Using Creative Collaboration, The Family Justice Center Combats Domestic Violence, Human Trafficking and Much More.

What if the solution to combating domestic violence, elder abuse, and human trafficking lies in the power of community collaboration? Join me as I sit down with the inspiring Faith Whitmore, a United Methodist pastor turned political figure, who now leads the Family Justice Center in Sacramento. Faith's journey is nothing short of remarkable, and she credits her diverse background for preparing her to champion a cause that addresses some of society's most pressing issues. In this episode, you’ll learn how former District Attorney Jan Scully's vision brought the Family Justice Center model to Sacramento, setting a gold standard recognized by the Department of Justice.

Discover the extensive range of services the Family Justice Center offers, from legal assistance to comprehensive social services, designed to empower victims of abuse. Operating five days a week, this organization provides support without barriers such as appointments or immigration status verification. Faith shares compelling stories of how the Center's high-risk team, human trafficking program, and innovative child-focused initiatives like Camp Hope America are making a real difference. Hear about a case where a restraining order was successfully served within 12 hours, ensuring the safety of a mother and her newborn baby, showcasing the Center’s swift and effective response to urgent needs.

Looking to the future, we discuss the ambitious vision of expanding Family Justice Centers by integrating more partners under one roof, inspired by successful models from other states. Faith talks about the new streamlined processes in emergency rooms for victims of strangulation and the impactful Hidden Homicide Project. Reflecting on the journey, this episode underscores the critical role of collaboration, community support, and innovative solutions in empowering victims and enhancing community safety. Don’t miss this enlightening conversation that highlights the transformative power of unified efforts in addressing abuse and trauma.

To reach The Sacramento Family Justice Center visit: https://www.sacramentofjc.org/
You can call 916-875-4673 to schedule a tour at 3701 Power Inn Rd, Sacramento, 95826
For Human Trafficking hotline call: 844-664-SAFE (7233)

Episode highlights
(02:11 - 03:39) Formation of Family Justice Centers
(07:29 - 08:41) Safety Planning and Legal Support
(12:58 - 14:08) Legal Services and High Risk Team
(16:14 - 17:44) State-Funded Human Trafficking Program Success
(19:42 - 21:00) Importance of Strangulation in Domestic Violence
(23:18 - 24:31) Revolutionizing ER Care Accessibility
(29:24 - 30:28) Collaboration in Service Networks
(36:02 - 37:08) Partnership and Collaboration in Legal Cases
(44:12 - 44:37) Community Update Model for Cost Efficiency

Chapter Summaries
(00:00) Community Support for Victims of Abuse
Faith Whitmore's journey from pastor to leading the Family Justice Center in Sacramento, addressing domestic violence and elder abuse through collaboration and accessible resources.

(05:09) Comprehensive Services f

Thank you so much for listening! We appreciate you. Please visit the website to sign up for our email updates. https://www.nonprofpod.com/ And if you like, leave me a voicemail to comment on the program, leave a question for us to ask in the future or a message for me, Jeff Holden. I may even use your voice mail message in a future episode. https://www.nonprofpod.com/voicemail. Thanks again for your support in listening, commenting and sharing the great work our local nonprofits are accomplishing.

Transcript

Faith Whitmore: [00:00:00] We absolutely will not and have not ever let anybody go from our place out into the street. We provide wraparound case management for each person, so they, that case manager will walk them through from a place of danger and trauma to one of safety and hope, whatever that takes. I'm

Jeff Holden: Jeff Holden. Welcome to the Nonprofit Podcast Network. Our purpose and passion is to highlight a nonprofit organization in each weekly episode Giving that organization an opportunity to tell their story in their words, to better inform and educate the respective communities they serve, as well as provide one more tool for them to share their message to constituents and donors.

Our goal is to help build stronger communities through shared voices and to both encourage and support the [00:01:00] growth of local nonprofit organizations through podcasting. Thanks to our founding partners for their foresight and helping us transform the way conversations start. CAP Trust, fiduciary advice for endowments and foundations.

Runyon Saltzman Incorporated, RSE, marketing, advertising, and public relations creating integrated communications committed to improving lives. And Western Health Advantage, a full service health care plan for individuals, employer groups, and families. Just as CAP Trust, Runyon Saltzman, and Western Health saw value in supporting our program as founding sponsors, we're now able to offer another exclusive opportunity to reach the valuable audience we speak to.

If you'd like to become a partner with us, please reach out and email me at Jeff at hear me now studio dot com so I can share this new opportunity to become a valued sponsor of the program I'll make an assumption if you're listening to this program and you live in the greater sacramental region [00:02:00] You love where we call home, but like any great place to live there are challenges, too That's just a condition of being human how the community engages to support those experiencing the challenges is what makes the community great.

So where can one go when there's concern about human trafficking? How about domestic violence, housing services, crisis intervention, restraining orders, transportation, advocacy, legal consultation, youth services, child and family therapy? You see where I'm going. In this episode, I'm speaking with Faith Whitmore, CEO of one of our community's most intertwined and interwoven organizations that can't really do a thing without collaborating with some other nonprofit, law enforcement agency, or legal service.

And I mean that in a wonderful and fabulous way. The story of the formation of the Family Justice Center won't be the biggest surprise in this episode, but the service they're providing and the way they're getting it done, well, you're just going to have to listen to find out. [00:03:00] Faith Whitmore, welcome to the Nonprofit Podcast Network.

Thank you so much, Jeff, for having me. I'm so excited to hear what you've got to offer. You know, before we get into the specifics of the organization, I want to touch on your background because it's really quite unique. You are a United Methodist pastor, you were a district director for a member of Congress, and you've held leadership roles or been involved in other nonprofits.

