When Karen Days first accepted the position of president of the Center for Family Safety and
Photo by Scott Cunningham
Abigail Wexner
Healing in 1999, Abigail Wexner offered her some advice.
“She said to me, ‘If we only raise awareness, we have failed. We have to do more than just raise awareness,’” Days says. “That’s something that’s been kept in my mind since 1999. Everything we did needed to have a purpose.”
With that motive in mind, the center’s “Where’s the Line?” campaign launched in January.
“Where’s the Line?” is a first-of-its-kind public education campaign with the goal of encouraging dialogue and targeting a demographic so many comparable campaigns miss: bystanders. The campaign addresses those who witness abuse or think they are witnessing abuse, but don’t know how to take action.
“We needed to get bystanders involved,” Days says. “Bystanders are sometimes in the lives of victims, formally or informally.”
The campaign addresses all shapes and forms of abuse rather than one subset – from child to elder, teen dating to domestic, emotional to verbal.
“We thought, ‘How do we reach the most people affected by family violence and child abuse?’
Photo by Scott Cunningham
Karen Days
More recently, there’s teen dating violence, (with some children dating) as young as 11 or 12,” Days says. “There’s domestic violence and elder abuse, so we also needed to get the message out there about the issue of family violence.”
Wexner adds that, in the United States, five children a day die of child abuse or neglect. One in four women will experience abuse in her lifetime.
“This is astounding to me,” Wexner says. “Family violence is cyclical, so when we began this work about 18 years ago, we knew we were in it for the long haul.”
Wexner’s dedication to the center and campaign does not come from personal trauma, she says. Rather, it was a cause to which she could not turn her back.
“Over the years, many people have asked me if I’ve had some personal experience with family violence, and I have not,” she says. “When a friend introduced me to this issue, it became a question of ‘How could I not get involved?”
The title for the campaign was born from the idea of bystanders asking the important question, “How do we know if someone has crossed the line?” After all, a parent spanking a child typically wouldn’t be considered abuse. But how does one know when it has gone too far?
“Bystanders didn’t turn their heads (in the past),” Days says. “They didn’t know what to do.
Image courtesy of "Where's the Line?"
(They didn’t have the opportunity to) get their questions answered confidentially. … What we want bystanders to do is risk being right. Call in and say they witnessed something, ask if it crossed the line.”
Since the campaign’s launch, Days says, about 160 calls, instant messages and texts have been received. When someone calls in, a resource coordinator on the other line assures the bystander everything he or she says is confidential and anonymous. “Where’s the Line?” is not a crisis line, however.
“She will ask about the situation, and what’s going on,” Days says. “She’ll have resources for not just our county, but for the rest of central Ohio.”
The resource coordinator will also explain why certain situations are excusable and why others are not. For example, a child being spanked is different from a child being picked up by the wrist.
“We’re building a mechanism for people to (gather resources) from a safe point,” Days says. “If it had been something where it required (the bystanders) to get involved, they would not be safe. I wouldn’t have been comfortable with that. That would be what we’re always talking about: safety.”
As for the campaign’s impact on the community at large, Days says, conversations surrounding familial violence have flourished in recent months.
“It’s starting a dialogue,” she says. “For example, people are asking others if they ever spanked their kids.”
As the community continues to take part in these discussions, Days says, bystanders are learning that what happens behind closed doors isn’t always a private matter.
“A lot of people might see it as, ‘We need to be minding our own business,’” Days says. “But if we’re going to eliminate violence, let’s start in the home.”
For more information, visit www.familysafetyandhealing.org.
Where’s the Line?
All correspondence is confidential and anonymous.
Call: (844) 234-LINE
Text: 87028
“Where’s the Line?” is not a crisis hotline. Rather, bystanders can expect to receive information on familial violence as well as appropriate referrals to area agencies.
Hannah Bealer is an assistant editor. Feedback welcome at ssole@cityscenemediagroup.com.
