Abuse Prevention and Cultivating Healthy Relationships

The Odyssey: Parenting. Caregiving. Disability.

People with intellectual disabilities are sexually assaulted at a rate SEVEN TIMES HIGHER than people without disabilities. And that figure is likely a substantial underestimate, as it doesn't take into account repeated abuse or people living in institutions and group homes.

There are steps we can take to prevent abuse and empower our loved ones to protect themselves and understand the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships.

We spoke with Molly Dellinger-Wray who leads LEAP - Leadership for Empowerment and Abuse Prevention - at VCU's Partnership for People with Disabilities and LEAP trainer Rose Sutton.

The Odyssey: Parenting. Caregiving. Disability.

The Center for Family Involvement at VCU School of Education's Partnership for People with Disabilities provides informational and emotional support to people with disabilities and their families. All of our services are free. We just want to help. We know how hard this can be because we're in it with you.

SHOW NOTES:

As Rose mentioned, caregivers need to take care of themselves, too!!

To register for the upcoming LEAP webinar on March 18th, click here!

For more about Healthy Relationships and Abuse Prevention, check out LEAP’s website. LEAP is currently funded by the Individual and Family Support Program at Virginia’s Department of Behavioral Health and Human Services.

Partners in Policymaking is a leadership development and advocacy education program for people with disabilities and family members. This free program is offered across the country and online in some areas. PIP started in Minnesota in the late 1980s.

The NPR report on abuse can be found here. The latest statistics on abuse are here.

The Adult Down Syndrome Center/Advocate Health Care webpage has many adaptive visual aids to help people with IDD with various things. Including:

Bathing and Showering

Sexual Health and Relationships

Self Care and Hygiene

Social Skills

01:00:07:20 - 01:00:34:11

Erin Croyle

Welcome to The Odyssey. Parenting, Caregiving, Disability. I'm Erin Croyle, the creator and host of The Odyssey podcast explores how our lives change when a loved one has a disability. My new path started in 2010, when my first child was born with Down's Syndrome. I joined the Center for Family Involvement at VCU's Partnership for People with Disabilities a few years after he was born.

01:00:34:12 - 01:00:47:05

Erin Croyle

Using my journalism and television producer background as a communication specialist, I have the privilege of bringing much needed attention to issues facing our community.

01:00:47:07 - 01:01:20:02

Erin Croyle

Unfortunately, rampant abuse is one of them. NPR's 2018 report The Sexual Assault Epidemic No one talks About brought this to light. Correspondent Joseph Shapiro's yearlong investigation found that people with intellectual disabilities are sexually assaulted at a rate seven times higher than people without disabilities. And that's likely an underestimate, as the report notes, because government surveys used to compile this data don't include people living in institutions or group homes.

01:01:20:04 - 01:01:51:19

Erin Croyle

These statistics are integrating heartbreaking and terrifying, but there are steps we can take to prevent abuse. That's why I asked Molly Dellinger-Wray and Rose Sutton to join me. Molly leads a program at VCU called LEAP, which stands for Leadership for Empowerment and Abuse Prevention. LEAP provides training on healthy relationships and information for preventing abuse to adults and teens with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

01:01:51:21 - 01:02:18:10

Erin Croyle

LEAP was founded in 2014 and is currently funded through the Individual and Family Support PrOgram at Virginia's Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services. Rose Sutton is a disability advocate, autism specialist, mother and a sleep trainer. Molly and Rose. Thank you for joining me. Molly, let's start with you telling us more about LEAP and your involvement with it.

01:02:18:11 - 01:02:48:20

Molly Dellinger-Wray

The Partnership for People with Disabilities has been addressing the problem of abuse and neglect of children with disabilities since, I think, 2015. They used to have a grant, a multi-disciplinary grant about teaching multidisciplinary teams about child abuse. And I got involved with that project and felt like we were providing training for law enforcement for school social workers, for court personnel, and for lots of adults.

01:02:48:20 - 01:03:06:10

Molly Dellinger-Wray

But we weren't. No one was actually providing training to the people who really needed it, and that's people with disabilities. And so LEAP is taught by a person with a disability and a coach trainer to teach people with disabilities about healthy relationships in Molly.

01:03:06:12 - 01:03:14:05

Erin Croyle

What is your role? So what brought you to the partnership and what got you interested in this sort of work?

01:03:14:07 - 01:03:51:10

Molly Dellinger-Wray

My role started in positive behavior support and one of the things that we know on positive behavior support is we're always looking. We're like trying to solve a puzzle of why people may be struggling and exhibiting behaviors that make people around them frustrated and angry. And one of the big reasons for that is past trauma. And when you look at the statistics and the data surrounding the numbers of people who have experienced trauma and abuse, that can often lead to some challenging behaviors.

01:03:51:10 - 01:04:14:14

Molly Dellinger-Wray

And so that sort of pulled me down the rabbit hole of thinking, you know, we really want to help people with the quality of life. We need to think about their past trauma. And because my background is in special education, I always think, you know, I would much rather prevent abuse than have to help someone work through it on the other side.

01:04:14:16 - 01:04:38:05

Erin Croyle

Rose You and I actually know each other from Partners in Policy making the Virginia Class of 2013, which is a long time ago now for folks not familiar Partners in Policy Making is a leadership development and advocacy education program for people with disabilities and family members. The three programs offered in most states and I can put more information about that and leap in the show notes.

01:04:38:07 - 01:04:44:03

Erin Croyle

ROSE Can you tell us a little more about yourself and what led you to become a lead trainer?

01:04:44:05 - 01:05:02:19

Rose Sutton

So thank you for having me. For myself, what brought me to leap was after we had good partners in policymaking, I had learned how to advocate since where military family. I wanted to know what the rules and regulations were for the state of Virginia. So I went through that class and that opened doors for me. On being able to speak freely about different things.

01:05:02:21 - 01:05:25:15

Rose Sutton

So when I found the AR that they were looking for late trainers, I was really interested in that because of my four children, two of them have autism. And at one point they were moderate to severe. And so I wanted to know for myself as a mother how I can help teach them how to be safe with relationships of all different types.

01:05:25:17 - 01:05:45:04

Rose Sutton

And when we think about relationships, a lot of times you hear them think about only like boyfriend or girlfriend, those type of things. But we don't talk about paid staff members or are those type of things. And people with disabilities sometimes do not know that they have the right to say no to something or may not even know how.

01:05:45:06 - 01:06:02:05

Rose Sutton

So I think that leap was able to give them practice on what it looks like, as well as being able to practice it while we're doing trainings, And I think that that's been very powerful, not only in my own home with my own children when we first started doing it, but I was able to practice on them to see how it was working.

01:06:02:07 - 01:06:22:22

Rose Sutton

But I think that it's just very empowering to be able to catch them before end, to end, to help them really some of that energy and to be able to have a safe space, to be able to practice what it means that to have a relationship is not just if you have a boyfriend or girlfriend. It's all relationships, whether you're friends, whether you're strangers, anybody within your in your space or in your world.

01:06:22:24 - 01:06:43:15

Molly Dellinger-Wray

And I just want to ask Rose, when we first got started with the leap and we had like a three day training program to train the trainers where we taught people about the problem of abuse happening and about relationship maps and setting boundaries. What was that like for you as a mom?

01:06:43:17 - 01:07:07:24

Rose Sutton

For myself, coming from a family of abuse, also, but from the mother's perspective, having children with disabilities, my children can sometimes be very affectionate and very trusting. We see a lot of different specialists, a lot of different types of people daily, and they needed to know what it look like for when someone's trying to help you or when someone's trying to hurt you.

