF or whatever, it can be very daunting when you’re dealing with a crisis.
And so to have somebody sit down and say, here’s a 12 page form to fill out. If you want $49 in food stamps every month, a lot of people are just going to say, I can’t deal with this and walk away. So sometimes the success for us is somebody picking up the phone and making an appointment for themselves.
Sometimes it’s taking care of a medical issue that they’ve just been putting on the back burner and haven’t dealt with, but sometimes it’s it’s it is changing your life. I’ve worked with a particular client off and on for 17 years, and probably four relationships, three relationships. One of them twice that she’s gotten out of that weren’t that weren’t good.
And today she was approved for her first apartment. She’s 42 years old and she’s never really lived on her own in her own place. She’s been in shelters and in bad relationships most of her adult life. So huge win in my opinion. She has a job and she’s she was approved for a house today. We’ve had her cats in foster care, so she gets her cats back.
So those are those are like the little things, like, she’s done that work herself. We’ve probably pushed her and supported her to get those things done, but she’s made those changes and hopefully she’s succeeds. I mean, there are frustrating days as well. Don’t get me wrong where you just want to say, please just do this. But, you know, people are adults and, you know, they have to make those decisions, those choices themselves.
35:02 – 35:07
Host: Isaac Karley
And all we do is try to support them and offer those resources. So. Yeah.
35:07 – 35:40
Host: Zach Mathern
Well, Michelle, thank you so much for talking with us and having this conversation. It’s been really excellent to talk with you and learn more about the Abused Adult Resource Center, and we definitely look forward to continuing the conversation. Thanks for being with us.
Thank you.
Episode two The Community Matters podcast. JLG Architects.