Tell me how you ended up coming to the Family Justice Center. 

Faith Whitmore: So I've been blessed my entire life to be able to do meaningful work. And I look back and I can see clearly that each experience that I had, each vocation that I had, built on the next one. So I went from being a pastor to, you know, a district director for a congressman, as you said.

And some people said, well, how can you go from religion to politics? I said, well, really it's all the same. You know, there's a lot of parallels. But as a district director, you know, a lot of our work was to serve the constituents in the community and it [00:04:00] was a very bipartisan effort at that level. So it was a lot of just helping people with immigration or passports or veterans issues, that kind of thing.

So I'd been with the congressman for three and a half years. We'd built an incredibly wonderful team that was together. You know, I was confident it could carry on without me. And I was presented this job description for this new entity in the, they were hoping to create here in Sacramento. And I went down all the qualifications and I said, I'll be darned, I kind of can check every single one of those.

And it's because I'd been in the community a long time. It's because I'd worked for the congressman as well. So I had lots of relationships in the community, and that's what it needed to start the Family Justice Center here in Sacramento. So that's how it happened. It was just kind of a fluke that a friend handed me that and said, 

Jeff Holden: I'm smiling here because it came out when we were talking.

I don't know if everybody heard it, but I, I'm going to repeat it because I think it's cute. Oh, okay. So they had to have faith. That's right. Right? [00:05:00] Yeah. It so many ways. Yeah, yeah. All pun intended. And you happen to be faith. So this is a two part question. It was former District Attorney Jan Scully that was at least partly responsible for getting this thing started.

And the organization is actually part of a, uh, nationwide group of family justice centers. Can you tell us a little bit about that? 

Faith Whitmore: Yeah, so let me give a little credit to Jan, or a lot of credit to Jan. A lot of credit to Jan. Because when she was in the district attorney's office, she worked in the family violence unit before she became the elected district attorney.

And so she said these cases would come in, these, uh, family violence cases. Perpetrators, these abusers, would be brought to trial and they would be dealt with one way or the other, probation or prison or jail time or whatever it was, but the victim would just disappear. And she found herself a lot of the time thinking, I wonder what happened to her or him because it happens in both directions.

So she said, she found out about the Family Justice Center model, which has been named a best practice by the Department of Justice because of its collaborative [00:06:00] mission. And so she said, you know, I want to bring one of these Family Justice Centers here to Sacramento. And so. The Family Justice Centers throughout the country, throughout the world, actually, there are 43, excuse me, 25 countries, there are 43 states that have Family Justice Centers, and they're all under the umbrella of this Alliance for Hope, which provides structure, resources, coaching, whatever a center might need to get off the ground.

So that's how it happened, because the Family Justice Center model is collaboration, it's bringing all the services to the victim, and Jan said, that's what we need. We need to care for the people. We need to care for the children who have been raised up in these situations, so that, you know, we can provide for them hope and safety.

Jeff Holden: With that support system now aware, and people knowing that this is a much bigger than just Sacramento Entity. Unfortunately, we have that need in so many places. But [00:07:00] fortunately we do have the resource. Let's talk about the mission, you know, the actual purpose of the organization. You have a hugely broad scope of service from youth to elder, and you have so many programs if you could, Walk us through what exists underneath that umbrella of the Family Justice Center.

That would be wonderful. 

Faith Whitmore: Okay, thanks. That's, I appreciate that question. We are a one stop center for victims of domestic violence, elder abuse. And I want to stop here and say that 17 to 18 percent of the people we serve are elders. 

Jeff Holden: I saw that stat. What an amazing That's 

Faith Whitmore: a stunning Sad. Statistic. And it's very sad.

But before the Family Justice Center came into being in this community, if there was an elder that needed a restraining order, there were no options. They would go to the courthouse and they could get a packet, but either they had to try and navigate that, which can be up to 40 pages for an elder.

Restraining order petition, or they'd have to go pay somebody. So I'm so grateful that we have that [00:08:00] opportunity to serve that population. So it's domestic violence, elder abuse, human trafficking, sexual assault, and child abuse. And so our tagline is often just bring them here and we'll take it from there.

So we have all these services, but we can't do it alone. So we'll talk about the collaboration a little bit later. But in terms of the services and how we operate, we We are open five days a week, 830 to 5. We wish we were open more, but we are located in a building that has, it's not owned by the county, but it has county services.

So we have to follow the county schedule, and that limits us somewhat, but. And 

Jeff Holden: does that give you access to, to the services you need, because you're all in one, one 

Faith Whitmore: place. No. Okay. Yes and no. Not because we're there, but we create that access to all the services through our collaborations. So a client can come in the door, no questions asked, no immigration status required, no appointment needed.

So they come in, they meet with a case manager and they go through. Go through their story. They tell their story. And part of our intent is let's just [00:09:00] tell the story one time because it can be so traumatizing to repeat it. And it's estimated that a victim who needs the services, if you're a victim of, of any one of those things, you can go to 30, 40 different agencies in the community.

How exhausting is that? You know, and if you have transportation challenges or if you have children in tow or whatever it might be, or you may not even know what exists, which is Often the case. So they come in, they talk to a case manager, tell their story. The case manager does a danger assessment and we have a forum for that.

And that's very interesting. There's a list of like 20 questions and you know, have you been married before? Do you have children by a, a lot of it is geared toward the women, but we also have adjusted it for men. But in this case, do you have children by another marriage? Is, are there firearms? Has the person threatened suicide?

