On the eleventh episode of Telehealth Heroes, we interview Jennifer Hecker, the Executive Director of Options – Domestic & Sexual Violence Services. She talks about the challenges of helping victims in rural Kansas, how doctors can help victims of domestic violence, and the tragic correlation between the Covid-19 Pandemic and domestic violence cases.
Episode transcript
Brandon:
So today’s episode, we get to discuss a very important topic. I have with us, Jennifer Hecker, who is executive director of options, a center in Kansas that helps victims of domestic violence and abuse. Jennifer, thank you so much for your time today and being with me.
Jennifer Hecker:
Thank you for having me, Brandon. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk to you.
Brandon:
So let’s talk a little bit about what Options does and the services it provides.
Jennifer Hecker:
Yeah, so we are a nonprofit organization that works to serve victims and their families of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, dating violence, and human trafficking. We serve about 18 counties and rural Northwest Kansas. In fact, about 77% of our counties are considered frontier counties, which means there are less than six people per square miles. So more cows than people we like to say. And so that certainly brings its own challenges, you know, being in such a geographically isolated area, but we offer a number of services to, to any victim who’s experienced any kind of, that kind of violence and abuse. And our goal is to really make sure that they get the help they need, that they can heal from the trauma and move on to have a happy and productive life moving forward so that, you know, the, the trauma does it impact them the rest of their lives in a way that really causes them harm. And also to just, he inspire hope, you know, there’s hope that something good can happen next in their lives and that they, the, this won’t continue to happen to them. So, and hope dies first. So that’s one of the first things we try to try to rebuild.
Brandon:
And what are, what are the services that you provided counseling? Is it therapy? Is it
Jennifer Hecker:
It’s a whole host of services? So yeah, we do a lot of things. So we work with victims primarily and their families. So we provide free counseling. All of our services are free. All of our services are confidential, which means that we don’t ever report to law enforcement, you know, any family members, anyone else without the survivors express permission to do so. And that’s really important. That is also thanks to some federal legislation that is a federal mandate from the government that, that victims of domestic and sexual violence have that very high level of confidentiality. And so anyone can use our services for free. We have our 24 hour helpline that 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you’re experiencing a crisis of any kind, you can contact our helpline and talk to an advocate live in the moment. We also have a texting feature, a texting app so that you can, if you’re not able to speak freely, you can still text through that texting hotline where the first domestic and sexual violence program in the state of Kansas to offer a 24 hour texting and web chat feature.
Jennifer Hecker:
And that’s really important for access in a very geographically isolated area we offer, like I said, free counseling to help people just understand what’s happened to them, to validate their feelings and to figure out how, how we can help them and what supports they need to help them heal. We have a 24 hour safe shelter in an undisclosed location in, in the county where we provide services. And that’s also 24 7. Anyone can come in, that’s experienced any kind of violence and abuse. They can bring their children with them, extended family members who might also be at risk. And sometimes, unfortunately our shelter is full. And so we can overflow and provide emergency accommodations and through hotel rooms. And while someone is in shelter, we provide all of their basic needs, food, clothing. We can help them with medications. We can help them with anything that they need to, to meet their basic needs while they’re there and shelter.