01:07:08:01 - 01:07:37:10

Rose Sutton

And so it was important for me, especially when we started, because VCU and and, and Virginia board with people with disabilities, you guys had a program already set up. So we were learning it, but we also were able to give feedback on what that was like and if there was any types of things that maybe we needed to add or not or take out, which is really beneficial for me as a mom, as we were learning it back then, I was able to practice that on my children and see how it affected them and what they were learning.

01:07:37:10 - 01:07:58:05

Rose Sutton

And with them being on different ends of the spectrum, it was really empowering. And so for me it's more of a passion of teaching this course, and that's why I'm still here, to give other people a chance with disabilities of all levels of disabilities permission and what does it look like? And to practice it because we can hear a lot of things, but we don't always know what that means or some of those things.

01:07:58:05 - 01:08:21:13

Rose Sutton

We don't know what they mean. So being able to practice what this looks like and what does it feel like inside of our bodies and what that that little niche in your stomach, that's like something's just not right. It gives a name to those things. And I think that people with disabilities really need to understand that. And this training is so great because it's a series of before and each day built on the day prior and then adds on to more.

01:08:21:15 - 01:08:51:23

Rose Sutton

And so I really like this program and as a special ed teacher as well, I feel that it uses a lot of our senses. And so the more senses we use when we're learning something, the more that we're going to retain it. And this thing is so repetitive within the training that I think that. But at the time it's so neat to see them a session for which is the final session and to really know what they've learned and what they took from it, and to be able to give that feedback to you all who provide, you know, the training opportunities.

01:08:52:00 - 01:09:08:02

Rose Sutton

I think it's great because we're able to still provide feedback on what they're learning or what no longer works. And over the years I think it's just been really great as a parent and as an advocate to be able to share that with with the community. That affects my family directly.

01:09:08:04 - 01:09:35:02

Molly Dellinger-Wray

Right. So LEAP is four sessions. Each session is 90 minutes, and each session because it's designed for adults with intellectual disabilities. We know you can't just say something once and people are just going to remember it. And so each session builds upon the previous sessions, so they hear all of the information from session one, they hear in Session two, and then we bring out a little bit of new information and then session three.

01:09:35:06 - 01:09:57:24

Molly Dellinger-Wray

We hear about session one, session two, and then a little bit of new information until session for the last session, which just each session brings in a little bit of new information, but reiterates the previous information. And also what Rose alluded to was we we developed this project with funding from the Virginia board for people with disability to whom I'll be forever grateful.

01:09:58:01 - 01:10:16:16

Molly Dellinger-Wray

And then we had an opportunity to really do research. And so we really needed to firm up figure out how we're going to measure that. This little leap was actually helping people. We knew people liked it a lot, seemed to have fun. And it is fun. It's really fun to train it and it's fun to participate in, I think.

01:10:16:18 - 01:10:44:01

Molly Dellinger-Wray

But what we learned through our research is that people actually learned a lot better able to distinguish what a healthy relationship is versus an unhealthy relationship. And as Rose said, they developed a vocabulary to help them explain why a relationship was unhealthy. People might have known prior to the training that, you know, this doesn't feel right, but they couldn't really put it into words.

01:10:44:03 - 01:11:06:13

Molly Dellinger-Wray

And so we discovered a big increase in that. And we also discovered that in a lot of opportunities, it's very easy to blame the victim and that people really kind of were better able to say, you know, this is not their fault that this happened to them. It wasn't because they were bad or they deserved it. Somehow. So that was nice to see that increase in that kind of knowledge.

01:11:06:17 - 01:11:08:05

Molly Dellinger-Wray

Also.

01:11:08:07 - 01:11:34:14

Erin Croyle

Let's take it back to that point before the training, because a lot of the people listening might not be able to attend to training or might not live in Virginia. I remember distinctly as a parent of a kid that has Down syndrome and very limited, traditional expressive language. It was at the arc and it was a law enforcement official who said Abuse it.

01:11:34:17 - 01:11:58:16

Erin Croyle

Think of it as it's not if it's going to happen, it's when it's going to happen. And I found that to be very scary. But also very real. And to me, what makes that such a reality is that we teach kids, especially kids with intellectual and developmental disabilities. It's such compliance to listen and they always have people in their lives showing them what to do.

01:11:58:18 - 01:12:24:13

Erin Croyle

They're having people help them change themselves at a later ages. And so there's this level of privacy and intimacy that they have with people that most non-disabled kiddos don't experience, like they're potty trained and they're dressing themselves at a certain point and it's done and the boundaries are there. Whereas people with intellectual and developmental disabilities don't get to experience or learn those boundaries.

01:12:24:15 - 01:12:33:00

Erin Croyle

So what are some things parents should know about early stages? What sort of boundaries we should be setting up?

01:12:33:02 - 01:12:56:00

Rose Sutton

So for myself, I think that one thing that's very important is two of my kids are neurotypical and then I have two that have autism and different things. And for me it was a big gap. It's very different because when I raised the first two, it was all about culturally, your is here, go give them a hug or so-and-so's here and we bring them in your house.

01:12:56:00 - 01:13:15:12

Rose Sutton

We'll give them a hug and say hi. And it was fine. They did it and and on command. And the younger, too, one of my my older autistic son. So he's kid number three. He wasn't feeling that. And at first, as a parent, I think it starts with us to understand that sometimes they don't like the touch. Some kids don't like to be touched.

01:13:15:12 - 01:13:37:12

Rose Sutton

Some people, you know, they see someone coming in, especially if you don't see the person very often and you're making them go and hug the person because they're a family member. And a lot of times those are the abusers, right? So the thing is that as a parent, I feel that one thing that we could do is to for the parent to become educated so that we can educate our children.

01:13:37:14 - 01:13:57:06

Rose Sutton

And what I mean by that is give them some space, learn about what your child is doing. Learn about that. We need to teach our children how to ask permission and how do we do that? We need to practice it, right? So like Molly mentioned earlier, the repetition of things. This training gives it repetition. And so me as a parent, I change my mindset also with the repetition.

01:13:57:08 - 01:14:15:20

Rose Sutton

Okay, let me let me tell them. Let me talk to them what they're doing. Let me ask them if they're ready to put their shoes on. At first that that backfired because my kids have sensory issues and so they were taking all these clothes off. And so I'm trying to put them on and trying to get them to get these things and the stuff comes right off.

01:14:15:22 - 01:14:39:06

Rose Sutton

And so I have to learn how to understand what was happening before I could help my children. And I think that now, knowing the information that I have now has helped to be able to understand that kids need to know boundaries, you know, they need to be able to make choices if your child is nonverbal. I think that, you know, with our neurotypical children, we said, okay, what outfit do you want to wear?

01:14:39:06 - 01:14:54:09

Rose Sutton

What color do you want to wear? What kind of shoes do you want? You know, are you into something? And I think that taking that interest into our children and giving them permission to say no. Now, of course, as a mom of four, you know, we don't want our kids talking back and we want that respect, you know.

01:14:54:09 - 01:15:18:20

Rose Sutton

So I get that. But when it comes to keeping our children safe, I think that they really need to know that there are some things that we have to do, even though we don't like to do them. And there are things that they still will have to do even though they don't want to do it. And then there are some times where you have a boundary that you can have your own safe space, that if the child wants to have some quiet time, that they're able to do that.

01:15:18:22 - 01:15:37:15

Rose Sutton

And my son, now that he's he's about to be 21 next month, he still uses, you know, when he comes home on the weekends or something. He always says that this is his safe space, like kids from a safe space. And so as parents, we need to understand that, that we all need somewhere to go to feel safe.