Those kind of questions. Then you, you. measure those on a scale and it tells you what kind of danger you may be in. Well, so many of the people fill that out and can't [00:10:00] believe what danger they're in because they, they've become accustomed to 

Jeff Holden: it and they've had to 

Faith Whitmore: survive. So they've just acclimated to that.

I liken it to the story of this frog that you put in cool water and then bring the temperature up and it dies because it's just become used to that. So that's what happens. And, okay. And then a safety plan is put in place before, during, after we, safety planning is critical to everything that we do. So there we have somebody comes in, tells their story, and then the case manager lays out what I call a buffet of options and services available.

And then together they choose what that person needs at that time. And always encouraged to come back for more. If we can't do it all today, we'll, we'll do it tomorrow or next week or whatever. And then, based on that, Many of the people come in looking for restraining orders. We have a team of four people on our legal team.

All they do is restraining order petitions all day, every day. That gives you an idea. We have as many as 30 people coming in every single [00:11:00] day. 

Jeff Holden: Mm hmm. 

Faith Whitmore: So, That's the volume of work. And we are just one of a number of domestic violence agencies in the community. So if you think we have that much and they have that much, that gives you an indication again of how dire the situation is.

So, um, As far as our legal services, the legal team will help fill out the petition, which can be 40 to 65 pages long. And cumbersome for someone who's never done it. And very cumbersome. We take it over to the courthouse. We are intentionally located directly across the street from the family court, so we can literally take that over for them.

We try and take as much off of their plate as possible. At that point, we file it for them. At the end of the day, we go pick it up. The client meets us there. there. We go over the order with them so they understand exactly what the, the court has ordered or not ordered. It's very important. And then one of the best things we've ever done is we've hired a private process server because safety is so important.

And the most dangerous time in the victim's [00:12:00] life is when the abuser understands game over. I am no longer in control. The court has taken that away from me. And so let me give you an example. Last night, this was amazing. Last night, we had a young woman come in. She had a six week old baby, bless her heart, and there she was.

She got a restraining order. She mentioned that she was going to have the sheriff's department serve it, and they do a wonderful job in the highest risk cases we've referred to them, especially if they're firearms. But in this case, we said, we can serve it for you. You know, we had already gotten her a hotel room.

We had gotten her food and diapers and everything to make it through the night. So our process server came back at 530. Picked up the restraining order, talked to her, went over there within the hour he was served, and it was a move out order. So, she said to him, you need to move out. So, the, the woman called the sheriff and said, has he moved out yet?

And they said, no, we don't have it in our system. He literally, God bless him, [00:13:00] this law enforcement officer went to the hotel, got a copy of her proof of service, went back to the apartment, and got him out so that she could take her baby home last night and be safe. What a, what a wonderful 

Jeff Holden: gift. That's in less than a 24 hour turnaround.

Faith Whitmore: That was 12 hours. 

Jeff Holden: Wow. 

Faith Whitmore: Wasn't that amazing? Yes. So having this private process server has been a game changer for safety reasons and for comfort reasons and, and everything else. So we have that. And then we have, and I'll say with this, one of the biggest gaps that we have in this community is emergency shelter.

And I define emergency shelters one to five nights. So, for instance, she could not have gone home last night. Most of the people who come in can't go home safely. And there aren't emergency shelters available. And so, we have done our best and we are doing our best to try and fill that gap. We have, our big day of giving funds all went to, paying for these motel rooms.

[00:14:00] We've contracted with a motel group to have a certain number of rooms where we can put people, they can go in under an alias, we can put them there 24 7. We absolutely will not and have not ever let anybody go from our place out into the street. We just can't do it. So we don't have it in our budget, but we are absolutely a thousand percent committed to this.

And I hope that the community will hear this and understand the dire need that we can't, we've got to provide more emergency shelter in our community for these people. So. So we provide that. We provide wraparound case management for each person. So they, that case manager will walk them through from a place of danger and trauma to one of safety and hope, whatever that takes.

So we also have a housing program. Speaking of emergency housing, we have a different kind of housing. It's domestic violence housing first. We have two people who work on this full time. We can provide each victim, client, survivor, whatever term we're using [00:15:00] at that moment, up to 5, 000 for moving expenses first and last month's deposit, incidentals, etc.

Wow. And that, those are federal funds that come through the Office of Emergency Services. That is, that has been a game changer too. You know, because we want to get, especially these families, into a safe and, And good 

Jeff Holden: location. That's amazing that there's that much money to support. And that's just an individual.

Five thousand dollars seems to me would go a long way. 

Faith Whitmore: It's a game changer. It takes them from possibility or reality of homelessness into a place where they can, you know, get settled, where they can get a job, where they can get their kids into school, et cetera, et cetera. So the housing program we have is phenomenal.

Our legal services, I want to say that we, I'm backtracking, but you know, we primarily focus on restraining orders because that's just the bandwidth that we have. We have some limited representation, especially for the kids or for the elders or for some trials, but we refer as many as we can to the Sacramento Justice [00:16:00] League.

They're a great partner and that's a group of volunteer attorneys who will take one case at a time to help through. So that's a good thing. 

Jeff Holden: Are they doing that on a pro bono basis? Yes. Wonderful. Yes, 

Faith Whitmore: it is wonderful. We have, we're so excited to have started a high risk team this year at the Family Justice Center.

And what a high risk team is, is identifying people who are at the highest risk of either, you know, death or 

Jeff Holden: Abuse. 