Jennifer Hecker:
So that’s not a worry for them. We have places for them to store their and things like that. We also offer child and youth services. So we work in the schools, in our community and with young kids to do primary prevention and secondary prevention. If they’ve experienced violence or abuse, either they’ve witnessed it in the home or they’re experiencing dating violence themselves. And we also provide parents and child advocacy. One of our goals with that service is to really help the, the child who’s experienced abuse, rebuild that trust with the non abusing parents. Unfortunately, sometimes children do feel like the parent, the non abuse parent didn’t do enough to protect them, or isn’t doing enough to protect themselves. And so that can really have negative consequences on the relationship or the abusive parent is making the child feel like the non abuse parent, the victim is really the bad guy. And so, you know, we do a lot of reasonable. Yes, exactly. Right. Joining in that abuse. And so, so we help to really build that resilience for children and helps to end that cycle of abuse and build that trusting relationship back up again, because, you know, family relationships are important, you know, what would we do without, you know, parents and, and, you know, those people that love us being in our corner when we’re young and when we need them. So absolutely we provide an advocacy, medical advocacy, court advocacy. It’s a pretty long list,
Brandon:
The full gamut, really anything that’s needed to support it. Yeah. This is such, such an important mission. How did you get drawn into this service and, and, and feeling like this is your mission and what drew you to this
Jennifer Hecker:
In a really unexpected way? Actually, I had a 25 year career in early childhood that I, that I really love, but I’d kind of gotten to the point where I thought, you know, I’m ready for another challenge and I didn’t know what that was going to be. And so I decided to take three months off. So I left my job in early childhood and took three months to just think about what do I want to be when I grow up. And I did a little bit of cleaning therapy at home, and that didn’t take very long to get really tired of that. And my daughter worked here at options. She was an advocate and she called me one day and said, you know, I know you’re not working right now. We could really use a volunteer that could help us with some grants and setting up some, you know, internal structure things. And that’s kind of what I did in my wheelhouse of skills. And so I came one day and filled out an application to be a volunteer and a year and a half later I was the executive director. Okay.
Brandon:
There was a saw something in India that put you there. Yeah.
Jennifer Hecker:
That’s amazing. Yeah. You know, and I so interesting because I went from, you know, the world of early childhood where, you know, kids are afraid about monsters under the bed, in the closet to a world where there actually are monsters, real monsters. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so very unexpected. I never, you know, if you’d asked me 15 years ago, if I thought I would, this is a job that I would be doing, I would say now, but domestic violence and sexual assault has impacted people in my family and my loved ones. I’ve seen the devastating effects, not being believed, not knowing where to go, to get help, not getting the help that they needed, the family struggling to, you know, what do we do? What do we say? How do we help them? How do we, how do we unpack our own feelings and deal with those while we’re also trying to support this person, we love all, while we’re doing this blindfolded and have no guidance at all. And I thought I can do something for that. I can do something about that. That’s so
Brandon:
That’s fantastic. Well, as you got into this, this position and involved with this more, what were some of the biggest challenges you faced that you were like, oh my gosh, we’ve got to fix this.
Jennifer Hecker:
I think in the beginning, you know, w options has been around since 1983. And so, you know, in almost 40 years, a lot happens in a nonprofit organization, you know, things, wax and wane. And, but you keep plugging along and you, one of the things that we really took a look at early on was what is our structure? What are our policies? You know, how are we operating under new information or old information? And so that was one of the first things we did. We looked at our policies. We looked at our structure. And one of the things that we found was that in our policy and some of our policies that were meant to create safety for victims, created safety on one side of the coin, but then created a safety hazard for them on the other side, for example, at our shelters and undisclosed location.
Jennifer Hecker:
And so, you know, at the time it had been the practice for many years and is very common across a lot of domestic violence programs that any kind of public transportation, anything like that can’t happen in front of your building. And we live in a very small community. Our public transportation doesn’t really have a fixed route where you go and wait at a bus stop. They’ll actually come to your door and pick you up. And so, but you could do that at the shelter. They actually had to walk down the block and wait in an empty parking lot at a church. Now imagine being a mother with two kids and several sacks of groceries, what trying to wag all of that from the grocery store and make sure that your kids aren’t running into the street and things like that, or it’s 10 o’clock at night and you need a ride somewhere.
Jennifer Hecker:
And so you’re going to walk in the dark and stand in an empty parking lot. That’s definitely not safe. And so we worked with our local transportation department, did some training with them around confidentiality. We developed some process and protocols, and now we have real safety. They don’t have to go stand in the parking lot. They can come straight to the door. So we really looked at some of those things that were, that we thought caused or created safety, but that actually we’re creating other problems. And so we just kind of worked one at a time and it took us about a year and a half to go through all of our policies, but a year and a half later, those none of those problems existed anymore. And so, but I’m particularly proud of that work. I think that was really important.