01:15:37:17 - 01:16:03:14

Rose Sutton

And within our home, there are spaces that are safe. And so as parents, we need to practice as kids are very young. I mean, from from the moment that they're born is to practice these things over and over again daily. Make it a part of your habit so that children know that they have the right to say no, or that something makes them feel comfortable or that what they may have told you is going to be taken seriously and at least be looked into.

01:16:03:16 - 01:16:26:15

Erin Croyle

Rosen I really love that you said that because our kids are just kind of forced to do so much from a young age with early intervention and all of these other things and letting them have that space is so important and letting them know that they can say no and the hugging and saying no to hugs. I just want to reinforce that.

01:16:26:17 - 01:16:30:03

Erin Croyle

So thank you, Molly. Please go ahead.

01:16:30:05 - 01:16:54:10

Molly Dellinger-Wray

So when we can model, as Rose said, like it's important that our kids, what we teach in LEAP is that you get to decide who touches you. You get to decide who touches you. And we can model that as family members by saying, you know, hey, is it okay if I give you a hug now? And if they say no, as Rose said, like, you got to respect that.

01:16:54:12 - 01:17:15:00

Molly Dellinger-Wray

And and and making it fun. You know, if you're bathing a child and saying, like, is it okay if I wash your face? Now, if you ask them to wash their hair, my kids would have always said no. They were super tactile, defensive on their faces and heads, but just honoring that permission and asking and making it fun.

01:17:15:00 - 01:17:31:06

Molly Dellinger-Wray

And you can make it fun by showing your child from an early age or from any age that their body is their body and they get to decide who touches them. And as Rose said, you know, go give your grandma a hug and go give your uncle a hug. Or also, when you receive a gift, your child receives a gift.

01:17:31:06 - 01:17:49:13

Molly Dellinger-Wray

It doesn't mean that the person who gave them the gift deserves a physical touch. That's not part of giving a gift. That's that's different. Giving a gift certainly requires a thank you, but doesn't require a physical touch or a hug or a kiss. It doesn't.

01:17:49:15 - 01:18:12:18

Rose Sutton

Also, what we see in this class, and even with one of my two, is that they just go and they want to hug everybody. They want to touch everybody. They want to give everyone a hug. So whether it's someone in your home or whether it's someone in the community, they just want to give hugs. And when the kids are little, people that are receiving it are like, your kid came up and said hi and whatever.

01:18:12:18 - 01:18:29:00

Rose Sutton

Like, okay, But when they get older, especially males, unfortunately, you know, you're getting the hug from somebody out of the blue. And I remember my one of my first sessions with Leap the six foot two or really tall gentleman came and just gave me a hug. And it was like a bulldozer, right? He's like, come in. And he was hugging me.

01:18:29:03 - 01:18:53:08

Rose Sutton

He was so excited. And it was like really hit home because we're thinking, okay, you don't know who's receiving that hug or if that person is a caretaker and feels that that might be in an affectionate touch or an inappropriate touch and they maybe take advantage of that, then that's where abuse comes in, is that you have these trusting students or these individuals with disabilities.

01:18:53:10 - 01:19:07:21

Rose Sutton

And the problem is that sometimes they don't even know their own boundaries. And and so it's up to the person to be able to to guide them through that and the person being able to say no. And so we have to really watch that. Like we had a training. And what happened was, is that we were talking about permission.

01:19:07:23 - 01:19:27:03

Rose Sutton

And what end up happening is, is that we do use words like consent or permission. Some of these words they may not understand. So what we do as trainers is we actually show them what that means. We we talk about what does even deserve even mean? What is that? What are these words that you hear people using? And we teach those things.

01:19:27:03 - 01:19:47:20

Rose Sutton

And so last night we ended up having a whole hug session because all the participants wanted to have a hug. So myself, as the person with a disability and my coach trainer, we were able to oblige with that. But we also made them practice this as we were doing it to ask permission and different ways to ask permission.

01:19:47:20 - 01:20:11:02

Rose Sutton

We actually had to improv and add that in because everyone wanted to touch and we had to be able to incorporate that into the session and we got a chance to practice it and practice different ways and it became such a fun experience for everyone and it was very important and they're very excited when they know we're coming back and they expect to know when we're coming back.

01:20:11:04 - 01:20:19:21

Rose Sutton

And I think that is very important. To practice these things at any age is touch and inappropriate Touch and who can touch Molly?

01:20:19:21 - 01:20:21:13

Erin Croyle

Did you want to add more to that?

01:20:21:15 - 01:20:44:08

Molly Dellinger-Wray

You know, I love what we teach in Leap as how to say no. Everybody has a different way to say no. I think oftentimes what you read about is people saying that you should shout no and stamp your foot and be really forceful. But the truth is, we all have different ways to say no. And what's important and what we teach in Leap is you got to get out of the situation that makes you uncomfortable.

01:20:44:10 - 01:21:17:02

Molly Dellinger-Wray

And you need to find a way that works for you. That's what's most important is stopping the opportunities from happening of things that might make you feel uncomfortable. But I think also when we talk about unhealthy relationships and that's that's what we're talking about, it's not not only sexual assault. There's lots of platonic, unhealthy relationships. And any parent knows that one kid that their kid is friends with, that they wish they weren't friends with because they see a lot of unfortunate power dynamics.

01:21:17:02 - 01:21:42:09

Molly Dellinger-Wray

And so one of the things that we talk a lot about is what is a friend? Friend is sort of a term that we use fast and loose right now. Are your Facebook friends, your friends who are your friend and what is being a friend mean? And so we talk about a friend is someone who would never hurt you on purpose and who's going to work to help keep you safe.

01:21:42:11 - 01:22:07:16

Molly Dellinger-Wray

That's what a friend is. And if someone hurts you on purpose, even though you might really like them or love them, that's not a healthy relationship that makes you feel uncomfortable. If that person you don't feel safe with that person, even though you might love them, that's an unhealthy relationship. And the way we categorize it is to put things into sort of three buckets and rows.

01:22:07:16 - 01:22:09:10

Molly Dellinger-Wray

Do you want to talk about that?

01:22:09:12 - 01:22:17:12

Rose Sutton

So we talk about unhealthy, unhealthy and confusing relationships and what that is, and we delve deeply into those and what they look like.

01:22:17:14 - 01:22:43:13

Molly Dellinger-Wray

So we give people an opportunity to really look at a relationship and we spend a lot of time saying, we know relationships are not just romantic relationships, but you have a relationship with everyone. How do you feel when you're in this relationship and do you think you feel confused by it? We spend a lot of time talking about that, and I think talking about friends, I've spent a lot of time in special ed classrooms and hear teachers say like, Go sit with your friends over there.

01:22:43:15 - 01:23:07:18

Molly Dellinger-Wray

Well, are they your friends because you happened to go to the same school together? Are they is everybody your friend? More people say, you know, a stranger is a friend I haven't met yet. You know, kind of not a stranger is a stranger. They might become a friend. We don't want to close that opportunity off to anyone. But the term friend is something that I think we need to be a little bit careful about.

01:23:07:21 - 01:23:27:13

Molly Dellinger-Wray

And it's very difficult for people to separate friends from paid support staff because paid support staff help us with a lot of things and they do a lot of the same things that friends do. You know, they listen to you, they help advocate for you, they help you problem solve. But oftentimes they're not there when it's their day off.

01:23:27:15 - 01:23:53:14

Molly Dellinger-Wray

Another thing is that as ran, this really goes back to the sort of the foundation of person centered practices is thinking about the language that we use to describe the people with disabilities in our life, who we love. And that is to start by describing them by things that we like and admire as opposed to their diagnosis or their deficits.