Faith Whitmore: Abuse, you know, I mean, really bad abuse. I mean, we always have abuse, but, you know, they're level. So these are the, the highest risk people. And an example, so So on that high risk team, God bless all of them, we have law enforcement, the district attorney's office, adult protective services, we have probation, the Bayer Clinic, all these people come together when called.

So for instance, a story about that, A law enforcement officer called us and said, I'm at McDonald's and there's a woman here with five kids. [00:17:00] She has nothing. She just ran away. Unbelievable. Can you help us? And it's like, oh man, five kids. So we said, tell her to stay there. You know, do what you need to do.

We'll be there. Well, it took us a couple of hours because first thing, we have some vans, thank God for that. But we had to get five car seats. We didn't have five car seats, so we had to, you know, pull on our partners and go buy a couple of extra, and then we went, we picked her and her five kids up, brought them back to the Family Justice Center.

She was totally traumatized. She never had a cell phone. She died. She had rarely been out of the house. I mean, he kept her under his thumb and he had beat her very badly, which is why she'd finally gotten out. So we got her into a hotel. We, we did all that we do. And she was tempted to go back because she said, I don't know how to do anything.

I can't take care of my kids. I don't have anything. So it was a long process with her, but the district attorney's office enhanced them. First of all, they found [00:18:00] the guy and he was a bad guy with firearms. You know, they were able to put bail enhancements on him while we got her settled in a safe place.

We ended up partnering with St. John's. And she and the five kids are at St. John's. They're in their fourth or fifth month there now. And they're thriving. 

Jeff Holden: It's 

Faith Whitmore: wonderful. And it's only because of this cooperation and identification of this high risk team that, you know, everybody knows if, if one of the law enforcement officers calls the hospital saying this is very high risk and we have a checklist that we can go from.

Protocol you have to follow, sure. Yeah, yeah. And identify them and we, we are convinced that we have helped to save, literally saved a few lives in that. 

Jeff Holden: Oh, I'm sure more than a few. Yeah, 

Faith Whitmore: yeah. And if not 

Jeff Holden: in the literal sense, meaning life and death, but certainly lives going forward to productivity versus, right, homelessness and, and, dependent on everything.

Right. 

Faith Whitmore: This is a state funded program. We're so grateful to the state of California because we were [00:19:00] able to put together a very robust human trafficking program. We were the first and we established the first and the only 24 7 hotline for human trafficking victims in the community. We have that number and I'm sure we'll share it.

But people, it started slow. It's all built on trust, so a few of the human trafficking victims called, word got out on the street. We got more calls, more calls, more calls, now law enforcement calls, FBI has even called and asked us for assistance, but that phone stays busy. But we, because there's so much funding through the state, we've been able to do kind of the same thing.

We've gotten these women off the street. into housing. Two partners have been great. Amazon has offered employment and Raley's has offered employment. So once these people get to the point where they're stable enough to get a different kind of employment than they've had in their past, you know, these, especially Raley's and Amazon have been patient and encouraging [00:20:00] and understanding and, and have given them jobs and some of them are just thriving.

So that we're thrilled to have that program. 

Jeff Holden: What, what an accomplishment. I had no idea that it went that far. from support all the way to employment. It's all the way. Yeah. Isn't that great? It is amazing. It is amazing. Absolutely amazing. 

Faith Whitmore: I mean, 

Jeff Holden: I, 

Faith Whitmore: I work there, right? Right. Every day I'm amazed at what our team does and what our partnerships are able to do.

Kids, we love the kids. You know, we're so dedicated. So we have a child therapy program. We thought that was critical because these kids are the collateral damage. 

Jeff Holden: Sure. 

Faith Whitmore: Everything they go through and we have another program. It's called Catch Children and Teens Creating Hope. We keep the kids engaged. We offer them opportunities that they've never probably had before.

Like we took a bunch of kids to the beach. They'd never been to the beach. They'd never seen the snow. They'd never walked on a college campus. Those kind of things to say, you know, this world is so much better. Bigger and more wonderful than you've had chance to [00:21:00] experience. So we want to offer all that to you.

And then we love this. It's called Camp Hope America. It's a camp that the program is all around building self esteem, believe in yourself, believe in others, believe in your dreams. So there's a whole program curriculum that the kids aren't aware of really. But it works, you know, so this year and the past couple years we've taken them up to Truckee to this wonderful place, it's kind of like a outward bound light, you know, so they get to go rock climbing and rafting and rappelling and campfires and all those wonderful things and they get to be kids for a week.

And they also get to have some really strong real male role models, many of them have not had that. Some of the kids who have gone to our camp, they've watched their parents be murdered, I mean, their mom. horrible stuff that they've been through. And, and kids have a hard time talking to other kids about that, you know.

But when they're in a safe environment and they know that everybody around them has been through the same thing, you know, they just lighten, the load lightens. Sure. And it's just marvelous. It's 

Jeff Holden: important for [00:22:00] them to release that too. Oh, absolutely. They've got to get that toxicity out of their system so they can move on forward.

Yeah. 

Faith Whitmore: Yeah. Some of the kids we've been doing this, actually it started even before we opened our door. So we've been sending kids to camp now for nine years. Some of those who went early on are coming back as counselors. 

Jeff Holden: Wonderful. 

Faith Whitmore: Is that great? Yeah. Taking their own vacation time and coming back. Um, one of the things we do that's probably, well, it's just barely mentioned on our website is the training that we do.

We do it for 911 dispatchers, law enforcement, emergency room physicians, There are others that we do it. And this is a hard one for people to understand and to realize, but strangulation is a huge issue when it comes to domestic violence. We didn't use to ask the question, have you been strangled? Now we ask that question.

