Zvi Gluck at the Torah Umesorah Presidents Conference 12-22-2017 (Part 3 of 5)

first I would like to give a very big personal thank you to the tireless our organization under the leadership of our kadai lemon and sweet bloom for really being the first national my seed to be willing to address the issue of sexual abuse molestation addiction and give a platform for it both in the public setting at it's conferences and events and more importantly in the practical private setting of helping with plenty of initiatives and programs so a big thank you to our bazaar for hosting us not just here today but for really being there at the forefront along with all of us with relief project much more many people forget that term sarah is not new to this counterforce has been around for many many years another term is our initiative so we really need to recognize the great work that's being done but I want to try to focus a little bit on the positive of how far we've actually come and as Mindy said it so eloquently we still have a long way to go we're not going to minimize that but four years ago you couldn't get up at a public event and talk about child sexual abuse it was still too taboo then of immense grab that got up at the Torrence our National Convention a few years ago and very publicly spoke about child molestation and at gave a cry that of everybody that was there heard and it's been recorded that we as a community must do more to help those that are victims and the families that are suffering from this and this is a testament that really has to go to those that were there for the many years trying to break these barriers by step many years ago we could have talked about mental illness it was taboo rabbi Babbitt sent the Ornstein and a few other very brave people formed relief resources and worked very heavily to break the taboo regarding issues of mental illness and I'm going to say these words carefully barb has shown today there are thousands upon thousands of people that are calling them for help and there are thousands of people that are calling us for help and many other organizations and the reason why I say borrow Hashem is because it's a sign that people are reaching out so while it's very sad that all these problems exist but we have to look at the fact that as a community Claudius Rome does continuously band together for the issues that are so near and dear to our heart and do what needs to be done to help just to give you a little perspective to add onto a rabbi Babad said how when we were talking about the topic we were talking about abuse addiction mental illness and suicidality because all too often we see the numbers glaring at us and we see how they all linked to each other unfortunately this year alone 2017 since the beginning of the year January first under the age of 35 qualities role has lost 180 precious souls to overdose and alcohol-related deaths now I only mention under the age 35 because I've been warned not to talk about the 49 year old bahla bus and sure that had a sudden aneurysm because of children in Chicago so we're keeping our numbers to under 35 but sadly those numbers are more double if we include those that were older than 35 but because of the word the dirty word that blocks us from getting so many people help the word Shiva we can't talk about it up those 180 we have confirmation that 144 were victims of child sexual abuse that is approximately 80% and this is only a data pool that we know about because these are people that either we dealt with when they were live or dealt with the family in dealing with the trauma after they passed away and we were able to confirm them which means the numbers are certainly higher we also have data of the same time period of 35 suicides that were straight suicides not trucking alcohol-related and again the bulk of that more victims of child sexual abuse but at the same time we can look at the other side of the claim we're currently a time with them fielding over 240 calls a day and many people look at us and I know that remember bod gets this as well and say ah I guess it's not really working because so many people are calling me so we continue to reiterate and say no that means it's actually working great because people are calling we had a very bittersweet call in the office a couple of weeks ago where I can see this woman who only spoke yet is reached out to us for help about the fact that she found out that her brother-in-law was molesting her the daughter was the victims uncle and as we started getting her the help I called the staff that was in the office at the time and I said you have to look at the positive of this as hard as the sounds she called for help that's the huger step as a community we have historically been pushing back at this so while Baruchel were doing a great job we need to continue to do more yes the numbers are steadily increased over the last three years we went from 800 cases a year to over 1700 cases a year but again it's people reaching out for help so now we have to focus on the moving forward so being that we're at the Torah's our convention and we really wanted to bring this into the school systems so let's remember a couple of things first of all our children spend most of their time in the school setting the issue miss Maestas our condition is to second amma and therefore it is incumbent upon the schools which are already doing a very good job that's starting to deal with this to do more we need to make sure that we can help the schools have better education prevention early detection and know how to deal with the issues now we don't want schools to become experts in this we know that torrents are under the leadership of Isaac pristine and to be more concerned if develop the mastiha program phenomenal program which is definitely a great first step in combating sexual abuse of mental illness amongst our children that's one step we know that Thomas or is now working with rabbi zev daughter who you'll hear from in a few minutes of project lish martin taking that to the next level focusing on school-based education but let me give you this scenario if somebody were to say that you take an average school to grades two classes per grade first through eighth grade twenty-five kids in a class and somebody said that they would be guaranteed asbestos poisoning in one child per class over the full eight years and that child would either end up very sick or dead I can guarantee you the pyramid body would revolt the school board would get together and they would either move to another building that is removal and do whatever it takes to make sure that those kids are safe sadly the statistics of children being molested the turning to drugs are more than 1 in 25 in our community how can we sit by and not take that same approach what right do we have to not fight for this we need to make sure that the schools are also going to allow additional programming to enter now there's currently an initiative that I'm pleased to announce today that is being done in conjunction with many organizations involved both in the educational world mental health world and is going to be spearheaded as well by rabbi dunder which is helping to build a curriculum through 12th grade which is going to address aspects of healthy living it's going to be AG freight appropriate gender segregated and firm friendly the concept is going to be helping with matters such as feelings bullying healthy decision-making personal safety respect issues a lot of the things that we have known will help with the prevention program I know a few weeks ago I had a conversation about Joe and Sue casat a conversation with avi srong who I called him a few nights ago very late at night and I said I need you to send me an email from that book that we spoke about over circus which had a study that said the difference between school-based programs that are single focused just of sexual abuse versus curriculum school-based programs that are focused on the full emotional well-being of the student there's a 10 to 1 ratio of students that have a full healthy educational experience and learn