01:23:53:16 - 01:24:15:03

Molly Dellinger-Wray

You know, he's non-verbal. He uses a wheelchair, a really saying he has a great sense of humor and he always makes me laugh. And he's really smart and he uses a wheelchair. It just creates a different frame surrounding a person that really presents them in a much more positive light.

01:24:15:05 - 01:24:47:22

Erin Croyle

Minus all really interesting because it is so complicated because we're talking about individuals and every individual is so different. So something that resonates with me is that, yes, a lot of times you can look at the data out there and it shows that a lot of adults with disabilities, when they do activities like going to the movies or going to the store, going to a restaurant, it's often with family or paid support staff because friendships are so hard for a lot of kiddos.

01:24:47:22 - 01:25:19:03

Erin Croyle

I mean, my son is one of them. It's really difficult. The middle school is really hard. On the flip side, there are other kids with intellectual disabilities I see who are have lots of friends and are very social. It just depends on the individual right. And so where do you find that divide? It's such a fine line trying to help children, adults make friends, but then making sure that those friends are safe friends and then making sure they understand that the paid support staff is not a friend.

01:25:19:05 - 01:25:49:19

Erin Croyle

How are you going to navigate that? But also make sure that they are protected? Because when you look at the abuse statistics, it's almost always somebody that the person knows. And unfortunately there are predators that work in group homes and institution INS and even in schools who know, you know, there's grooming that's happening. So how do you help children, adults with disabilities understand that and navigate that effectively?

01:25:49:21 - 01:26:11:07

Rose Sutton

So we have what's called a map of your world, and it looks like like a snail shell. So it's like a spiral thing. And we have a star in the middle of it. And in the star we talk about that is the person themselves and that they're the most important person out of all these people. As as we come out of that Star Space, we talk about some friends and families can be close to you.

01:26:11:07 - 01:26:34:20

Rose Sutton

We talk about the different people in their world to include people that we no longer want in our world. And if they have a romantic partner. And so what we distinguish a lot of is your right is that because we, our kiddos, don't have a lot of friends sometimes now they turn to social media and they you friended them or you have a lot of gamers that have disabilities and they're able to speak freely or their language really comes out.

01:26:34:20 - 01:26:52:20

Rose Sutton

You see a lot of that thing. And so they're like, those are my friends. And so we teach them how to set boundaries with those things and not to use your name with each group of people, we talk about what you tell these people in these different spaces. So if we come out of that little circle, we talk about what do you tell this person?

01:26:52:22 - 01:27:13:16

Rose Sutton

How do you trust them? We really break down what trust even means and what that looks like to include that. The length of time that you've known the person, what do you tell this person? We show that by modeling that in the class, because a lot of times what happens? We go to these trainings and they see us come in and they immediately want to touch and hug and, you know my name.

01:27:13:16 - 01:27:35:13

Rose Sutton

So now I'm going to go and I'm going to hug you. And we have to show them by modeling that that they need to ask permission. So we always stop them at the beginning. And so when we're talking about leave, we do extensively go into who is the friend. Your parents may be the closest person to you, you may tell them everything, but then it is not mean that you allow them to touch you inappropriately.

01:27:35:13 - 01:28:00:21

Rose Sutton

So we really delve into close friends, friends that are just kind of friends that you see every day. Maybe you're at the same group home, maybe at the same day support. Maybe you don't even know their name. So we really, really dive in on what that feels like inside. We give it a name and we actually even use a Pulpex board communication board within the program for those that may need additional assistance.

01:28:00:21 - 01:28:17:15

Rose Sutton

But it's so hands on and interactive that we're trying to use as many centers as we can to really differentiate who is just a friend, who is not a friend, who is a stranger, what is a romantic partner. If you were to have one. We see that a lot where it's like, well, I see her every day and we're in the same group.

01:28:17:19 - 01:28:37:17

Rose Sutton

So that's my girlfriend. Do you actually know that? You both people know that and they feel sometimes that if they are boyfriend and girlfriend, that that gives them permission to touch the other person even when they don't want to be touched? We really delve into, okay, well, my friend gave me a hug in the morning and in the afternoon.

01:28:37:20 - 01:29:00:18

Rose Sutton

I'm just going to hug them again and maybe the person is a wanted. So all of a sudden they don't want to be touched. And so we talk about someone who might change their mind, even talk about if you're in a romantic relationship, even if you are a boyfriend or a girlfriend and you're interacting with this person and maybe you're out on the outing, you can tell your partner, No, I don't want to be touched.

01:29:00:20 - 01:29:18:20

Rose Sutton

And that person is going to respect that. So we talk about not only giving permission, but receiving that information, receiving those questions, and that sometimes people don't say anything. Sometimes you may ask the person, Hey, can I have a hug? And sometimes there's no response. So they figured, okay, well, they didn't say no, so let me go in there.

01:29:18:22 - 01:29:46:20

Rose Sutton

We practice. What does no mean by going around the room individually and saying we throw out different silly ones like, Hey, can I have your hat? Hey, can I have your glasses? And we specifically practice saying that we practice practicing. Yes, we practice different things and we demonstrate different ways of doing that to include sign language. Here we include nonverbal communication and what it looks like in each individual type of relationship.

01:29:46:22 - 01:30:10:21

Molly Dellinger-Wray

I want to add to that too. And when we talk about unhealthy relationships as family members, first of all, what I always say to people is there's no shame. And being in an unhealthy relationship, I talk about this a lot and I've talked to a lot of people and I have never met anyone who has not been in an unhealthy relationship at some point in their life.

01:30:10:23 - 01:30:32:01

Molly Dellinger-Wray

That's important to remember. We are not all traumatized by those unhealthy relationships for the rest of our lives, but we all know what an unhealthy relationship feels like. And we've all been in an unhealthy relationship. And I think that's important to remember. And I always say to people, everybody's been in an unhealthy relationship. Your parents have been in one, the president has been in one.

01:30:32:01 - 01:31:01:21

Molly Dellinger-Wray

Everybody has had an unhealthy relationship at some point in their life. There's no shame in that. And then also what we know about trauma and what we know about abuse is that if you experience something that seems unhealthy or even illegal, which is hard to discriminate, if you tell one person it doesn't have to be law enforcement, it doesn't have to be the YWCA, a domestic violence shelter.

01:31:01:23 - 01:31:35:23

Molly Dellinger-Wray

If you tell one person that is the first step in getting to the other side of that trauma. So just one person and oftentimes it's a parent, although we can't assume that every child has a healthy relationship with their own parents, we want a trusted adult from school, a neighbor, a family friend, someone who is that person's go to person, that if they're in a relationship that makes them uncomfortable for any reason, that they can talk to this person.

01:31:36:00 - 01:31:58:13

Molly Dellinger-Wray

And as adults, we do this all the time. We might have an interaction with somebody and say to a friend or or a partner, you know, wow, the weirdest thing just happened. I said this to the mail carrier and he said this to me, You think that's weird? I think that's really weird. And so we kind of process those things in our own way, and we want our kids to be able to do that, too.

01:31:58:13 - 01:32:20:13

Molly Dellinger-Wray

To have one person who they can trust, who's not going to judge them, who's not going to blame them and say, well, maybe if you weren't wearing that, this wouldn't have happened. So we want to skip the blaming the victim and just be able to have that one person that they can trust and talk to if they're in a relationship that makes them uncomfortable in any way.

01:32:20:15 - 01:32:39:21

Molly Dellinger-Wray

And the other thing, and I think most families know this now, is that you want to establish a code word that your kids can say or a phrase that's just a way for them to say, you know, I want to get out of this situation and I, I don't know how to do it. And I need help from an adult with my kids.

