Tevlin: After 27 years of helping abused and abusers, advocate steps down

Carol Arthur's inspiration is an odd bit of cracked clay that sits in her office on the top floor of a crowded, rickety house where the Domestic Abuse Project has its offices.

The clay figurine is orange and green, with giant eyes, but no arms or legs. It was made by one of their clients, a young boy who had witnessed abuse in his house.

He created the "monster," and brought it out during counseling sessions because it "allowed him to talk about the bad stuff," said Arthur.

When the boy finished his counseling, he told staff to "give it to the big girl on the third floor."

Arthur has been the big girl on the third floor for 27 years, leading an organization that has influenced how domestic abuse has been handled, and victims and perpetrators treated, across the nation.

DAP has helped strengthen laws against abuse, led the way in helping abusers transform themselves, and authored studies and treatment plans that are used internationally.

Arthur will retire at the end of December, after all the awards and accolades that have come from city and county leaders and law enforcement agencies.

But Arthur said she will leave behind a strong, veteran staff and, more important, a landscape that has changed dramatically on the issue of domestic abuse, thanks in a large part to work done by advocates in Minnesota.

DAP started as an experiment in just two Minneapolis precincts. The idea was to have police link advocates to abusers and their victims to try to redirect the violent direction of their lives.

"It was us reaching out instead of waiting for them to come to us," said Arthur, who was at first leery of working with perpetrators.

She eventually came to realize working with abusers was the only way to break the cycle of violence because most of them learned the behaviors as children in their own families.

"Domestic abuse is a learned behavior," said Arthur. "The good thing about that is you can help them learn new behaviors. A lot of the men say they grew up in a house where this happened, and now they're just like their dads."

"I remember how powerless I felt as my father, in a drunken rage, threw a plate of food at my mom," she told the audience. "He then flipped the kitchen table over, and I remember seeing the fear on her face as he lunged at her," she told the audience.

Arthur added that sometimes when she sees kids come in to the DAP offices after a violent incident, that shaky, sickening feeling comes back to her.

It was a desire to help other kids like her that motivated Arthur to work on domestic abuse.

With DAP leading the way, Minnesota has been a pioneer in change on domestic assault. Minneapolis was among the first cities to initiate evidence-based arrests, in which officers no longer relied on the testimony of victims but instead collected evidence and testimony at the scene. If there was evidence of an assault, it was no longer at the officers' discretion of whether to arrest the abuser.

Until then, some officers "believed it was a private family matter and just told the abuser to walk it off or go down to the bar," said Arthur.

Advocates have also worked with judges to teach them what to expect in abuse cases, dealing with unwilling victims and abusers who could be charming. Prosecution rates have gone from about 40 percent to more than 70 percent, Arthur said.

Studies over the years showed that arresting the abuser, combined with counseling that's specific to domestic abuse, is the most effective response to abuse.

DAP does follow-up studies six months and one year after a violent incident, and finds that about 90 percent of abusers do not repeat if they complete treatment. Currently, 50 men participate in a group meeting every Monday at DAP facilities. The group serves more than 3,000 people a year.

Judge Heidi Schellhas, who started the first domestic abuse court, said Arthur "definitely, in my mind, is right at the forefront in her dedication in developing an impetus for change on domestic abuse."

Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek has worked with Arthur for many years.

Lolita Ulloa, who manages victim services for the Hennepin County attorney's office, said Arthur "is just a kind person. She's genuine and she's good."

"To do this kind of work, you have to have the passion to help survivors of violence," said Ulloa. "Carol has that. She runs the gamut from one-on-one help to setting policy in Washington. She's very diplomatic and she understands politics."

Some families are so thankful for intervention by DAP, they keep in touch for years. Arthur recently received a card from one woman who said, "the work you have been doing has been life-changing to me and my son."

That's what has kept Arthur, and many of her staff, engaged in the issue for so long.

"Unlike a lot of people, we get to see success," Arthur said.