Speaker: Grace Flagler, Prevention and Community Educator
Grace Flagler: Hi, my name is Grace Flagler. Pronouns she/her and I'm the Prevention and Community Educator for Womanspace.
Grace Flagler: My role at Womanspace. is to provide prevention education and training about any topic related to interpersonal violence. I go to high schools, I go to businesses and organizations. I talk about any topic related to interpersonal violence such as healthy relationships or consent.
Grace Flagler: I'm passionate about Womanspace's mission because I believe that empowerment is such a powerful tool to be able to help people and to keep our community safe.
Grace Flagler: In my role, I don't necessarily work with clients directly, but I've talked to a ton of high school age kids about healthy relationships, domestic and dating violence. And to see them have that kind of light bulb which go off in their head that they truly understand what domestic and dating violence is and how it can effect them is is really an amazing experience. And they have such a good grasp on dating violence, not being physical. They really understand that it can be emotional or mental. But to have these discussions where they really talk about concrete examples of what it could look like and how they can help others, I can see is really making an impact in their lives.
Grace Flagler: One thing that I wish that more people understood about domestic violence and sexual violence is that abuse does not discriminate. And what I mean by that is, anyone can be a victim-survivor regardless of gender or race or class or sexual orientation, anyone can become a victim or survivor of interpersonal violence and anyone can choose to abuse. Abuse is absolutely a choice that someone makes, whether it's consciously or subconsciously. And if we always think of the abuser as this scary monster type person, then we're not going to be able to, to recognize when the abuser is someone that we love or someone that we care about. So to, to break up that idea of this typical victim-survivor and a typical abuser, I think is going to help people so much in recognizing the red flags of abuse before it's too late.
Grace Flagler: I'm so proud to be a part of Womanspace and to be a part of the education and training, the prevention, the healing, the, the nurturing and the overall good that we do for our community in Mercer County.