about how to be the in living emotional well-being that tend to one were more likely to report abuse even within the family which is most of the cases that we deal with now of course whatever programs the schools are currently using are amazing and we need to encourage them to continue doing so and as I say many times my goal is to be put out of business and with the appropriate school-based education programs that is the only way that I'm going to close down other than lack of funds which we hope that won't happen we also have to remember that because the schools are the first line of defense what happens when a school does find out that Cosmo shell of a student was molested or that a student is using drugs or drinking alcohol what is the response that the schools are implementing how are they dealing with those unfortunately not very well I said something in the summer that got me into trouble which means of course I'm going to have to say it again but at this time I can at least quote that might suffice things that sell Rivoli ashes and sonorous poms that's all had said it which I only found out after my statement because people called to give me physic and the quote was if a school throws a student out without making sure there's an appropriate place for that child to go to the school is committing murder of that student this is no longer just sweet Lux code this is coming from God Island that I've said this long before me there are amazing programs out there that schools consent students do if they do find that they cannot be in their environment but to do so in a respectful manner we've been doing a lot of work in getting schools to allow random drug testing and random testing to find out if the students are using alcohol or now with drugs that are being used in vapes which are hard to determine to know the difference between vaping tobacco or drugs and overwhelming me most to the school's sake we're never going to allow that if we allow that that means we have a problem but the reality is we do have a problem and the reality is there's not a single achieve a high school that I know about that can say they have zero drugs or alcohol in it and that's just a reality we're servicing over 600 students that are high school age of addiction issues one form or another ranging from gambling sex addiction porn addiction alcohol drugs this is this sad reality of the world we're living in but we need the schools to be our working partners or to continue to be a working partners to make sure that we can continue to provide the service to be able to help those that need it one of the things that we're encouraging schools to do now is to set up a drug policy that if they find a student that comes up positive instead of throwing the student now help find the student help or get the student into a program get them to treatment they need let's not forget most of the people that are using drugs abusing alcohol or acting out in those ways were victims of trauma some sort of sexual abuse or otherwise so why do we want to revitalize them again by throwing them out and guaranteeing them a life of misery I don't remember what you got the look was and I think Shirley told me the story but if almost positive figure that out later that the principal went to a rough to say I want to throw I want to throw the student out of a Shiva and the rover asked the principal what's the students mother's name and the principal said I don't know now the RUF said you mean to tell me you haven't been davon Inc for this student and you're ready to throw them out there was there was a shock Joey that is what we have to figure out how to do we need to make sure that the schools are a safe place for our children there's a lot of new initiatives that are being embarked on I've met a wonderful couple here that's working on another program that's gonna hopefully put them out of business and I hope to help them through that as well there's a lot that needs to be done the schools are the frontline we the pearance the educators the donors the board members have the ability to force our schools to make those changes we also have to talk for a moment about how far we've progressed in reference to the awareness of child sexual abuse while we're seeing a huge increase of those reaching out for help but what we're not seeing is a huge increase in us as a community providing the emotional support of course financial as well but for sure emotional for the victims of abuse and their families and until we as a community can say safely to victims of abuse we are here for you we're gonna stand by you it makes it that much more difficult we need to help them heal to become productive members of society that's what's important and we cannot allow the victims to be revitalized to have secondary trauma because of trying to cover up cases to try to hush up cases or to try to push the victims into a spotlight and turn them into the bad people these are things that we can't do and I want to end on one final note and I'm echoing Laura baba bhot said because this is extremely extremely important there is not a day that goes by that we don't receive a minimum of 20 phone calls just asking that we can help financially pay for treatment programs both for victims of abuse to go to push post trauma programs or for people that are addicts and when we try to ascertain speed to the actual client or the family and figure out do they really need to go to the programs that want to raise all this money for why are they choosing these programs what research has been done where unfortunately seeing all too often that it's really not much people run to the internet they use Google to figure out the best treatment they don't go through professionals they don't call professional organizations such as omelette amor relief for so many others and they end up spending hundreds of thousands of dollars unnecessarily and I hate to say this but unfortunately I'm with them is not a bank I wish we can afford to just write a check that every person that ever came to us for any Dale meant they had but there's also an elias on that seaboard to make sure that there's accountability every time there's another article published where i'm quoted about talking about it the death or an overdose i can't tell you how many people in the community call me up and say it's we okay it's great i want to open up a rehab i see it's a good business people in our community needed help ease that that up i'd love to see those same people call me up and say hey it's v-- i realize how tough this problem is what can i do to help but it has become a scary revolving door business and ezra papad said without people knowing what to look for or knowing the true research of which programs are good and by the way just because the program is good doesn't mean it's good for that client you know i pride myself in the case managers that we have a team that really do the most amazing job in the world and very much selflessly because i can promise you they don't do it money borrow shown we have two of our case managers here with us from New York Jill and Susie and you'll hear from Donnie soon who's running the program in Eretz Yisroel but I pride myself on the fact that we do the research we look into the core issue why is this person using what was the underlying concern what program is going to be best beneficial for them and we try to make a decision in a healthy fashion to get them the help that they need so while I very much look forward to be put out of business by programs such as Project lish Mart or miss Ora and these new initiatives that we're doing I think we're gonna have to be here for at least a short while to try to help those that can't we have to continue doing our job fighting the good fight and hopefully with the support of all of you here to make sure that we can continue doing this helping one person at a time saving one family at a time saving one life at a time and give these poor souls a reason to live a reason to thrive that a reason to want to get up the next day thank you very much source project Rushmore [Music] you [Music]