Rabbi Zev Dunner at the Torah Umesorah Presidents Conference 12-22-2017 (Part 4 of 5)

placing witness Sonia as president Trump said Bastien I shall keep you for long the topic of this discussion is what are achievements so far and when we still need to work so let's have a look let's examine as the previous speakers of examined what our achievements to date so last year it was the first time that this topic the topic of sexual abuse was on the president's conference and that was at the time as it see this year there it is and this year's topic is much scarier because not only are we talking about sexual abuse but we're talking about addictions and we're talking about such as suicide this points to a far greater acceptance of the realities out there we have finally it's not the coffee and we are allowing ourselves we educated we are far more aware we are far better educated this is in no small measure due to these sterling efforts of the various organizations here the baton belief has made mental health something that we are not scared to discuss something that we are not scared to prefer to professionals we prepare we are far more attuned to dealing with it there's no longer being ignored and hidden anywhere like it wasn't the last scene I'm Tim have done amazing work in forcing us to bite chew and swallow the that's his tireless he's relentless his efforts a constant to force us to wake up he rubs on those units he beats us up about it again and again and it's still not enough and it creates dividends it's improving status on the ground another thing that we've done is successful is the education provided in schools to obey to the administration is bringing results sweet pointed out to me that he's seen a serious uptake and the number of Robin who fell upon the DIMM to inquire about cases of theirs observed in their classes and to find out the status what does this mean does this mean that the child was abused what do we do now this is crucial we haven't seen enormous success we just rolled out an education program in schools in Lakeland and this is a huge finish later this already bastion of this country and it was a place of everyone expected to be most resistant but be at least testable with the topic and have a few all they really went they were very professional they knew their kids they were aware of the problems and when we knocked on the door and we set them this is what we bring to you we were sensitive to their parent body and to their standards of it's nice but that's fair enough but they absolutely open the door wide the biggest the best the most established schools in Lakewood haven't had these programs for the door where we trained the parents we're training the kids we're training the admin and we're training the staff so clearly this you know the awareness is really making inroads in all levels of our society even the physician welders taking notes and as introducing safety programs into their schools so fastening to a small extent amid such a mystery we woke up to a large extent another thing that's bringing results research oddly enough there have been no real research done on this topic sexual abuse in this already world and fulfill you recently we started doing it results and they're sharing very interesting things they're showing us all emotion that everyone always assumed the big factors out there with the strangers and there are bein in schools always pilloried we discover this strangers are perhaps 5% of the issue and repay my really a very minor percentage of the problem and even that is taught too much but ultimately when you realize that over 90% of the problem is family and friends then it allows us to focus our efforts successfully on the real targets both Hashem we have got that in mende a moisture in the room so I'm gonna make you blush we have bought that more fired up about this topic we have gotten you sleep at night about this topic we ought to actually give a damn and that's very very important cuz if we don't have that then we can't make it happen but now let's follow the trail and let's let it lead us to where the bodies are and then we can see our failures challenges where we still need work where we can up again so far too long addictions and suicide have been ignored doesn't happen in our silver it's not relevant maybe but the 15 years ago I was working with Danny in artists wrong place were scraping kids off the streets many of whom had to be sent to rehab and many of them at the center we have because we couldn't afford it so not that aspect was when we managed to help kids once they had started on the repairing tragic tree where they were getting their lives back together their families lost time numbers because they didn't want to be reminded that there had been a problem in the first place as mentioned before it's an amazing thing we're probably the only simmer in the world where the leading cause of death for people under 35 is aneurysms the CDC should be coming down to our world and look what's going on because the metathesis so many people are dying of aneurysms this is ridiculous except for we all know the truth 3 still meets with resistance when he publishes figures and every week he sends us an annoying email that tells us how many more people have died how many more people have died and we don't want to see that it's painful it's uncomfortable why should you have to be subjected to that and he still gets pushed back about that how dare you how dare you tell us the truth so we ask ourselves are we holding with addictions and suicides and overdoses when we were holding with abuse 20 years ago is that what we want to be we have not sinned here interesting me enough sadly the wider world is seeing a huge surge in addictions and deaths as heroin becomes cheaper more widespread and more toxic and our community is in sync with us CNN published ugly enough yesterday a report where it's that's heroin deaths right heroin related deaths have overtaken breast cancer deaths in America for the first time ever this is a shocking statistic the thing is we don't have to be 30 years behind we can start the doctoring today the best practices are out there today we don't have to wait for 30 years worth of bodies to pile up ryder's patel prematurely or ruined we can start by doing now what we know works in my experience we as parents are often the weakest link we are scared to know we are scared to communicate with our kids we are scared to reach out to professionals we deliberately ignore warning signs we spend more time figuring out how our smartphones work than how our kids work the secret is education we have to educate ourselves we have to educate our kids how to catch our attention we have to educate our kids in the pitfalls and dangers and we have to be frank we have to educate our kids and to who they are what they are worth so they can cope with the bumps on the road in a healthy way we make ourselves aware we have to make ourselves aware that what addictions are what they look like how they manifest we have to make ourselves aware of sexual emotional abuse and how it can happen we have to ask ourselves the obvious questions like how the statistics we hear actually translate from abstract numbers into our own lives with respect to our fine Jewish media we can do far better than picking up all our information from an article in the mesh box are squeezed between something about seven things you can do with leftover motion Google and an ad for a group a 7 star program with the 24-hour team we must take this stuff seriously is all around us and far closer than we want to acknowledge we all have heard of the tragedies of kids who deed and if we examine what we heard we all will discover that most times we are not more than one step away from a case in the last six in the last year and with each one of us will know someone who is an uncle of our cousin - or a neighbor of a kid who died all of us it's not much closer than we want to believe and when I tell you that some ounce oldies has come over combo it's so much more prevalent when he tells the world of sexual abuse we really are much closer for that that we want to be comfortable with but it's the realities I don't want a monkey tonic but I do want your help you hear more the presence and executive directors and muscles are movers and shakers of our moisés and in our sever you represent a big chunk of clowny saw you get your hands dirty on behalf of it's ever so we need you in the vanguard the school is the natural place for many of these educational efforts so we just told them told you about the initiative that we are unrolling now where we want to roll and depth now is we want to broaden and depth and I say that with pride we want a proper depth on the extent of curricula which attract kids because we want to create healthy kids we want to create a kid who will be resilient in the event of a problem we want to create a kid who in the event problem knows how to reach out to us and knows the words and knows how to express himself and he knows how to say no and he knows that when drugs were offered is not a good thing and he doesn't have the same title for it because he's not broken inside our schools of the place where we can teach not just America I'm not just nice I'm not just a Lhasa but we can create kids who are wholesome and healthy and we can do that it's in reach this is stuff that's available today I'm sad that I have to have this discussion more less on a yearly basis or not more often than that and we discuss it and we repeat it however I don't care how uncomfortable it is to discuss it it's much more disastrous not to thanks Andrew Jones [Music]