The FreeFrom Podcast

Season 2 | Episode 21 of 21. You can find the written and screen reader accessible versions of this report at FreeFrom.org and you can share feedback about how we can improve this audio experience at info@freefrom.org. Thank you so much for listening.

Season 2 | Episode 20 of 21. To hold harm-doers accountable while prioritizing survivors' healing and needs, we must create and expand transformative and restorative justice programs to create alternatives to the criminal-legal system.

Season 2 | Episode 19 of 21. We cannot expect a system that perpetrates a problem to fix it. We must divest from the police and instead invest in solutions that will actually keep survivors safe.

Season 2 | Episode 18 of 21. Survivors want and need access to alternative crisis support so they can call someone they trust and get to immediate safety without having to involve the police. We must create and invest in these options.

Season 2 | Episode 17 of 21. For this new ecosystem to be effective, each and every solution contributed by all pillars of our society must be grounded in what survivors say they need. This requires creating space and opportunity for survivors to meaningfully lead the process of designing solutions and support.

Season 2 | Episode 16 of 21. Whatever role each of us plays in this ecosystem, we all must be willing to invest abundantly and with flexibility and trust. The return on these investments will create a safer and more prosperous society for all of us.

Season 2 | Episode 15 of 21. We can't contribute solutions to a problem that we don't accurately understand. We must educate and engage all pillars of society and members in our community about GBV in order to create an effective ecosystem that truly supports survivors.

Season 2 | Episode 14 of 21. "When we think about when we're just out here on our own just trying to figure out how to literally survive this situation….For me, [FreeFrom's survivor-led Peer-to-Peer financial support groups] is a place for sharing hope. So at any point that we can give hope to someone I think is essential."

Season 2 | Episode 13 of 21. It is not enough to help survivors find temporary shelter. Instead we must support survivors in finding and maintaining permanent housing that is safe and affordable.

Season 2 | Episode 12 of 21. Harm-doers are actively preventing survivors from building financial security now and in the future by interfering with their education. We must make it easier for survivors to access and complete the educational opportunities they want and need to thrive.

Season 2 | Episode 11 of 21. Survivors cannot heal or recover without access to affordable and ongoing mental health and healing services, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. We must increase access to these life-saving services.

Season 2 | Episode 10 of 21. Without access to a safe and protected bank account, saving the money necessary for long-term safety becomes increasingly difficult and dangerous. We must support survivors in building the financial security necessary for safety by creating and offering enhanced banking protections.

Season 2 | Episode 9 of 21. The COVID-19 pandemic depleted survivors' already meager savings. We must support survivors in building and replenishing their savings so that they can stay safe, heal, recover, and plan for the future.

Season 2 | Episode 8 of 21. Survivors are having to contend with significant amounts of debt incurred by harm-doers, which has been compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to create pathways to financial security and long-term safety, we must make it easier for survivors to access debt relief and repair their credit.

Season 2 | Episode 7 of 21. It is not enough to help survivors find jobs. We must also support survivors in staying employed. This requires intentionally creating workplaces with supportive policies like survivor paid leave and living wage salaries.

Season 2 | Episode 6 of 21. Without access to regular and stable income, survivors cannot build and maintain the financial security they need to get and stay safe. We must support survivors both in finding work and identifying alternative pathways to income building.

Season 2 | Episode 5 of 21. Survivors know best how to allocate money to cover their costs. We must give survivors cash to spend as they see fit, so they can take care of their own unique needs to get and stay safe.

Season 2 | Episode 4 of 21. Economic abuse depletes survivors' financial resources, damages their credit, and limits their ability to find and maintain employment. In order to build the financial security necessary for long-term safety, survivors need support in both safeguarding their finances and recovering from the financial devastation of economic abuse.

Season 2 | Episode 3 of 21. An effective and inclusive ecosystem of support for survivors cannot be built in a silo. Instead, we must consider and account for how other oppressive systems compound a survivor's experience of harm.

Season 2 | Episode 2 of 21. The U.S. has failed to build the infrastructure necessary to support survivors long-term. We must build an expanded ecosystem of support for survivors that exists both before and after the moment of peak crisis.

Season 2 | Episode 1 of 21. Welcome to the audio companion to “Before and beyond crisis: What each of us can do to create a long-term ecosystem of support for all survivors”.

Season 1 | Episode 22 of 22. You can find the written and screen reader accessible versions of this report at FreeFrom.org and you can share feedback about how we can improve this audio experience at info@freefrom.org. Thank you so much for listening.

Season 1 | Episode 21 of 22. Survivors' experiences, needs, desires, and goals demand that we reimagine our response to GBV to be an enduring continuum of support that is inclusive of every survivor.