Brandon:
Absolutely. Being in such a rural part of the state in Kansas, what were some of the challenges you faced related to just being in the part of the country that you live in?
Jennifer Hecker:
I think just the geographic isolation. We live in a resource desert when communities are so spread out and they’re not, you know, you could go to any county and there’s not enough public transportation. There’s not enough services. We, we serve 18 counties in Northwest Kansas, and we are the only domestic and sexual violence program in a 17,000 square mile area, people shelter. And there are precious few communities that have all of the resources that people need to get help, mental health drug, and alcohol, social services, you know, all of the social safety nets that, that people need to, to recover from that kind of abuse. So that’s really our biggest issue is the resource desert that we live in.
Brandon:
And what are some of the approaches and strategies that you’ve taken to address the challenge?
Jennifer Hecker:
Yeah, I think for survivors access is their biggest problem. Transportation is a big issue. Most of the folks that we work with have trouble getting transportation to, to get to us. You know, we’re an hour and a half, two hours away from some, even, even though we have two satellite, two offices, we have one here in about 90 miles away. We have another office that’s still an hour and a half for some people. And you have to make up a story to explain why you’ve put that many miles on the car. Where are you going? What are you doing? That seems impossible to, to a lot of victims. And so we’ve done several things. We created a mobile advocacy initiative a few years ago that bubbled up from our, our staff. And we have a tremendously creative staff who are always thinking, not just outside the box, but what box there is no box, right?
Jennifer Hecker:
And so, so they brought this idea of mobile advocacy. So now instead of spending our money on brick and mortar buildings in each community or county that we serve, that mobile advocate actually travels the fixed route. And we are in those communities on a weekly basis in safe places like libraries, grocery stores, schools, courthouses, wherever we could really make that partner connection. And in a place where it wouldn’t seem odd if someone were tracking their victim’s car and looking at where are they, you know, if they have the location services on their cell phone turned on, oh, they’re at the grocery store or they’re at the library. You know, those don’t seem like, you know, like alarming places where they might go and report, report something. So, so that has really helped. And then we’ve also added additional access through our texting services. That’s a pretty new service, so you can reach out anywhere and any way. And then doxy me was one of our newest ones. And so we’re, we have a co you’re probably going to ask me a couple of questions about that. And so, but we have some really cool courtroom or courthouse services that we’re going to be using with our doxy me platform. So we’re pretty excited about that too.
Brandon:
So w w so I’m curious about that. How, how does that actually work? Do you have like a, a station that people patients can go or not patients, I guess their individual victims clients okay. That they go to, and then they’re able to get access to services to therapists counselors.
Jennifer Hecker:
Yeah. So for the last few years we’ve been tracking the number of protection orders, protection from abuse and protection from stocking orders in each of the counties that we serve. And one of the things that we found was that the, the numbers of people coming to get those were high, but the number of people accessing our services to get help, to do fill them out was very low. And again, it’s about access, you know, when you live an hour and a half away, somebody doesn’t want to wait. They don’t have the time or the ability to wait an hour and a half for an advocate to come up there and help them go through all of the paperwork to fill out a protection order. So we wrote a grant to purchase some laptops, and we are going to be putting a laptop in each county, each of the 18 county courthouses that we serve and working with the court clerks.
Jennifer Hecker:
So we’re going to give them some training, and then they will be able to provide that laptop to anyone who’s filling out a protection order that has experienced domestic or sexual violence stalking. And so they can just open it up. The county clerk will push a button and there’s our virtual advocate there. And so we’ll be able to walk them through that process, which is great. Cause we were doing that over the phone. And you know, when courthouse is closed during COVID, we were, you know, we would get panicked phone calls from victims saying, I could fill out the paper. There’s nobody here to tell me how to fill out the paperwork and I don’t know what to do. And so, you know, you can do that over the phone, but you can’t see body language over the phone. And so communication is going to be so much easier. We’ll be able to read kind of what’s happening with that survivor, that victim, because we’ll be able to see them face to face, they’ll make a connection. So we’re really excited about launching that in the next couple of weeks actually.