Jeff Holden: And I did, I saw that on the website, the signs of strangulation. I was like more 

Faith Whitmore: than 50%. I would say probably 70 percent of the victims who come in have been strangled. [00:23:00] They'll sometimes say, Oh, he just choked me. Well, first of all, choking is internal, strangulation is external. Somebody can kill somebody within a minute or two.

There can be internal damage that's not discovered. Bruises don't often show up till later. Strangulation is a huge, huge thing. And, this is, this is crazy. It's been documented research that people who are stranglers are the ones who commit mass murders. Oh. So, uh, We can go down a lot of what we, you know, in, in Las Vegas and Florida and all these places.

They've been stranglers. Stranglers are also the ones who kill cops, who kill law enforcement officers. So what we do, how that translates to our commitment to training about strangulation, bringing it into the forefront. When the, we have trained 911 dispatchers to ask five critical questions while they're on the call with the victim.

And one of the questions is, have you been strangled? [00:24:00] If the answer is yes, it goes up to the highest risk. Because if a woman or person, it's usually women, have been strangled, their chances of dying at the hands of that person go up 750%. If they've been strangled more than once, it goes up a third. If they've been strangled, that means the law enforcement responding officers are at a greater risk.

So we do this to help keep our officers safe. We do this so that when they get there and the woman has been strangled, then they will call for the EMTs to do an assessment. It's horrible. We started, we created a strangulation protocol that was adopted within our community and it's also become a model for communities throughout the United States that's being replicated so that everybody's on the same page and understands the danger and the prevalence of this.

I had no 

Jeff Holden: idea. 

Faith Whitmore: Most of us wouldn't. We wouldn't have reason to, but when we live in this world and we find out this information and we start to make those connections, it's devastating. But if we can [00:25:00] identify it, then we can help to prevent it or at least treat it before somebody dies. Right. So that's what that training is about.

I'm excited to announce for the first time that on January 6, 2025, we will be launching a telecare initiative at the Family Justice Center. This is going to be a game changer, because what happens when somebody has been, you know, abused or physically injured or strangled? The last thing they want to do is go to the hospital.

They don't want to sit in the emergency room. We had a woman, God bless her, she was in there from, I think it was 4 o'clock in the afternoon till 5. 30 the next morning, waiting to be examined. Of course they don't want to do that. Especially if they have children, what are they going to do with the child?

She held the baby. That particular person I'm thinking of had a baby. So, that keeps a lot of people away from getting the help that they need. So, we've been working with a team of emergency room physicians who are willing to take these calls. We can set up a monitor at the Family Justice Center that can have a [00:26:00] telecare communication.

If the physician, the ER doc, decides that, yes, you really do need to come in, they have created this. So, the woman comes in, They don't have to go through the registration. They don't have to do any of that. Take all the resources of the emergency room. They'll come in. They've already been prescribed what they need.

So, there's a, it's called a CTA exam, for example, for strangulation. They'll get to the emergency room. She's already been checked in. She just goes in for that exam. She walks out. Isn't that great? Yes. I mean, it's going to save the hospital systems. Right. The victim's gonna get care. These ER docs are gonna get a special place in heaven.

Jeff Holden: Right. 

Faith Whitmore: And, and it's gonna be a game changer. I'm so excited for that. Well, it's gonna 

Jeff Holden: open the doors to so many more people who just, they're not coming in because they know the lag time is too long. And so they just deal with it and possibly go on to greater trauma. 

Faith Whitmore: Right. So it's, it's, I'm so excited. So that's, that's going to happen January [00:27:00] 6th.

Jeff Holden: January of next year. 

Faith Whitmore: Correct. So it's, you can imagine, I mean, we're having to do a lot of the groundwork and, and figure a lot of the protocols and everything out, but these, these ER docs are committed. 

Jeff Holden: Wow. 

Faith Whitmore: Yeah. It's just wonderful. And then another thing that we have, it's called the Hidden Homicide Project, and that's under the Alliance for Hope.

There are a number of People who have died, where the coroner has said this is a suicide, but there's a huge history of domestic violence and many indicators that perhaps this was a homicide and not a suicide. So we have together, helped pass legislation, which we hope the governor is going to sign within a couple of weeks.

It's SB 989 Senator Ashby and Senator Rubio carried the bill for us. And it is going to, one of the things it's going to say is that if there has been an alleged suicide, but there's a long history of domestic violence or any history of domestic violence, it [00:28:00] will be, it needs to be investigated. As a possible homicide.

That's huge. We have a case, a particular case that we've been working on now for well over two years. A woman was killed by her husband. We are a thousand percent convinced. We have a national team of experts that's been working on this with us. We are convinced that he killed her. But he was, law enforcement officer came in, saw her hanging, and said, oh, suicide.

Well, he's next of kin. The one who killed her is next of kin. So he was the only one who could get the records. He's the only one that they would release photographs to, coroner's reports, all this stuff. So, uh, We are working and hoping and praying that we bring this person to justice. He did go on to hurt somebody else.

He did spend time in prison. He was willing to kill the next person. He didn't, but he tried. So we know he had the capacity to do this. I believe that he did this. So, and that happens very frequently. I would imagine. It happens. They have cases all over the [00:29:00] United States. Some of the Alliance for Justice hidden homicide cases have been featured on Dateline.

You know, this happens. And we need to help people understand evidence. I wouldn't even imagine. 

Jeff Holden: The trauma gets to such an extent that it's trauma induced suicide. Maybe you didn't literally cause the, the death. Mm hmm. But over time, It was your action that forced this person into that situation. And that, I'm sure that sometimes happens as well, where you just 

Faith Whitmore: lose hope.

