From Deseret News archives:
State, church leaders taking steps to stop abuse
• Ned Searle, director of the Governor's Office on Violence against Women and Families, is developing a state program to help young men become better husbands and fathers. Known as TUFF — Teaching Utah Future Fathers — the initiative aims to use good dads as role models and mentors.
"We've got to get young men to see being a real man isn't about money, cars and sexual conquests," he said. "It's about love and being loved."
Searle said the "boys-will-be-boys syndrome" must go. "It's inappropriate. We don't need to make excuses for bad behavior."
• Under Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, the office has tried to build on former Attorney General Jan Graham's vision for family violence prevention. Tracey L. Tabet of the attorney general's Children's Justice Center Program, has watched state progress on this issue through both administrations, Graham's "public awareness efforts provided a great foundation, and when Mark took office he felt a responsibility to take the state's efforts to the next level by filling gaps in services for women and children in abusive homes," she said.
Here are three ongoing projects:
—Child visitation is often granted in a divorce, despite a family having a history of domestic violence. With two federal Violence Against Women grants to Shurtleff's office, there is now a supervised visitation and exchange center in the 3rd Judicial District. Another may be opened soon for the 2nd Judicial District.
—Graham was an advocate of a 24-hour hotline for domestic violence victims, but at the time she left office, Utah's Domestic Violence Link Line was still available only part time. In 2004, the office received federal funding to expand Utah's line to full time.
—The office produces a "Domestic Violence 101" training manual for law enforcement and prosecutors, as well as a "Preventing Family Violence" brochure and "Victim's Notice of Rights and Remedies" brochure.
• LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley has spoken pointedly to men about domestic abuse in recent years.
"We cannot exercise control, or dominion, or compulsion upon our wives or children, or any others in any degree of unrighteousness," he said in a 2002 General Conference.
Two years later, he said, "There are some men who, in a spirit of arrogance, think they are superior to women. They do not seem to realize that they would not exist but for the mother who gave them birth. When they assert their superiority they demean her."
• Fred Riley, director of LDS Family Services, encourages local church leaders to talk about domestic violence from the pulpit.
"It gives victims permission to come forward," he said. "It gives them a little empowerment."
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints just last month placed on its Web site information about programs for victims of domestic violence. And Riley recently joined representatives of more than 20 faiths on a U.S. Department of Justice domestic violence task force. It focused on how religions can more effectively deal with the issue.
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