Brandon:
Oh, that’s awesome. I’m so honored that a dox me is being used to, to help individuals like this. And so this is, this is what, what motivates us really now, do you also use telemedicine to meet with individuals directly in their homes?
Jennifer Hecker:
Yes. So sometimes, you know, even though maybe you do have transportation, but you’re sick or you’re quarantined, you know, during COVID or, you know, that was an issue with quarantining that’s when we started using the doxy mean platform, we sort of liberated that idea from some of our other sister organizations who were trying it out. And so we waited a few months to see how it worked. And then we had them give us a lesson on how to make it work and how they set theirs up. And so it was really nice to see how other, a couple other domestic violence organizations did the same thing. So, or maybe you don’t have childcare, you know, if you’re, and it’s not appropriate for the kids to hear what’s being said, they can go on the room and play, they can go outside while the survivor or the victim is talking with their advocate virtually. And so no matter what’s going on, there’s always a way that you could access those services when you can’t walk in the front door. Right. And more often than not, they can’t walk in the door.
Brandon:
Right. Right. I mean, rural and geographic barriers are one thing, but then you also add COVID to that and people have to socially distance. And then, you know, and oftentimes when there’s abuse, there’s often PTSD or other issues that social anxiety that, that limits accessibility where something like this, it increases access to care that otherwise wouldn’t receive. How have the clients and your advocates received, or what has been their response as you’ve implemented this type of remote services
Jennifer Hecker:
So far. Very good. I think there was, it’s one of those things, you know, when we started talking about technology, we’ve had this conversation for a long time and, you know, COVID, and we’ve always talked ourselves out of it because it’s better to provide them in person. So, you know, but, and we had this idea, like we were stuck with this, that’s the best way to do it. So why would we do anything else? And we really talked ourselves out of it. And then COVID came along and slapped everybody in the face and said, hold on. Now,
Brandon:
Inside the box,
Jennifer Hecker:
It’s very interesting how violent our languages,
Jennifer Hecker:
You know? And so that irony is definitely not lost on me. Yeah. So we knew that once the stay at home orders came down the pike that we could not close our doors, like other programs were, we, we actually knew we had to have the opposite. We, because people were going to be hurt. People were going to die. And so instead of making ourselves smaller and our world smaller, we flung our doors open, even bigger. And, and that really, I think was the impetus for saying, okay, let’s dust off these old ideas, the things we’ve talked ourselves out of. And let’s really think about access. We thought, and we wanted to build them in a way that once we introduced them, we could sustain them because there’s nothing more frustrating for a victim or a survivor to have a service, and then not be able to have access to that service.
Jennifer Hecker:
And we knew that just because there’s a pandemic, doesn’t mean that’s the only thing that’s keeping people from coming in the door. There are all these other factors, lack of transportation, you know, not being able to find a way to get it being too far away or taking too much time, not having sometimes the confidence. You know, you, we hear stories about survivors that drive by the building and don’t have the courage to get out of the car. And so they go, okay, I’ll try that another day. But this is a softer way that someone might be able to get help without having the exposure of coming in. Because boy, walking in our door, you feel, even though there are not a lot of eyes around you, you feel like they are and keep people. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Brandon:
Well, my video, it’s more private, you know, I know nobody else is watching. I can do this. And I get that.
Jennifer Hecker:
I can say what I want. I can be myself and, you know, meeting people where they are is always our goal. Wherever you are, however things are happening. We can meet you where you are.