Jeff Holden: Correct. Yeah, 

Faith Whitmore: but these are other cases where it's just somebody's gotten away with murder. Right. So we've got experts working on that and, and we're grateful for that. We also, I'll just say the last thing, we, we just have a robust internship program. So we have interns all the time from, you know, master's level social work interns 

Jeff Holden: that help us do all this work.

I would imagine probably law enforcement or, or, or. students in a variety of different capacities. We've had criminal justice. 

Faith Whitmore: Yeah. [00:30:00] Primarily there's But we also have had therapy interns, you know, child therapist interns, and so we're grateful for their time. But, you know, they certainly help us, but Our commitment is we want to help you understand whatever fields you go into, what the issues are that will be coming to you.

Jeff Holden: Well, it's good to know, too, because even just people maybe hear this and refer and say, did you know? And you have, you know, influx of even more because more interns is better than less, for sure. We've had some outstanding. Especially based on your need. Right, right. Which is amazing to me. Yeah. The conversation continues after we recognize the folk making this program possible.

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org. We're back with Faith Whitmore of the Family Justice Center. So, crisis intervention, legal services, youth, survivor support. You have a lot of stuff going on. How many people do you have working for the Family Justice Center? Okay, so this is 

Faith Whitmore: amazing. We only have 25. Wow. We have 25. We're very light at the top.

We intentionally, we have a very skeletal crew of administrators, me, deputy director, development, and the executive [00:33:00] assistant, the rest are program people. And they do all this and they are the most passionate. committed, loyal staff I could ever imagine. They will not give up. I left last night at seven.

There were still people there with other people, you know, we just are so committed to not letting anybody go if they still need our help. 

Jeff Holden: Well, I imagine that could be. 

Faith Whitmore: Well, it 

Jeff Holden: feels like it, unfortunately, right? 

Faith Whitmore: But this leads into the collaboration, right? So we can't do everything. We absolutely cannot do everything and we don't intend to, and we don't expect to.

And the collaboration is core to the mission of the Family Justice Center. So we collaborate with a lot of community partners and it's the only way we can do it. And it's the best way to do it because there, There are lots and lots of us, and we should be working together. Sometimes we don't, and that's too bad, and that's But what drives us is what's best for the client.

If we happen to have it here, great. If it's someplace [00:34:00] else, we will do our best to do the warm handoff and get them to who can do 

Jeff Holden: it better. And you can't do it all. We can't. We absolutely can't. Again, with that scope of service, you have a myriad of people, starting with law enforcement down to to health care and then the other non profit services that exist that clearly you, you, you opened with collaboration.

You don't exist without collaboration because if law enforcement isn't, isn't feeding you in a reciprocal way, there is no service. 

Faith Whitmore: Right, right. So we get referrals from law enforcement, from the family court, from partner agencies, word of mouth, you know, they heard us on the street. I don't know, but they, they keep coming.

I'm sure 

Jeff Holden: the street is very important. Yeah. Because if somebody has a, a, a positive experience, especially I think, I'm thinking in trafficking, you know, sometimes they end up back in the situation and they can at least communicate with each other to, to say you need to go here. And 

Faith Whitmore: that's how, for the Human Trafficking Program, it's almost all been word of mouth.

Jeff Holden: Yeah. Yeah. [00:35:00] That's, it's just a wonderful group of reciprocity that you are, it's a great web to be tangled in. Funding. You mentioned the state funding the organization. How are you funded? Where does the money come from? 

Faith Whitmore: Okay, so we get federal funds and that comes through the Office of Emergency Services.

Okay. We get some state funds. The state is Supplying us with the human trafficking. And we have a small grant for legal services through the state. We have our one big fundraiser every year. We have Which is? 

Jeff Holden: What do 

Faith Whitmore: you call it? Celebration of Hope. Okay, and when does it usually take place? In September.

Okay. Yeah, and we have private foundations and we have individual donors. 

Jeff Holden: Okay. 

Faith Whitmore: So, 

Jeff Holden: we put it all together. If money weren't an object, What would the organization look like? What would be different that you do today that obviously budgets exist? 

Faith Whitmore: Right. [00:36:00] I think what we would, we would love is to have more partners under one roof.

And that's the model of the Family Justice Centers in other parts of the country. It's wonderful because we're kind of like franchises, you know. So each community supports the Family Justice Center. as it can. And hopefully it grows. So we have, for instance, a family justice center in Tennessee that takes up one entire block.

Wow. They have all the law enforcement for family violence. Detectives, everybody's on site. They have a shelter. They have medical. They have child care. They have all these partners all under one roof. And how great is that? Because then the person doesn't even have to go anywhere else. It's all right there.

We would love to expand. We are on the third floor of the of the Child support services building. The assessor used to have the rest of the floor, but she moved out. And so there's, there's like 40, 000 square feet. We would love to have all the partners in there. Rent is [00:37:00] very, very expensive, but we dream.

We dream that someday we could have like. you know, uh, Tennessee kind of family justice center. Milwaukee, another one has a whole square block. Some are much smaller than we are. Some are under the district attorney's office, summer 501c3s, which we are. So we're independent that way. That would be our dream is just to expand the cooperation, the collaboration.

All to be in one place so that we can support each other so we can support the clients. I think that would be our dream. So 

Jeff Holden: under the guise that we have people that might hear this, we have real estate downtown, which we know is vacant, right? 

Faith Whitmore: Right. 

Jeff Holden: They can do a long term job. 

