Learn How To Start The Conversation
Become A Brave Voice
We will only be comfortable speaking about uncomfortable subjects after we have practiced – together we can normalize the topic.
Start by initiating a conversation with someone you trust.
It is our responsibility as adults to protect children.
We can not expect children to broach a subject they do not hear openly discussed.
Join the Brave Voices Movement – use your voice to protect children from sexual harm.
When relationships matter, Nonviolent Communication offers the knowledge, skills and consciousness that can make even difficult conversations easier and connection more likely.
Video Tutorials for Starting the Coversation
We have a great set of resources for starting the conversation and we’ve put them all in a playlist for your convenience.
Start the conversation with friends and neighbors.
Feather Berkower
Listen to 60 Minutes with expert, Feather Berkower, pictured left, sharing 30 years of educating adults on how to prevent the sexual harm of children.
Interview with Dr. Yvette Erasmus
Affiliate Links – Click the buttons below for money off on any of Dr. Yvette Erasmus’s courses.
Interview with Sarri Gillman
Transform Your Boundaries is a straight-to-the-point manual referencing case studies and typical roles such as the “Workaholic” and the “Sacrificer” to identify and employ the necessary tools for mental resilience. Using Gilman’s simple examples and step-by-step process, you’ll develop the skills needed to safeguard your sanity against challengers. By following this self-affirming approach to achieving personal insight and an immovable stance, you will be empowered to live your best life.
Interview with LaDonna Silva, LMFT
Finding voice, a lifetime of advocacy, breaking dysfunctional family systems with curiosity, compassion, and care. Introduction to Internal Family Systems.
Your Team of Communication Experts
Organizations, Facilitators and Therapists Dedicated to Non-violent, Compassionate, Empowered Communication
Jean Morrison- FUNdamentals – Quality of Connection – All needs are equally important
Jori Manske
Giving Voice to Sibling Sexual Abuse
Jane Epstein TEDx Talk
As a survivor of Sibling Sexual Abuse (SSA), Jane Epstein spent years thinking she was alone. However, recent studies show sibling sexual abuse is the most common form of child sexual abuse, an epidemic enabled by silence. In this talk, Jane explains why we need to help survivors share their stories in order to build a community of people who can inspire new research, solutions, awareness, prevention, and support. She shares her story to help other survivors gain the courage to speak out, with the comfort of knowing they are not alone. Jane Epstein is a Sibling Sexual Abuse (SSA) survivor. Now an advocate, she provides guidance and tools for prevention and victim recovery. Jane spent 40 years in a continual state of dissociation. She was in and out of therapy and, despite marrying and being blessed with two children, became depressed and suicidal. Sobriety and self-reflection led her to write her story. As she began writing, Jane discovered that hardly anyone on the entire Internet was speaking about sibling sexual abuse, thus her advocacy was born.
Free and Donation-Based Compassionate Communication Practice Groups
Materials for Brave Voices Having Empowered, Courageous, Brave Conversations
Please download and print PDFs.
- AGREEMENTS for all Brave Voices Participants – Our Intentions
- Brave Voices Invocation
- Body Sensations – What do you feel in your body? Cold, Hot, Sweaty?
- Feelings – CNVC – Slightly different lists- see which one you prefer
- Feelings – GROK the World
- Needs (met and unmet = celebrations and mournings)
- DEVELOPMENTAL NEEDS CHART
- Emotional Intelligence – Why we want to get in touch with our Feelings and Needs
- Strong Feelings,& Needs associated with CSA – Name them to tame them
- GROK the world – Feelings and Needs Card – Get To The Heart Of The Matter
- COMPREHENSIVE SERVICES FOR SURVIVORS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE – A publication of the Sexual Assault Demonstration Initiative By Kelly Wilt, Resource Sharing Project
- A Guide for Friends and Family of Sexual Violence Survivors – Effective communication is important to a victim’s wellbeing. If you are wondering what you can do, here are some suggestions.
Places to Speak Up, Be Heard, Share Your Lived Experience
- OUT OF THE SHADOWS –
- 1in6 – For Men help men who have had unwanted or abusive sexual experiences live healthier, happier lives.