01:32:39:21 - 01:33:02:06

Molly Dellinger-Wray

And I'm a parent of a child who is diagnosed with autism. Also, we had a code word for when he was with a friend that he wanted the friend to leave or he was at someone's house. So they extended an invitation and he didn't know how to get out of it. And with my daughter, too, we had a phrase that they would say and I'd say like, okay, you know, I'll step in and say, they've got to come home now.

01:33:02:06 - 01:33:09:07

Molly Dellinger-Wray

We have stuff to do, but they can't be with you anymore. It's good to have that code word that a skateboard.

01:33:09:09 - 01:33:31:16

Erin Croyle

It's interesting you say that because it was literally writing down as we're talking to. Remember, the question's not even a question for y'all, but so many of our kiddos. I say kiddos because our demographic here for the podcast are parents and caregivers, right? I'm not trying to contribute to the infant realization of people with intellectual disabilities. I think that's part of the abuse problem.

01:33:31:16 - 01:33:56:17

Erin Croyle

Frankly, I think it's important that we look to our communication devices that our children use so they have a place on their device where they can have that safe word, but also have ways to report abuse. And I would encourage people to, even if your child is working with a speech therapist at school who uses devices to make sure that that's included in some of the work that they do, because this is such a ramp IT issue.

01:33:56:19 - 01:34:21:17

Erin Croyle

In fact, the US Department of Justice, its most recent report, found that the rate of violent victimization against people with disabilities is almost four times the rate of people without. So that's 46.2 people per 1000 and that's age 12 or older. And then when you break it down by disability, those with cognitive disabilities have the highest rate, so it's 83.3 per 1000.

01:34:21:19 - 01:34:45:21

Erin Croyle

And those numbers don't even account for the repeat victimization that we see. That's really common. You know, Molly, you and I have talked about this a lot. Some of the ways that we can prevent this because it just continues to happen. In my personal circumstance, we make sure that all of our kids know to say penis, vulva, vagina, breast, like we we have silly words, Sure.

01:34:45:21 - 01:35:03:15

Erin Croyle

But we use the real words. So what are what are some ways that we can prevent abuse but also help our children be able to talk about whatever is happening to them so people can understand them? And when I say talk, I mean communicate in whatever way that we communicate.

01:35:03:17 - 01:35:31:02

Molly Dellinger-Wray

Well, I think you you mentioned a really important one, which is making sure that kids know the correct name for body parts, but also that saying the word penis or vagina or vulva or anus is not dirty or secret or bad, that it's okay to say those words. It's not a word that you want to be shouting out at the mall or or whatever, but that it is it's okay to say those words that nothing bad is going to happen to you if you say those words.

01:35:31:02 - 01:35:55:19

Molly Dellinger-Wray

So it's important that that they're just aware of those correct terms if they need it so that everybody understands what they're talking about. And if someone asks them a question, they know what that means. Like, did someone touch your vagina? So that's certainly a big step. What Rose had talked about is asking permission to touch and respecting your child's boundaries is another super, super important thing to do.

01:35:55:23 - 01:36:20:10

Molly Dellinger-Wray

Just honoring what is a friend and having that trusted person is also really important and making sure that your child knows the rules for healthy touch. And the rules are you get to decide who touches you and the second rule is you can change your mind because someone touched you yesterday doesn't mean they have permission to touch you today.

01:36:20:12 - 01:36:55:10

Molly Dellinger-Wray

You can change your mind and actually you can change your mind in the middle of them touching you if you want. When you say I want this to stop now, it has to stop now. And the other thing that we need to explain to people is that private touch is okay and sexual touches okay, as long as it happens between two people who consent and then it's an place, you know, we hear a lot about people with disabilities who want to touch each other sexually in a closet or in a and someplace where they can be alone, which is not an appropriate place.

01:36:55:12 - 01:37:18:15

Molly Dellinger-Wray

I talked to a parents once whose daughter went out on a date, and when she came home, she said to her mom, He kissed me and the first thing her mom said was, Did you like it? Which I thought was such a great way to to honor and respect that child, was that this has to be something that you like and enjoy, you know, didn't make you feel uncomfortable.

01:37:18:19 - 01:37:43:06

Molly Dellinger-Wray

And that's the other question. It is really kind of just checking in with people about is there anything that happened that made you uncomfortable? Is there anything we could do differently next time when you're with this person? You know, my child with a disability, he spent a lot of time in rooms with the doors closed, with speech therapists, an occupational therapists and tutors.

01:37:43:08 - 01:37:57:01

Molly Dellinger-Wray

That's part of what is a necessity in life. But I think it's also something that we need to say. You know, is there anything that made you feel uncomfortable or you want to change for next time? Because if there is, let's talk about that.

01:37:57:03 - 01:38:25:04

Rose Sutton

I'd like to add to that. So in our second day that we're there. We do talk about the body part and we talk about the names of them. And it was such an eye opener that one time we did go in and teaching them the appropriate names for body parts. Some of the kids, the students have never heard of those body part names because it's so much slang that's used that they were offended because we were use the proper names for these body parts.

01:38:25:06 - 01:38:45:12

Rose Sutton

So we do explain that the reason why we have to learn the proper names for these body parts is because if you're in an accident or if you need to call 911 for any reason that you have to know what body part hurts. So we break it down per men. And then we do a female version. We're not taught to be able to talk about these things.

01:38:45:12 - 01:39:17:12

Rose Sutton

We're not taught to understand that we're even allowed to even say these words. I mean, we you know, our kids go through sex education, but with this class, we actually go into it a little bit more. We actually talk on this difficult subject that we have like this little popcorn game. And what we do is to get the students laughing and giggling and to make a little bit more light of a very serious topic is we create a list by the students and they can speak it freely.

01:39:17:12 - 01:39:33:14

Rose Sutton

And what we do is we start with men first and we start with them and then we do women separately. And the goal is to talk about all this language. So we say, you know, what are the slang words for men? Body parts? And you hear all different types of jargon that people use for slang words for people's body parts.

01:39:33:14 - 01:39:56:05

Rose Sutton

And we talk about, you know, your ass or your tits or your boobs or your penis. I'm not your penis. I'm sorry, but your dick. And sometimes we hear people saying, My Wilson or Big Dog or you hear these things and someone on the receiving end, what that means. And so we really try to talk about it by practicing what's the words they probably hear.

01:39:56:07 - 01:40:20:04

Rose Sutton

But what are we talking about? So we're giving them permission to be able to say these things. And sometimes when we go and this is the first time they've actually heard the proper term for these things. So that's really an eye opening and we give them permission to talk about it. And last night was such a cute group because we were talking about it and some of the students that were my deaf students really weren't feeling it.

01:40:20:04 - 01:40:42:03

Rose Sutton

They must have been having a bad day. And we started talking about the body parts and giving them permission to actually say these words, which normally you don't hear them saying or you hear them just saying them loosely, really caught the attention of the students and really brought it to life by us. Just taking this difficult topic and making light of it and that it's okay to talk about it here with staff.

01:40:42:03 - 01:41:00:11

Rose Sutton

But we also tell them, But you only can talk about these things here. We don't want you to go out and start saying these words randomly. we do want you to know where these things are appropriate to talk about. How do you appropriately say these things? And by giving them the opportunity to practice shouting out different slang terms.

01:41:00:11 - 01:41:17:18

Rose Sutton

And some of them, we don't even know what they are. We write them down. They get to see that all we wrote their thing down. They matter. Their voice matters because we wrote it down on the board. You know, we wrote it down so that even if it was a duplicate, even if someone says another word, someone else had said, we still write it down.