Season 1 | Episode 20 of 22. Supporting survivors in finding safety should also prioritize investment in the communities, social supports, and resources that survivors already identify as helpful and safe.

Season 1 | Episode 19 of 22. In order to provide survivor-informed evidence for police alternatives, we asked survivors who they would ideally want to call in a crisis.

Season 1 | Episode 18 of 22. We asked survivors, “In a moment of crisis or danger involving your harm-doer, would you call the police?” During the process of analyzing the open-ended responses we received from survivors who said “it depends”, our team concluded that the question we posed to survivors was flawed.

Season 1 | Episode 17 of 22. We asked survivors what resources would most help them meet their needs and achieve their goals. Unsurprisingly, the top resources identified by survivors are aligned with survivors' needs.

Season 1 | Episode 16 of 22. As you listen to what survivors imagine for themselves and their families, we invite you to envision a world where survivors have sustaining income, savings, and credit with which to build wealth, support their healing, and achieve their goals.

Season 1 | Episode 15 of 22. In addition to unrestricted cash, survivors also identified credit/debt relief and mental health services as top needs.

Season 1 | Episode 14 of 22. We asked survivors to share with us what it would look like for them to feel fully supported by our society. Much of what survivors talked about are sweeping changes our society needs to make in terms of reframing GBV as a systemic economic issue and creating a more robust ecosystem of support that is inclusive of all survivors.

Season 1 | Episode 13 of 22. In addition to supporting survivors in covering their essentials for everyday life, direct, flexible, unrestricted cash assistance should also be provided, so that survivors can build the financial security necessary for long-term safety, healing, recovery, and finding peace and joy.

Season 1 | Episode 12 of 22. Our findings here are extremely similar to what we found in our earlier research during the pandemic, further demonstrating the profoundly negative economic consequences of COVID-19 for survivors.

Season 1 | Episode 11 of 22. To measure economic abuse, we asked survivors two different questions. First, we asked folks in a yes/no format, “Have you experienced economic abuse?” 74.1% said yes, and 25.9% said no. Then, we asked if survivors had ever been subjected to 30 specific behaviors that suggest economic abuse.

Season 1 | Episode 10 of 22. Survivors in our sample have been subjected to an average of 7.5 types of harm and a median of 7 types of harm, with a range from 1 to 27 types of harm.

Season 1 | Episode 9 of 22. The cost of being subjected to gender-based violence is staggering. Research by the CDC estimates that the lifetime cost of intimate partner violence (IPV) for a female survivor is $104,000. We asked survivors to report any gender-based violence related costs they've incurred, at any point in their lifetime up to when they filled out their application.

Season 1 | Episode 8 of 22. We asked survivors if they identified as Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Queer and/or Trans. If they said yes, we asked an open-ended follow-up question: “How does your identity or intersecting identities impact your experience as a survivor?” What survivors shared is foundational to this report—it guided our approach to analyses, organizing and presenting data, and identifying takeaways.

Season 1 | Episode 7 of 22. The 2,163 survivors in our sample represent 49 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico. Folks ranged in age from 18-81, with an average age of 31 and a median age of 29. It is always our team's goal that the experience of survivors completing a Safety Fund application, (or any survey our team conducts) is inclusive. Therefore, we offer a wide range of identities for gender and sexuality as well as options to self-describe and prefer not to say.

Season 1 | Episode 6 of 22. At FreeFrom, our intention with each report we write is for every survivor who reads it to find value in it, and to see themselves in the data—particularly those who contributed to the report.

Season 1 | Episode 5 of 22. 1 in 5 survivors heard about the Safety Fund from another survivor. Investing in survivor community and resource-sharing is investing in survivor safety.

Season 1 | Episode 4 of 22. Our number one priority with Safety Fund rounds is getting unrestricted cash to survivors.

Season 1 | Episode 3 of 22. With this round of the Safety Fund, our goal was to get cash to survivors experiencing the greatest levels of systemic harm, and those who were most likely to be impacted, by the compounded economic and health impacts of COVID-19.

Season 1 | Episode 2 of 22. In the following episodes, you'll learn about survivors' experiences, needs, desires, and goals, each specific to their race and ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability status, immigrations status, language spoken, and financial well-being.

Season 1 | Episode 1 of 22. Welcome to the audio companion to Support Every Survivor: How race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and disability shape survivors' experiences and needs.

The FreeFrom team is excited to share one of our biggest projects to-date: a report and roadmap grounded in first-of-its-kind data on how race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, and disability status shape survivors' experiences and needs.