Brandon:
Right. Which is what they need to hear. Not our doors are shut because we can’t see you in person. How has that been received? It sounds like you went against the grain and said, no, we were going to double down on this and really open this up where others said, Abbott, can’t do this and shut down. How has that been received from the overall community?
Jennifer Hecker:
Oh, very well, very well. You know, it’s taking because, because we are so geographically isolated and the towns are small words spread slower in, in rural communities. And so that’s, that’s been our Mo I call myself an impatient optimist. I know that things will change, but I am not good at being patient. And so that, that’s probably the hardest part, you know, it just made everybody itchy that it wasn’t happening as fast as we wanted it to. But once the word started to roll, then it just, it’s now we’re catching the fire. And so we’re really starting to see, you know, it’s taken about six or eight months for it to really get big. And I think in the beginning, you know, we were so excited about it that we were like, oh, this is going to blow up overnight. And it didn’t, and that’s okay. It didn’t mean that we did it wrong. It didn’t mean that it wasn’t working. It just, we just had to really think about why isn’t it working as quickly as we want it to, okay. Let’s just do some more, you know, social media and just getting out and, you know, having our mobile advocate out in those communities, talking about it and sharing that information and all the different, you know, we’ve got some TV commercials we’re doing now about our advocacy. And so, so we’re really trying every possible avenue to get the word out.
Brandon:
I mean, it’s, that’s just any new thing. It just takes time to, to ramp up. And, and besides just the awareness issue, what other challenges have you faced as you’ve tried to roll this out and then how did you overcome them?
Jennifer Hecker:
Other challenges, you know, I think just getting out of our own way. Yeah. You know, that’s been a little bit of a challenge and I think the staff training, you know, we, we underestimated how much D how we would need to tweak our training or change some of the training because providing services this way is a little bit different. You know, you can’t hug someone, you can’t hold someone’s hand or pat them on the shoulder. And so how do we convey empathy and compassion when you can’t, when you’re, when your natural inclination is to do this. Right. You know? And so, so that’s been a challenge and helping people just like talk through the technology, like the fear of technology. And that’s the great thing about doxy me is that if you push a button, you don’t have to download anything. You don’t have to have any, yeah.
Jennifer Hecker:
Can you, can you turn on your computer? You can use the oximeter. And so, and that’s kind of how we’ve, we’ve talked to people about it. And so that has really helped kind of change that course to once we realized that some of the fear was fear of technology and not knowing, you know, I don’t have the right computer, or I don’t have the, you know, great internet or whatever it works. And it works really well and it seamless. And, and so, and we’re, we’re just rolling it out. So we’re still kind of getting some of that initial feedback. And I think once, once our pilot project with doxy, me and the courthouses is going, then I think we’re really gonna start to see even more, even more change happen that way too. So
Brandon:
Yeah. A human nature, people are just naturally resistant to change. And when you add like complexity and like, oh, I gotta learn something. I gotta like create a password. I got to do what I can’t do it. Right. So to remove as many barriers as possible and because there’s still going to be a challenge and that’s just a personal human human challenge. So add more challenge to it.
Jennifer Hecker:
It’s true. You know, it’s funny, we want things to change, but we don’t want to do things differently. And so,
Brandon:
And I want to do it. Everybody else has to change. Not me. Yeah.
Jennifer Hecker:
Well, yeah. I want the circumstances to be different, but none of my habits to be different. And that’s just a funny fickle thing about human beings, you know, just the way we are,
Brandon:
It’s the way we are. Right. So just know no, that limitation,
Jennifer Hecker:
That limitation and roll with it.
Brandon:
Now, do you have any anecdotes or experiences or stories that are like, this is what success means for this type of service that we’re providing?
