Creative Interventions, California

I am relieved to be back in Marin County at my sister-in-laws after my Texan excursion – I lament my loss of solo adventure-seeking which has arrived with motherhood but also rejoice in the fact I have two very good reasons (three including Lyndon!) not to get lost.

After a weeks holiday in THE most gorgeous place on earth – Mendocino in Northern California, we are now back in Marin ready to pack up our six-week trip. But there’s still time for one last visit to a quirky organisation called Creative Interventions based in Oakland California.

Creative Interventions is a resource centre existing to create and promote community-based interventions to intimate and interpersonal violence, in alignment with the liberatory goals of the social justice movement. At the heart of this endeavour is the idea that the knowledge and solutions to solve the issue of violence is held by the people experiencing it, those witnessing it and by the communities in which it takes place. It also recognises that the solutions are situated in the very spaces and places that the violence occurs – within our homes, neighbourhood and communities. The idea is that we have lost a coherent sense of community and so have created a temporary community to retreat to when violence erupts– shelters, advocacy centres, foster care homes etc –but this is not addressing the root cause; the sense of dislocation, alienation and disempowerment people feel from their community – the reason they want to exert power and control perhaps?

Mimi Kim, Founder of Creative Interventions, has worked in the DV sector as an advocate for over 15 years.  She argues that the current, conventional remedies to DV as offered through the State, foster a sense of individualism, separation and dislocation. In short, when a couple involves the system they become ‘the problem’ rather than society as a whole and the only real way to achieve safety is for the victim to be separated from the perpetrator. There is little healing or resolution involved.

Creative Interventions started a research project called ‘The Storytelling and Organizing Project’ (2004) in which it invited the community to talk about alternative ways they ended intimate violence. The stories are told by survivors, by relatives, by friends, by community-groups, by perpetrators – anyone who had a story (for an example look at their website www.creative-interventions.org). Creative Interventions used these stories to build up a picture of how community-based alternatives can work. This informs their Community-Based Interventions Project which works to create and promote collective, creative and flexible solutions to fit the individual.

Mimi shows me the beginnings of a toolkit the organisation is working on that can be used by any member of the community. The idea is that rather then involving ‘an expert’ who comes with a one-size fits all solution, the community-member (eg. Faith leader, school teacher, friend, employer, victim) will use the toolkit along with other concerned members to put together an action plan. Creative Interventions will provide the space and technical assistance for this group to move forward with their plan.

Obviously, my mind starts to run towards the panic button, screaming ‘risk assessments!’ ‘safety plan!’ ‘child protection!’ but I try to quieten down enough to finish of our meeting. Mimi Kim is obviously clearly aware of these emergency lights going off in my head, she has been an advocate herself and knows all that and more. She is very clear that she is not offering a solution, she is offering questions ‘What would it look like if….’ questions that, in time, may offer an alternative to what we already have and for that I greatly admire her.