01:41:17:18 - 01:41:26:18

Rose Sutton

Why? Because that gives them power that what they said mattered. And it shows by it's on the board, something as simple as that. So it's a great tool.

01:41:26:20 - 01:41:50:18

Molly Dellinger-Wray

And Rose, you do a really good job at teaching people the correct names for body parts and teaching that it's okay to say them. There are some trainers that are really uncomfortable talking about this. Rosa and I have worked with a lot of younger trainers who are really just out of school themselves and they're they feel a little weird talking about penises and vaginas.

01:41:50:20 - 01:42:07:16

Molly Dellinger-Wray

And I I'm not faulting them, although we do say this is part of being a lead trainers. You have to be able to say these words without flinching. And Rose, you just do such a great job with it and just has fun with it, you know, just have fun with people while you're going over it. You just do a great job.

01:42:07:18 - 01:42:22:24

Rose Sutton

And thank you. I think part of that is I take it to heart when these students come to me that I feel like I'm training one of teaching one of my kids. And in sex education, I don't think that we get the opportunity. We're just shown films, We talk about these different things and we want our students with disabilities to remember these things.

01:42:22:24 - 01:42:37:21

Rose Sutton

And so we make fun of it, and then we talk about what is appropriate, and we even give them permission that if they feel a little uncomfortable, put your hand over your heart or raise your hand or step out for a moment if you're allowed to and understand this is a little bit uncomfortable and we're trying to help you through it as best as we can.

01:42:37:21 - 01:42:59:03

Rose Sutton

And in the sessions, we usually don't have their caretakers or their aides or their in the room so that we can get them by themselves to just talk to them. But yesterday was so great. So we had a lot of interaction and it makes it a lot more fun because the kids are able to just say words they normally can't say.

01:42:59:05 - 01:43:13:04

Rose Sutton

And we did it in the safe space and talk about, you know, that it was a safe space and we were giving them permission to to talk about it. And they're not used to getting permission to say those bad words. And so we gave them permission to do that. It's a really great program.

01:43:13:06 - 01:43:39:11

Erin Croyle

Because you bring up such a good point. And you mentioned sex education and LEAP is way more than that. But when we think about what our children are taught in schools, we talk about modifying curriculum, but we don't do a good job modifying sex education. And then I think about when you have self-contained classrooms, you have a completely different experience from what a lot of other non-disabled students have.

01:43:39:13 - 01:44:04:20

Erin Croyle

And my house is different because we're very, very open. My mom was a nurse. I've always talked openly about body parts and all those things, but I think about some families who there are words that are just not okay and people who are not comfortable saying penis or breasts or whatever. And so it's really code words. But I also see my 13 year old son with Down syndrome who loves to say penis and finds it hilarious.

01:44:04:20 - 01:44:24:07

Erin Croyle

And so to give people space to be who they are and be the adults in the silly sexual, ridiculous humans that we all are, that sounds like a really great way to be able to relate and get them to open up and learn because we learn through having fun, don't we?

01:44:24:09 - 01:44:49:00

Molly Dellinger-Wray

And what is what you said to Erin about, you know, oftentimes kids with disabilities are excluded from family life education, or they have to participate with permission from a family member who's uncomfortable with it. So oftentimes they miss out on that. And what I always say about Leap, which I don't think we mentioned earlier, LEAP stands for Leadership for Empowerment and Abuse Prevention.

01:44:49:05 - 01:45:26:04

Molly Dellinger-Wray

And I'm pretty clear that a lot of what they talk about is family life, education, our sex education, our topics that we talk about and leap as far as consent, but leap just to kind of stay in our lane. Leap is not about dating. It's not about social skills. It's not about sex ed in terms of what goes where it's healthy relationships and healthy relationships affect all of us, whether there are relationships with our family members or with our peers at school, or with adults who are in our lives or our neighbors or people that, you know, on the Internet.

01:45:26:04 - 01:45:46:06

Molly Dellinger-Wray

They're all relationships. And those relationships are in those three buckets healthy, unhealthy or confusing, even if you've never met the person, if it's an Internet relationship, if you've never had a relationship face to face with that person, those kinds of rules about healthy relationships apply to all relationships.

01:45:46:08 - 01:46:12:19

Erin Croyle

I want to take a minute here. When we're talking about relationships, we're all parents and we are the ones that are modeling for our children. What a relationship should look like. And I want to be very, very real and transparent here. For anyone listening as parents, and especially when you have a child who has significant needs, it can be really hard.

01:46:12:21 - 01:46:37:24

Erin Croyle

And we are imperfect people. And I will admit that there are times where I have yelled at my son or got frustrated with my son and even lately just helping him make sure he's bathing properly and, you know, maybe him being frustrated with me washing hair or whatever. And I find myself thinking, okay, I'm his mom, so okay, there's a boundary, but less of a boundary.

01:46:37:24 - 01:46:58:14

Erin Croyle

But he's 13, so there should be a boundary. And so when I cross the boundary myself, because we do and I do things I regret all the time, I find myself saying, Arlo, I'm so sorry. You're right. I shouldn't have blah, blah, blah. You have every right to be mad and to say no, and I'm going to respect that next time and please keep sticking up.

01:46:58:16 - 01:47:19:18

Erin Croyle

So what's the line for parents between what is just normal every day? This is hard frustration and parents. Okay, This is borderline abusive. And how can we take what we're doing and make sure our kids are learning what's right from wrong, even though we are imperfect and making mistakes all the time with them?

01:47:19:20 - 01:47:46:14

Molly Dellinger-Wray

I absolutely agree with you. There were times with my own kids that I would say like, I'm so mad, I'm putting myself in timeout. I'm going screw and closing the door and no one even opened it. So I think we all have these moments of, my gosh, have I have I been a terrible parent? And I think one thing to notice is that abusive relationships are different from anger management.

01:47:46:20 - 01:48:08:23

Molly Dellinger-Wray

Okay. So when you hear about anger management or people that have a problem with anger, that's like someone who's going to punch somebody out in front of a policeman or for basketball fans. I also think about the technical foul. The person who deliberately does something in front of a referee that is going to get them in trouble. That is an anger management issue.

01:48:08:23 - 01:48:40:10

Molly Dellinger-Wray

And when you snap at your child or you've had enough and it's one of those days and it's a one and done, that's not abuse, okay? Abuse is very calculated and perpetrators of abuse are very, very it's not losing control. They are extremely controlled. They control when they're have opportunities to be alone with that person. They take a long time to really create those opportunities that they can weasel their way in.

01:48:40:14 - 01:48:53:17

Molly Dellinger-Wray

So it's very different from, as I said, a one and done parent who's angry with their child and blows up. That's not abuse, that's being angry. And oftentimes it's very justified. Anger.

01:48:53:19 - 01:49:14:16

Rose Sutton

I think that touches on a good point because we do talk about feelings in this class a lot and that it is okay to have certain failings, even if someone else does not have those feelings. And in this training, we have a power statement and we do it at the beginning and at the end of every session and it says I am strong, my feelings are important, I deserve to feel safe and I deserve respect.

01:49:14:16 - 01:49:34:17

Rose Sutton

And we talk about what those things are. So as a parent and, you know, for myself, there are those power struggles and that is why early intervention is really key. Because if you can model these things and practice these things, eventually you can build on an each time. So like for my kids who are on different ends of the spectrum for the younger two kids, they have boundary issues.

01:49:34:19 - 01:49:56:08

Rose Sutton

And so we really had to practice that. And in order to keep myself calm was to kind of learn about it myself to either get help if I did not know and to give myself permission to to know that I am an imperfect person and then I am going to make mistakes. But being woman enough to demonstrate that, I can say to my child, you know, I'm sorry, I was wrong.