Jennifer Hecker:
Wow. Yeah, I would say, you know, one of our successes was being able to work with a survivor who’d been struggling, had not been able to get away. Didn’t have the ability to come to our office and was able to work with our client, with our avid, one of our advocates. And through that platform was able to help her walk her through a protection order, provided her with counseling, got connected. Her with several resources in her local community was able to make arrangements to, to come to town, to get some other services in another community because her community didn’t have it. And, you know, for her to be able at any point to just jump on and within a few minutes in the waiting room, there’s an advocate right there with a warm smile, soft eyes, and a soft voice that reassured her that made her feel like she wasn’t alone and gave her the confidence, you know, to, to keep going, you know, very often victims that experienced domestic violence, test the waters to see what’s going to happen.
Jennifer Hecker:
And so they take little tiny steps. They may disclose to a friend, they may disclose to someone else and, and they, their next step is based on how that person reacts. And so, or how complicated, you know, the situation is how difficult it might be to navigate a confusing, you know, social system. And so as they try those things, when they don’t work, they back up, because they’re also, they’re trying to do, it’s already complicated, but they also were experiencing trauma. And that has tremendous impacts on the brain and how you think and function. And so being able to have soft eyes and a soft voice and someone in your corner saying, I know it’s frustrating and it’s okay, and we’re going to get through this together. And you’re not going to be the little Dutch boy with your finger in the dike, by yourself, trying to fix this. You’ve got somebody in your corner anytime you need them. And, and that, I think for that particular person, that’s what she needed. She needed to know that she wasn’t alone. She needed to know that it wasn’t her fault and that someone was going to be there standing side by side, in solidarity with her. And while she walked through, you know, trying to, to cope with everything and, and inhale from it,
Brandon:
You know, it’s an, it’s, it’s an interesting analogy because oftentimes leaving your home, driving somewhere, seeing somebody in person going into the building, it’s a huge step. It’s like this. And, and it’s for many people that barrier is too much to overcome and they don’t even attempt it. Or if you can have something, a smaller step to step up to that, like a remote video call, that’s easy to step two. It’s not as challenging as that you do that. And then from there, you can step up to the, to the next step. And it sounds like that that’s providing that nice little, you know, halfway steps, the baby steps. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So, yeah, that’s incredible. And how do you see other organizations like yourself using this? Or are you, are others coming to you and say, how are you guys doing this? And how’s this working and do you see others coming around to this as well?
Jennifer Hecker:
I think so. You know, during COVID, we, we work with the Kansas coalition against sexual and domestic violence, and they, they work with all of the domestic violence programs in Kansas. And so during COVID, they brought together a group of all the executive directors of all the domestic and sexual violence programs and said, what are you doing? What’s working. And so we almost become, became like our own brain trust. And there were a few organizations, like I said earlier that had already explored doxy me. And so, you know, each week we’d get an update on how it was going and how they were customizing it and how, how their clients and the survivors that they were working with were responding to and how were their staff responding to it? And that really helped us. So we got to learn a lot of lessons before made some of those mistakes.
Jennifer Hecker:
So, so that helped us launch it faster. We didn’t have some of the early frustrations that sometimes the pioneers have, like Thomas Edison said he discovered 700 and some ways to not make a light bulb. And so we didn’t have to, we didn’t have some of those pains because others had gone before us. And, you know, and so as we started using it, then we were able to share our experiences with other, with other executive directors as well. And so, you know, we call each other on the phone and say, okay, how did you make this work? Or, you know, what was your experience with this? And what’s working in your area. So that’s, I think the most helpful.
Brandon:
So given that you’ve gone through this experience and, and got the setup, and you’ve seen the benefits of it, where do you see the future of this type of service going in relation to remote services that you’re providing like this?
Jennifer Hecker:
I think it opens the door for even more opportunity. And I think that sometimes our, our own self-imposed barriers that, that won’t work or people won’t respond to, that we fell into that trap. People won’t respond to that people won’t want that, and people happily proved us wrong, and which is good. Right.