- HAPPY COCK CHURCH – Your “Story” Matters, Write and Speak Your Truth
- COURAGE TO HEAL – Write your Lived Experience
- The Voices and Faces Project – Write your Lived Experience via Memoir or Poetry Jeannie, please use the video to highlight this organization
- RACHAEL HERRON – Need Help Getting It Done- Getting it All On The Page? Rachael is one of the best writing coaches/teachers I have ever worked with- She is pure joy, positivity, love and encouragement
- LEARNING TO SIT IN DISCOMFORT – This episode is about writing, but it is also about Learning to Manage, Cope with, Enjoy, the uncomfortable aspects of life – people do not sit in discomfort unless they care enough – Brave Voices is asking you to care enough to sit in the discomfort of a difficult, uncomfortable subject.
- Domestic Violence – Resources in California
- Laura Davis – tells us about the experience she gained as co-author of The Courage To Heal and shares with us the evolution of her relationship with her mother in relation to the incest she survived. Interested in writing your story? Join one of Laura’s Writing workshops. Buy her latest book The Burning Light Of Two Stars.
Recommended Reading
The Compassion Book
Based on the concepts of NonViolent Communication, Compassionate Communication is a technique for communicating well by Thom Bond. It uses needs based communication to take emphasis off being upset.
If we use Compassionate Communication, we will have better quality conversation, and this helps us to use our brave voice as it alleviates the difficulty of our topic. As Bond says, Compassionate Communication is a language of life that helps you thrive, not just to help us speak openly about CSA.
For anyone who wants more compassion in their life and in our world. Over 300 pages of concepts, stories, and exercises that provide the “how to” of creating more connection and understanding among us humans. The Compassion Book is a handbook that explains and demonstrates specific ways of thinking, speaking, and acting that help us experience more compassion, understanding, and harmony in our daily lives – for real.
Click the Image Above to Learn More!
Click the Image Above to Learn More!
A Tool for Navigating Your Journey
In 2010, four certified trainers of Nonviolent Communication produced a new tool to help people successfully learn, strengthen, and integrate the skills and consciousness of NVC. They called this tool the Pathways to Liberation Self-Assessment Matrix. Since then, thousands of NVC practitioners have been using the Matrix to identify skills, clarify strengths, discover edges, and navigate their own personal journeys toward emotional liberation and a more just, peaceful, and loving world.Now you too can use the Matrix to set a course toward self-knowledge, skill, and success. This guidebook shows you how.Written by Jim Manske, CNVC trainer and one of the four originators of the Matrix, Pathways to Nonviolent Communication: A Tool for Navigating Your Journey offers clear and specific suggestions for using the Matrix to assess your progress and assist others in deepening the skills and consciousness of NVC. Whether you are a longtime practitioner of NVC or have only recently begun your journey, the tool and techniques presented in this book will make every path more dynamic, accessible, and fun.
Please visit www.nonviolentcommunication.com to learn more about Nonviolent Communication.
Let Love Have the Last Word
Common—the Grammy Award, Academy Award, and Golden Globe–winning musician, actor, and activist—follows up his New York Times bestselling memoir One Day It’ll All Make Sense with this inspiring exploration of how love and mindfulness can build communities and allow you to take better control of your life through actions and words.
Common believes that the phrase “let love have the last word” is not just a declaration; it is a statement of purpose, a daily promise. Love is the most powerful force on the planet and ultimately, the way you love determines who you are and how you experience life.
In his first public reveal, Common also shares a deeply personal experience of childhood molestation that he is now confronting…and forgiving.
Courageous, insightful, brave, and characteristically authentic, Let Love Have the Last Word shares Common’s own unique and personal stories of the people and experiences that have led to a greater understanding of love and all it has to offer. It is a powerful call to action for a new generation of open hearts and minds, one that is sure to resonate for years to come.
Click the Image Above to Learn More!
Click the Image Above to Learn More!
You Have No Idea: A Famous Daughter, Her No-nonsense Mother, and How They Survived Pageants, Holly wood, Love, Loss (and Each Other
Recommended Resources
Prevention
Organizations Dedicated to the Prevention of CSA
Healing & Recovery
Organizations Committed to Help and Healing after CSA Trauma