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Second section - August 3, 1994
Violence like 'a hole in the ground'
A Lucan area woman
is hoping to increase
awareness of the
costs of violence
and abuse
By Ralph Pearce
Special to the T -A
LUCAN - Talk-
ing about do-
mestic violence is
similar to riding
an elevator. Peo-
ple become no-
ticeably . un-
comfortable,
failing to make
direct eye con-
tact or staring
at their shoes.
For some, dis-
cussing the
tt-
' subject requires all
the delicacy of walking on egg shells.
Lynda Martens wants to change that.
Since April 1993, Martens has led the Lucan
chapter of HAVEN, the acronym for Help Abuse
and Violence End now). She wants to see and
end to violence in the home and the stigma it
creates. But her methods are different. Far from
identifying perpetrators, Martens wants to avoid
finger -pointing and blood-letting as many people
might desire.•= dnstaad;-st believes -education tel` --
be the answer.
Martens became involved with HAVEN
through her church and a pastoral study on fami-
ly violence which her parish priest was unable to
attend. Knowing her interest in family issues, he
sent Martens instead. And she's carried it one
step further in Lucan.
"It just made more sense in a small community
like Lucan to include all of the denominations
and include the whole community and not just
the church -goers and not just the Catholics," ex-
plained Martens.
At the time, Lucan is the only chapter of the
five HAVEN Units in Middlesex and Perth
Counties to open its doors to the community and
not just to Catholic church members, although
that step is being seriously considered by all.
But whether in London, Lucan, or Stratford, the
approach is the same: awareness and education
of the fact that violence is in the community, that
resources are locally available, and to learn the
difference between pointing the finger of blame
and identifying and trying to solve the problem.
"I really think that a community has a re-
sponsibility to prevention [of violence]," said
Martens.
The 10 members of the Lucan chapter started
out last year with a goal of studying all forms of
violence, not just spousal abuse or violence
against women. They covered issues of wife as-
sault and included violence in dating re-
lationships.
Then something unexpected happened. The
Strathroy Women's Rural Resource Centre of-
fered to open a satellite office in Lucan, to be
open Thursday afternoons. Its location is kept
confidential, to avoid becoming "too open" or
"too visible".
However, the bottom line is that information
and resources are available to victims of violence.
Having the Strathroy Centre closer to home also
allows Martens and her group to concentrate on
other issues of domestic violence; namely pos-
itive parenting.
"We hope to focus more on parenting issues in
the future," she said. "Because I think a lot of the
strength of prevention lies in the strength of
young families and parents with young children."
Martens also theorizes that failures in positive
parenting are more closely liked with spousal or
family" abuse than most people believe.'`r',
"I would Ball it a partnership - and definitely
they are connected," she said.
Part of her university education included a re-
search project on corporal punishment. Martens
firmly believes positive parenting can focus on re-
ducing the amount of physical punishment used
in disciplining children. She acknowledges it
would be next to impossible to eliminate it com-
pletely, but says it should be reduced as part of ef-
fectively dealing with violence in the family.
Her analogy on violence and its unwanted place
in society is that it is a hole in the ground with the
community around it. When people fall in, po-
lice, hospitals, or the women's shelters go down
into the hole to bring them out. In the long run,
that's a costly "social net" if the community relies
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on it completely.
Martens views HAVEN as that part of the
community that builds a fence around the edge
of the hole, allowing fewer people to fall in -
while helping build a stronger community.
Again it all comes down to awareness and ed-
ucation: trying to identify the cause of violence
and deal with it accordingly.
"It takes people in the community who care
enough about the issues to do it," said Martens.
"It can't be something that comes from us
[HAVEN individuals]; it has to be something
that comes from the community."
Martens is interested in hearing from people
who would like to help HAVEN in its work.
She can be reached at 225-21 13. Victims of vi-
olence in the Lucan area seeking help can reach
the Women's Rural Resource Centre at 1-800-
265-5390.
Lynda Martens holds the recently published newsletter from HAVEN which alms to make vi-
olence and abuse a community concern, rather than just a problem for enforcement agencies
and counsellors to solve after the fact.
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