01:49:56:08 - 01:50:20:05

Rose Sutton

So like you said, Erin, for us as parents or even caretakers to demonstrate that sometimes we even make mistakes and there are times, yes, we do have to wash their hair. We do have to touch them. And you're right, as my son was getting older and my husband being deployed, a lot of times I wanted to set an appropriate boundary on making sure that he cleaned properly.

01:50:20:07 - 01:50:44:24

Rose Sutton

And so I learned techniques by asking, you know, their providers and other parents, how can I give him space as a young male to be able to properly do hygiene? And so what we ended up coming up with was a picture schedule that we laminated and put in the shower. That way I was able to give him space and my son, he wanted like all this hair and he did not like to have this haircut.

01:50:44:24 - 01:50:58:17

Rose Sutton

So we had all this hair and so he did not like us touching it because we were going to mess it up. And so I had to explain why I needed to wash his hair and that we would do it at a different time, that it didn't have to be when he was taking a shower. We would do it separately.

01:50:58:17 - 01:51:15:22

Rose Sutton

So that way he was dressed and I was respecting his boundaries that he was that I acknowledge that he was developing into a young male. So like you said, Arlo's 2013 and my Christian, he he was incontinent for a long time. I mean, till he was like ten, you know, he didn't want me to go in there and clean his bottom.

01:51:15:22 - 01:51:41:03

Rose Sutton

If I did try to go in there, he would get very upset. So I had to honor that. And it's very a different type of parenting, especially when my older two were neurotypical to to catch my own self on what I'm doing inappropriately. And once again, to find something that worked for that time. And when you finally think that you have the right solution and it's working and you're like, Great, this is working, can wash his own hair.

01:51:41:05 - 01:52:01:05

Rose Sutton

You can take his own bath. We do a smell check afterwards, and we still we figured out that he missed some place. We send him back in. You think you have it and you're on a routine and then something happens and then it changes. So as a parent, you know, we want to be flexible, you know, and how can we adapt these things to make it that you're empowering them on making decisions.

01:52:01:05 - 01:52:19:02

Rose Sutton

And if you have to do something that that may be inappropriate or you're washing your child, you don't want to go and then have to wipe the child's, you know, But so as a parent, you have to teach them, are we going to do this that is appropriate for them to do it on their own? And there's different techniques and.

01:52:19:02 - 01:52:35:22

Rose Sutton

It's really hard to find the right one. So as more to the parent, you try to figure out what is the best source, but like you said, is by educating ourselves or learning or talking about or just trying something randomly, just trying and seeing how you can get your child to you want to empower them on how to be able to do it themselves.

01:52:35:22 - 01:52:53:11

Rose Sutton

And it takes a lot of work and it can be very stressful. And I always tell parents, you know, you need to practice self-care and what does that look like? And for me, I didn't even know what self-care is because you're constantly on the goal. You're constantly having to make sure they. Both of my kids were loopers, so I'm having to chase them down and I'm constantly tired.

01:52:53:11 - 01:53:14:06

Rose Sutton

They don't sleep, they don't like touch, they don't like certain things. So as a parent, you're constantly going, but if you think about it this way is that if you can empower your child to do these things for themselves, yes, it's a lot of hard work, but then you don't take a lot of load off of you and you're empowering them to be able to set their own boundaries so that way a lot of us parents, we worry about what happens when when we pass away.

01:53:14:12 - 01:53:30:04

Rose Sutton

Well, if you can teach them every little step as you continue to grow, that that repetition will eventually build to where you won't have to even think about it anymore, where they'll have some understanding of what is appropriate, what is not appropriate, and how to handle some self care on their own.

01:53:30:06 - 01:53:46:08

Erin Croyle

Rose I'm like internally clapping because everything you said is so spot on. And I love the idea of the picture schedule for the shower. I'm going to try that because I think for all my kids, honestly, hygiene and at a certain point they.

01:53:46:08 - 01:53:47:19

Molly Dellinger-Wray

Don't quite get that you.

01:53:47:19 - 01:54:12:21

Erin Croyle

Need to wash certain spots or you're going to be the stinky kid. And I love that. You also said you have to just keep trying different things because I know for privacy, whatnot, there's all sorts of social stories out there and I'll put some links in there for social stories and other strategies that people can use for some of these really touchy things that have to do with privacy and showering and toileting because it is hard.

01:54:12:24 - 01:54:30:19

Erin Croyle

And in my own experience too, sometimes you try and try and try and sometimes you just have to give them the time to get to that point. So you may be pulling your hair out, but it it'll be something else. Once they master the thing you're trying, they'll be something else to do. But anyway, Molly, you have a heart out.

01:54:30:19 - 01:54:56:06

Erin Croyle

So I want to get to just at least two more questions. And one of them I really want to know because you two will probably know what are signs of abuse. I mean, especially when communication is nontraditional or limited. What should parents, caregivers, teacher, whoever is listening, what should we be looking for if our person is not able to communicate it?

01:54:56:08 - 01:55:29:17

Molly Dellinger-Wray

Well, that's a really good question. And what I say is every parent knows their child and if their child doesn't communicate with words, they have another way to communicate. And so parents know their child. If there's a change that you don't understand, if there's a behavioral change, sleep problems, problems with not wanting to bathe or keeping a lot of clothes on, or just a behavioral change, that's something like we we just need to investigate that.

01:55:29:17 - 01:55:59:18

Molly Dellinger-Wray

And it could be a number of things. It could be an illness, it could be any number of different things. But any kind of change, just as something to kind of have your antenna out for. As I said, also, I left my kid in rooms with adults and the door closed hundreds of times and thankfully had the most wonderful adults in my child's life and a lot of early intervention that really created such a difference for him.

01:55:59:18 - 01:56:24:23

Molly Dellinger-Wray

And I am eternally grateful for every single one of those people that helped him. But not everyone is that person, and a lot of people who seek power seek out opportunities to work with a very vulnerable population, and that is AIDS and special education classrooms and people who work in nursing homes. And, you know, a lot of of those opportunities.

01:56:25:00 - 01:57:00:11

Molly Dellinger-Wray

And so just honestly, just being aware and acknowledging the hard fact that a lot of kids with disabilities do experience abuse. And then the other thing to remember is if a child does experience abuse, an unhealthy relationship, a sexual, there are lots of ways now to come out on the other side of that. So they will not be scarred for life and they can grow up to lead rich, healthy adult lives with healthy sexual relationships.

01:57:00:13 - 01:57:23:15

Molly Dellinger-Wray

On the other side of that, the the main thing is that it is not compounded by shame and guilt. And one of the biggest things that we do as family members and our parents and adults said to us are the don't rules. Okay. One of the don't rules to keep yourself safe. Don't get into a car with someone.

01:57:23:17 - 01:57:59:21

Molly Dellinger-Wray

Don't talk to strangers. One woman with a disability told me, don't sit next to a man. And so we teach. A lot of these don't rules, but what we know is that perpetrators are really clever and we don't like to think of this. But perpetrators are super smart about creating opportunities with potential victims. And so what we want to do is not have our kids be a soft target for those people, but also to not create a lot of shame surrounding, my gosh, I got into a car with someone.

01:57:59:21 - 01:58:22:03

Molly Dellinger-Wray

This is all my fault. I wore a sexy dress. This is all my fault. I went out at night. I left my drink on the bar while I went to the bathroom. None of those are reasons that people should experience abuse. And so we need to just to level the playing field. And with starting out with not your fault.