Jennifer Hecker:
And so, so I think the technology is here to stay. And I think there’s, there is a lot of room for growth. We’re certainly doing something very different by not by not only housing, this technology inside our own building, you know, we’re, we’re getting these laptops and they’re going to be in every single courthouse. And so, so what, where else could we put them? Could we have them in school? Could we have them at college? You know, where are other places that we could create safe places for someone to disclose that they’re experiencing violence and create safe spaces for them to go and report through doxy me if they can’t come to our office and they don’t have a computer themselves, is there someplace else they can go? And so, you know, kind of creating these computer stations or these tele advocacy stations. And so I think the possibilities are endless. We just have to get out of our own way and actually let the, I try the ideas out. You know, sometimes we, you know, we always say, throw it up on the wall and see what sticks, but we’re afraid of it. Doesn’t stick then somehow that’s a failure. And all that means is that only that one little part of it didn’t work, but it doesn’t mean that it won’t work somewhere else or with a little tweak or some adjustments. And you just have to stick to
Brandon:
W one of our mottoes with, with docs fail fast and fail often doesn’t work, get rid of it, try something else. And if that doesn’t work, eventually it’ll get to something that does work and that you want to get to that success as quickly as possible. So fail fast and fail often.
Jennifer Hecker:
’cause, that’s how you learn, right? That’s exactly how you learn. And that’s, and that’s sometimes new innovation and ideas come from failure. And, you know, I think we put so much pressure on ourselves to not fail, to get it right the first time, like we have this crazy idea of perfection that doesn’t exist, but we still do it to ourselves. And so, so I love that fail fast and fail often. That’s because that is where you, where you have your aha moments and aha moments lead to really innovative services. And for us, that means better services for survivors and victims and their families. And that’s what we’re all about is creating that access.
Brandon:
And that’s, that’s ultimately the most important thing is the people that are being served and helped. And, and we got to get there. It doesn’t matter what we do to get there, just do it. And it gets done and they’re served. Yeah.
Jennifer Hecker:
Yeah. Before we had this, we had three different ways somebody could get a service from option and now we have eight.
Brandon:
Wow. So it’s just through the new technologies. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
Jennifer Hecker:
It’s weird. You know, the staff say, you know, should we be grateful for COVID because of that, you know, would we, you know, so it’s that looking at the silver lining, you know, there’s, we can always make lemonade out of lemons. And that’s exactly what,
Brandon:
And for many, for most of the health care industry is a wake up moment. Wake up call because telemedicine was here before COVID, but it wasn’t embraced until it was forced to, and then, oh yeah, we can do this. And it’s possible. And it’s easy. Wow. Patients like it. So let’s just keep doing it. Yeah.
Jennifer Hecker:
I’m glad you, I glad you mentioned that because that’s actually one of the, one of the ways that we’ve been thinking about expanding. So after we sort of pilot this in the courthouse, we are already considering our next pilot location will be doctors, offices, hospitals, you know, we, we have so many staff that go to the doctor and say, you know, my doctor asked me, or the nurse asked me, you know, do you feel safe at home? Right. And, and it’s interesting to hear the staff’s response. Sometimes they’re being asked while their spouse or partner is in the room with them. Nobody’s going to tell you the truth as the person that’s hurting you is the one that’s sitting in the room. They’re not going to answer that question truthfully, because they know what will happen. The minute they walk out that door. And then sometimes they’ll say, well, if I said, yes, what would you do?
Jennifer Hecker:
And the, the, the vast difference in responses is pretty incredible. Sometimes they say, well, I would tell my supervisor, sometimes they’d say, I don’t know what I would do, which is supposed to answer, ask the question. And so we see that as the perfect opportunity to say, okay, we can help, you know, what to do when someone says yes. And so there’s always a way you can get a patient out of the room for a private, you know, evaluation, CGIAR, evaluation, whatever that may be. And that doesn’t typically seem unusual to, to, you know, most people. And so that’s the perfect time to ask the question and then to say, let me open up my laptop and let me connect you with our operations advocate, who can talk to you right now, so that if we are too far away for, to provide a realistic response time, they can use that service that way.
