That is a challenge near and dear to my heart. I've been working in the field of not-for-profit. It raised me. The thing is always that we don't have the money to do our core services, so we're chasing grant after grant. People are living on shoestring budgets. There is an expectation to do tremendously important work that will actually help society thrive. If you want a thriving economy, you have to address violence. If you want a good education system, you have to address violence. If you want non-carceral approaches and other things to address violence and oppression, you have to address this.
We need to have core funding and we need to stabilize this sector. This sector needs to have the core funding it needs to do the work, including work with all parties involved in sexualized violence: respondents, complainants, survivors and families. I think the thing is that we oftentimes see the priorities skewed, such that we feel we have to focus on all these other pieces. But unless you have people who feel safe, people who feel as though they are nourished and nurtured, we will not move forward. I absolutely think that.
I also think a big part of it is expanding what we see as justice. If only 6% to 10% of survivors are reporting sexual assault, then we need to support those other survivors who are not. Where is the money going to support them? We look at the money being spent on carceral approaches as compared to that spent on supportive healing approaches, and there's a big difference.