Faith Whitmore: Wouldn't that be great? Yes, 

Jeff Holden: yes.

Faith Whitmore: I mean, it would be phenomenal. And, you know, the thing is, the work of the Family Justice Center and the other agencies who are doing like work, we're keeping this community safer than it could ever be. We are absorbing a lot of the costs. You know, keeping people out of the emergency [00:38:00] rooms, keeping law enforcement officers from having to go back to the same address time after time after time because there was nowhere to go.

to go before, right? Or they weren't aware of it. You're keeping them off the streets too. We're keeping them off the streets. Homelessness is a huge issue. But we are, we will not let anybody go out homeless from our place. So, you know, nonprofits fill such a need in our communities. And it's, it's hard. You know, we always feel like we're begging for money.

Because we are. Yes. You know, it takes money to do all this. But the return on the investment, I don't even know if we could ever measure it. 

Jeff Holden: I would agree. 

Faith Whitmore: Yeah. 

Jeff Holden: Because it's It's not all visible. It's not all tangible. You know, so much of it is a soft benefit that we just don't get to recognize. I mean, how do you put a value on a person who could have been homeless, who now is working for you as an employee, who's now able to feed their children, house their children, get a car, do all the things that, you know, boost the economy.

Exactly. You know, if not the mental well [00:39:00] being and that break of generational, you know, challenge, you know, whether it be, you know, violence or, or imprisonment or homelessness or whatever that cycle of poverty is, the, the more we can interrupt that. And change it, obviously the better for the community.

Faith Whitmore: Absolutely. Can I, can I say something else? Of course you can. Because I hope people are listening, but I, I want to say that we can serve anybody with any language. So we contract for translation. So that's, that will never be a barrier. It's not an obstacle. And, and I just want to mention some of our, uh, Community partners if that's okay.

Absolutely. So for instance, there's a large Afghani population here in our community And we partner with the Muslim American Society Social Services Foundation. So they are a wonderful partner Not a lot of people know about them, but culturally they are able to help and trust, you know, sometimes better than we can Sure.

Jeff Holden: So well, there's there's a faith based camaraderie and right [00:40:00] common Right. 

Faith Whitmore: Yeah. With our human trafficking program, we, we partner with Community Against Sexual Harm. It's called CASH. they do a lot of the, the boots on the ground. Adult protective services is on site with us. We have some partners on site.

I want them all, 

Jeff Holden: but 

Faith Whitmore: you know, they, they come in three days a week so that the elders, especially you have, you know, health challenges or transportation or. Whatever. They can just go into the office right there in our, in our place. So we are grateful for that. We have the Lao community development center.

They're another wonderful partner and they have a lot of resources. They can share volunteers of America. We work with them with the senior safe house, the Natoli center. So that's been a wonderful addition to our community. My sister's house is a partner. We've is a partner that all the law enforcement agencies.

McGeorge Legal Clinic. Some of the elders who come in have been abused financially. That's huge. And they are willing to take those clients because those cases can get [00:41:00] complicated. Those are legal cases. Those are legal cases and it can take a longer period of time than what we may be able to do. They have available to them.

So George has been a good partner. So we just have tons of partners and I want to give them all a huge dose of gratitude for their cooperation and collaboration and commitment to the same things that we care about. 

Jeff Holden: Not to mention your healthcare. Oh, all the health partners and your, your law enforcement partners.

Absolutely. We have the sheriff, the city police, everybody. They're great. 

Faith Whitmore: The Sheriff is on our Board of Directors, Kathy Lesser, Chief of Police of Sacramento is on our Board of Directors. You know, that, I appreciate their commitment and their care for this, you know. Well, they 

Jeff Holden: know the benefit. Yeah. And if it, if it helps them, especially after what we just learned with strangulation, the officer becomes an object now of, or a target, you know, for that particular perpetrator.

That's significant. Right. So now we go back to reality with the funding. Mm hmm. What? Today is the greatest need that you have. 

Faith Whitmore: Well, I would say our budget is 3. 2 million. It's just, I [00:42:00] say that's a relatively small budget for all that we are doing. Considering 

Jeff Holden: what you're doing. I'm just thinking other organizations that have either bigger and or smaller and where they fit into the scope of service.

And 

Faith Whitmore: yeah, 

Jeff Holden: yours is pretty astounding. 

Faith Whitmore: You know, we started with three people eight years ago and we started with, Nothing. We literally didn't have a chair to sit in. So we've built it from nothing to what it is today in eight years. And we've been blessed with the grants that we've received, the financial support that we've received from people.

But I've also held on to every penny, 

Jeff Holden: you 

Faith Whitmore: know, because I just wanted to make sure that we were always going to be solvent and that we could meet our obligations and that we would, you know, Be able to expand. So certainly financial contributions would be huge. We're facing a renewal of our lease and rent is so expensive.

We are hoping that, you know, maybe the county and some of the city entities around will see the benefit and wanna contribute. I don't know. So certainly financial [00:43:00] contributions. housing, you know, our emergency shelter. If people wanted to designate money for that, it would be life changing for the people who get to sleep safely with their kids someplace.

So those are the main 

Jeff Holden: things. So somebody can make a restricted donation and say, here's what I want it to go to. Yes. And that's important, I think, for people to understand because they may say, well, the scope of everything you do, you got the state funding, federal funding, but I'd like to give to something I know impacts me locally, right here.

And that housing is, is one of those opportunities. 

Faith Whitmore: On another level, you know, we have, we try and provide food for people who are going into these motels and stuff. Raley's has been a good contributor. They've given us lots of food that we can give. We call it hotel food, something easy to eat in the motel.