Jennifer Hecker:
And it will also bring more continuity of care to the patients, because then everyone will have the same response. Let me connect you with an advocate who can help you with that. Right? And sometimes I think people are afraid to ask because they don’t know what they can do to help. And so they don’t want to open Pandora’s box, right. And hear an answer and say, I’m sorry, and then not be able to do anything. You know, that’s, that’s a terrible feeling, that feeling of helplessness. And so we can, we can get rid of all of those barriers and all of those problems that way. So,
Brandon:
And it makes sense for a place like rural Kansas, where, you know, if you’re in a large city and a large hospital, you have social workers on staff that are trained to do this. But gosh, when you’re out in rural Kansas, you, you don’t have that. And then you get into these small clinics and they have barely enough just to pay for a nurse, let alone an extra person to just for in that case, it just doesn’t happen. And this is it’s about increasing access to care and services through this type of connection. And, and you guys are really the conduit for that to happen, that you can be there any computer, it works, just have it pulled up, use it and instantly connect. If you’re able to serve 17, 18 counties now, it’s, you can, you can scale it and what you’re doing in it’s essential. Yeah,
Jennifer Hecker:
Exactly. Exactly.
Brandon:
As you’ve gone through this experience, setting up telehealth and, and increase in access through this technology, you’ve, you’ve learned what works and what doesn’t, what is the advice that you give to others who come to you who are looking to do the same thing?
Jennifer Hecker:
I would say don’t be afraid of the technology. Try it. You’ll like it. I think it is. It’s certainly affordable. People need it, create some policies around it, create some training around it for your staff before you launch it so that you’re not training while you’re sort of figuring out, oh, we didn’t think about that kind of response or, you know, what happens if you know, the dog jumps in your lap or something. So, so think about some of those things first and plan it out launch. We think also about how you’re going to spread the word and how people will be able to access your telemedicine in the beginning. We didn’t, it’s like that are, I should’ve had a V8 moment. We didn’t think about putting it on our website, like the link we were just giving it out. And I came up in a staff meeting and we were talking about it and we all just went, how did we not think about putting the direct link on the website?
Jennifer Hecker:
You know? So put it on your website. So think about, put it on your social media pages, your, your Twitter account, Facebook, Instagram, all those anywhere that people would come to find out or contact, you put your link to your doxy. Me there, create some policies, do that training and give it a try and then talk with the people who’ve actually used it. Talk with some of the clients, the victims that you’ve worked with and ask them some questions about how was it user-friendly what barriers might they have had? What, what drove them to it? What was it that motivated them to use that platform versus something else? And I think just understanding why someone chooses to use it helps, you know, how you can create better access, how you can eliminate even more barriers to getting those services. So that would be some of my advice.
Brandon:
Oh, that’s fantastic. And the nice thing about docs me is it’s one link, right? So it doesn’t change every session. You just put it up there and you just spread that you can print it and you can put it on social media. It doesn’t change. And it’s easy to then promote because it’s just one link. So
Jennifer Hecker:
Yeah, exactly.
Brandon:
Well, Jennifer, thank you so much for your time today. We’re very honored to be part of the, the mission that you were doing to help these individuals. And we are your biggest cheerleaders on the side, and we’re so grateful that you’re using doxy.me to help do this. And so was honored to talk to you today.
Jennifer Hecker:
Well, thank you so much. And I appreciate you giving us the time and, and really bringing even more attention to the issues around domestic violence. You know, as you said, October is domestic violence awareness month, and unfortunately domestic violence never takes a holiday. And so we need more awareness. Our job is to educate the jury pool and our community so that when those cases go to court, people in the community understand domestic violence and how pervasive it is. And it’s folks like you that are helping to spread the word, to get that out there, to educate the jury pool, not just in our own state, but in our nation. So that victims get the justice they need and perpetrators are held accountable.
Brandon:
Absolutely. So grateful to be part of this mission with you.
Jennifer Hecker:
Thank you so much. Thanks.