01:58:22:05 - 01:58:48:00

Molly Dellinger-Wray

Okay? And if something happens, it's okay to tell me. Sure. We don't want to say like go off and get into a car with a stranger. We don't want to give people. We want to teach them safety rules. But what we know is that perpetrators are really, really smart and they know about code words and they know about bombs, you know, and they know about lost puppies and all kinds of ways to coerce people into doing things that are not good for them.

01:58:48:05 - 01:59:10:17

Molly Dellinger-Wray

And so what we need to do is say, you know, did anything make you uncomfortable? Is there anything you want to change for next time? It's okay to tell me that because I'm not going to be mad at you. I just feel like that's super important because if you are someone who's been told, don't get into a car with someone and a really smart perpetrator pulls the I lost my puppy.

01:59:10:17 - 01:59:39:24

Molly Dellinger-Wray

Can you give me directions? One of the many ruses that they have to have an opportunity with the child and the child complies with them because of trained compliance, because of all the rules that we've taught kids about being respectful to adults and they experience abuse, we don't want them to think it's their fault because that is going to compound shame and a lot of trauma surrounding assault where they will never tell anyone.

01:59:40:01 - 02:00:06:18

Molly Dellinger-Wray

That's just very important. I always tell a story of I had a very dear friend who was an adult who had a brain injury and dementia, and she was not financially secure. She lived in a low income apartment building near me and she wrote a check for two thirds of all the money she had in the world to a man that she met in the hallway of her building.

02:00:06:20 - 02:00:33:10

Molly Dellinger-Wray

And we were able to get the money back. But what she kept saying was, I'm so stupid. I'm so stupid that I did that, that I gave away my money and what I had to keep saying was you weren't stupid. People are really tricky and people will try to trick you. And that's okay. The important thing is to let someone know because people will try to trick you and it's not your fault.

02:00:33:12 - 02:00:38:13

Molly Dellinger-Wray

So I think that empowers people a lot.

02:00:38:15 - 02:00:59:07

Rose Sutton

I think also I'd like to add to that is, you know, I have a friend who whose child is on social media and of course, they're trying to attract friends. And when we talk about abuse, we also have to think about like this man's daughter. What was happening was that she was taking pictures of herself undressed, inappropriate pictures of herself and sending it to this person.

02:00:59:08 - 02:01:17:07

Rose Sutton

So he had noticed like there was some behavior change and he was saying, well, what's going on? And he didn't felt that she was being abused because she was always homeless. He says, well, she can't be abused. We're always here, you know, And this was when COVID and we were all isolated. But yet this child was taking pictures of herself.

02:01:17:07 - 02:01:46:00

Rose Sutton

You know, that's also abuse. They don't have to physically touch you. They could take a picture. You could take pictures of yourself, and they can cause you to to share these things, you know, on social media. And so we have to be really careful with that. Also, you know, a lot of our kiddos have phones now and they want to be friends with someone, so they send the pictures all we had a young girl who had met someone on Facebook and had become real close friends and eventually told this person where she lived and that this guy was like, Well, I want to marry you.

02:01:46:02 - 02:02:07:11

Rose Sutton

And she was about 17 and he wanted to marry this young girl and invited him over to her house. And she was right in her room. And the brother the brother was downstairs in the basement and she was on the third floor and they didn't know what really what was going until the abuser was walking out the door.

02:02:07:11 - 02:02:27:19

Rose Sutton

And he was like, well, who's that person? When did you come in the house? So we really have to think about how we're you know, watching that and really pay attention to behavior. You know, we always focus on negative behavior, but sometimes a child continues to come and tell you someone will touch me inappropriately. Okay, Well, well, they made me feel weird or they made me do that.

02:02:27:19 - 02:02:50:04

Rose Sutton

And sometimes it may be nothing. But you also want to take them seriously and give them permission to tell you these things and not to say, they wouldn't, you know, Grandpa would not do that or Uncle Johnny would not do that. You know, you were just playing. But yet I have seen and had heard stories from from students who have told us that sometimes they created as a game, like Molly said, they're very smart and display touch game, but this is what it looks like.

02:02:50:09 - 02:03:07:05

Rose Sutton

Well, you know what? I do love you. You know, let's let's go ahead and let's do some inappropriate touch or you go ahead, masturbate, and I'll just watch you. So I'm not touching you. I'm just watching you. You show me what it looks like. And that's also a form of abuse. And we need to teach our children that that's not okay.

02:03:07:07 - 02:03:37:04

Molly Dellinger-Wray

Two other things that I want to squeeze in here. Okay. So one is that oftentimes I hear parents saying, don't let anyone touch you on your penis, on your breast, on your whatever. That puts a lot of pressure on the child who has to be the boss of someone who may be trying to touch them in an inappropriate way by saying you let them touch you, don't let anyone touch you there.

02:03:37:06 - 02:04:03:06

Molly Dellinger-Wray

That's a really hard thing to do. So, you know, might be better to say, you know, if someone touches you on your penis, if someone touches you in your vagina, I want to know about that because that's a private place. That's a place where you get to decide who someone touches you there. So the don't let someone touch you is really a very hard thing for a child to do and can often really compound the trauma.

02:04:03:08 - 02:04:11:05

Molly Dellinger-Wray

Another thing is the bathing suit rule. Can we talk about the bathing suit rule? Does everyone know what the bathing suit rule is?

02:04:11:07 - 02:04:27:18

Rose Sutton

Yeah. So we talk about areas that are touched that are, you know, where our bathing suits are. So, you know, for women, we usually have the top we have the the top part is and we have the bottom part or sometimes we have the full suit. So we teach them. Those aren't considered private body parts, anything that's under those parts.

02:04:27:18 - 02:04:37:10

Rose Sutton

And for men, you know, they have the shorts on. So anything under there, you don't want to touch them. And sometimes they wear shirts also that's covered. Those are private anything that your bathing suit covers.

02:04:37:12 - 02:04:58:22

Molly Dellinger-Wray

So the bathing suit rule is a good rule, but it's important to remember the bathing suit rule does not cover everything. And there are lots of ways that people can touch people sexually with their mouths that are not covered by your bathing suit. And so oftentimes people are taught the bathing suit rule and was like, well, it wasn't in the part that my bathing suit covers.

02:04:58:22 - 02:05:11:06

Molly Dellinger-Wray

It wasn't my breasts or my penis or vagina or my penis. And so this doesn't really apply to the bathing suit rule. So the bathing suit rule is a good rule, but it's not the it's not comprehensive.

02:05:11:08 - 02:05:30:24

Erin Croyle

And that's good to know. I hadn't heard that rule, and I guess I won't be sharing that with my kiddos. We have listeners who are overseas who are in other states. You know, Leap isn't everywhere, but if someone wants to find information and learn more and do something like LEAP, what do you recommend?

02:05:31:01 - 02:05:58:19

Molly Dellinger-Wray

There are lots of healthy relationship curriculums out there. You know, a simple Google search would reach it, but also as part of the LEAP Project, we do webinars probably three or four times a year. The next one we're doing is March 18th, and those are webinars for family members and other adults who help support people with disabilities about fostering healthy relationships and abuse prevention.

02:05:58:21 - 02:06:13:03

Erin Croyle

my gosh, that's perfect. Molly, You'll have to give me that information. I'll put it in the show notes so people can register. I cannot thank you enough. I feel like we might have to touch on this again one day and continue the conversation because there's so much here.

02:06:13:05 - 02:06:20:07

Molly Dellinger-Wray

Thank you so much.

02:06:20:09 - 02:06:41:16

Erin Croyle

And thank you listeners for joining us. Please rate review and share this podcast of ours. We'll be covering nutrition, employment and so much more this season and be sure to check out our lineup for our first season as well. This is The Odyssey. Parenting, Caregiving, Disability. I'm Erin Croyle. We'll talk soon.