We can always take more donations of food. Meals on Wheels just last week gave us a lot of food they'd prepared extra, I guess. So it's been great because people come in, they're hungry, they spend all day there waiting for a restraining order maybe. So we, you know, nice hot meals, great. So, and then snacks for, for people.[00:44:00] 

We're starting a small boutique so that people can go get clothes and shoes and whatever they might need. So we don't, we're not asking for a lot of donations right now, but we, once we get that all up and running, we might be able to use that as well. We're starting an evergreen campaign, too, because, you know, we have people who give on a regular basis.

Some, we have one person who gives 10 a month. Well, that's huge. That's 120 a year, you know. Right. That, that adds up. We have people who give much more than that, but having a consistent knowledge of what can come in, that's really helpful when creating a budget and meeting the needs. 

Jeff Holden: I would imagine at some point you might even be able to establish some sort of an endowment for the The local orientation of it all, wouldn't that be wonderful?

We 

Faith Whitmore: really want to do that. We have somebody, a former board member actually, who has left us a considerable amount of money in his will. It's going to take a long time for that to come back to us because he had a large estate. But you know, people, I have put the Family Justice Center in my trust. I don't want them to kill me off too soon because they'll [00:45:00] get a lot of money.

But you know, that's another way to support that doesn't have immediate impact on somebody's life, but could save lives down the road. 

Jeff Holden: It's, it's just all amazing when we look at, you know, the need of a community. What's the best way to get in touch or learn more about the organization? 

Faith Whitmore: The hotline first, let me give that for the human trafficking hotline.

Jeff Holden: And I'll put this in the show notes too for the benefit of anybody that's listening. 

Faith Whitmore: Okay, that number is human trafficking hotline? Yes. 844 664 SAFE. S A F E. 884 664 SAFE. Our website is sacramento fjc.org. 

Jeff Holden: Okay, 

Faith Whitmore: we're on Facebook sa, and that one is Sacramento Regional Family Justice Center. We have an Instagram and that one's Sacramento fjc.

So those are the best ways. Our number is 9 1 6 8 7 5 4 [00:46:00] 6 7 3. 

Jeff Holden: Okay, and we will have that in its show notes as well. 

Faith Whitmore: Thank you. So those are all good ways to get in touch with us. Give us a call. We're obviously, we love to talk and there's more of me who love to talk. So. Yes. And 

Jeff Holden: people need to be spoken to and heard.

Faith Whitmore: So those are the best ways or come in, you know, and we invite people in the community too. 

Jeff Holden: Where is the location? 

Faith Whitmore: We are located on Power and Road, 3701 Power and Road. that it's known as the, you know, Department of Child Support Services. We're right across the street from the family courthouse. We invite people, not necessarily drop in, but if anybody would like to come take a tour, we're happy.

We want to do that. We want to show people. What we do and how we do it in the beautiful, we've created a beautiful space because when we were doing this, I said, you know, when people come in, it's about respect and we want to respect them. We don't want them to come into something that looks dingy and dirty and cast off.

No, here you are honored. And so we have beautiful artwork and furniture and that was a very [00:47:00] conscious choice. And so it's a beautiful, beautiful place. It's welcoming. It's very welcoming. You want them 

Jeff Holden: to feel that warmth when they come in, as opposed to something sterile or cold. Yeah. If I'm not mistaken, isn't that where we go for our traffic violations?

No, we don't. 

Faith Whitmore: People 

Jeff Holden: do. Good, But it's not the right place. for sharing that. 

Faith Whitmore: That's a couple blocks away. 

Jeff Holden: Okay. 

Faith Whitmore: Yeah. No, it's not that place. But 

Jeff Holden: it's close. 

Faith Whitmore: It's close. All right. It's two blocks away. That's on the other side of Folsom. I'm 

Jeff Holden: glad you didn't ask why I knew where that was. Faith, this has really been informative, I think, for a lot of people who didn't know what the organization was, or even that it existed, that it was an organization of this sort to, to benefit people in the community.

With law enforcement, your legal support, the associations you have with so many other organizations, it's one of the most collaborative nonprofits we've spoken to in the program, obviously by need, but, but also by value. What a great way. to secure support for the individuals who need it so much. [00:48:00] 

Faith Whitmore: And that's, again, that's based on we do what we do.

And we make the decisions we make based on what's best for the client. 

Jeff Holden: And you started, you're, you're in essence, the founder of Sacramento's affiliation with it. So you've seen it from its birth, which is amazing. Your, your passion is just exudes. And, and I love that. And I know people will hear it. in your voice in the discussion.

So thank you so much for what you do. Congratulations on where you're going, especially with the new program on telecare. I mean, that's really exciting to think that we can minimize the effort that somebody has to go through to serve that many more people. Thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for the contribution and the commitment you've made to making sure that the Family Justice Center is a significant resource in our community.

Faith Whitmore: Thank you. It's been, it's been an incredible journey and I couldn't be more grateful that I've been able to be 

Jeff Holden: proud of where it is today. 

Faith Whitmore: Thanks. [00:49:00] 

Jeff Holden: Thank you for listening to the Nonprofit Podcast Network. I hope you enjoyed the episode. If what you heard moved you, please reach out to that organization and do what you can to help.

If you like and appreciate what we're doing to support local nonprofits, please give us a positive review, subscribe, and share. If you're a nonprofit with an interest in participating in an episode, you can reach me at jeff at hearmenowstudio. com. If you have a need for the services or products our sponsors offer, please reach out to them.

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