Some hope to hold onto, despite another violent death

Julie Jones was one of many people anxiously following the fate of Kathryn Rose Anderson. Anderson, 19, was found dead last Thursday on a gravel road about 5 miles outside of Owatonna. She had been stabbed more than 100 times by her former boyfriend, against whom she had a no-contact order.

"Oh, my God," Jones thought. "That could have been us."

Jones' former partner, the father of her 11-year-old daughter, grew verbally, then physically abusive a few years into their relationship. About four years ago, he set fire to her porch when he couldn't get inside where Jones and her family slept. She knew she had to disconnect from him completely, she "had to be done," but how?

Jones got lucky. She was one of a select few parents referred by the Ramsey County Joint Prosecution Unit to an innovative program funded by the county and provided through the Wilder Foundation's Violence Prevention and Intervention Services.

The program, called Strong and Peaceful Families, provides what she, and we, need at a time like this: renewed hope that the madness can end.

It's no quick fix, which could explain its early success. Begun in 2006, and operating on a teeny (and, sadly, shrinking) annual budget of $80,000, the program plucks 15 to 30 families a year and offers them every service imaginable -- housing, clothing, food, schooling if they want it, mental health referrals, counseling and coaching to understand the roots of violence and how, with proper tools, they can bust out of it permanently. Some families need just a few months. Others, like Jones, aren't ready to let go for several years.

"Julie recognized that the only way out was to go through, and she was courageous enough to do what it took, even when it was frightening," said licensed marriage and family therapist Megan Vertin, Strong and Peaceful Families' former program coordinator. Today, Jones works full time for Hearth Connection, a homeless advocacy program. She has an associate degree in business from St. Paul College and a new home in Frogtown. Life, she said, is "wonderful."

The focus of the program, though, is not on the perpetrator or victim. It's on those watching the violence from behind the door.

After creating a joint domestic abuse prosecution unit between Ramsey County and the city of St. Paul in 2000, County Attorney Susan Gaertner said that a "critical component" still was missing -- "enhanced services to the invisible victims, the kids in the shadows, listening to the actual blows."

Research consistently shows that those young victims, whether they are abused themselves or witness violence, often become perpetrators. Few programs address children's needs in the way Strong and Peaceful Families has, by offering abundant resources as well as the essential vision of seeing their parent healthy and in control.

While the Violence Prevention and Intervention Services program has fallen victim to budget cuts, Donald L. Gault, who manages the Peaceful Families initiative, is certain it will continue in 2010, although with a slightly decreased budget.

Gault, who has devoted 20 years to violence-prevention work, understands better than most what we risk if that work doesn't continue. He loops back to Anderson and 21-year-old Ryan S. Hurd, who confessed to the killing.

There was somebody for Jones to talk to, for as long as she needed.

"Megan followed me step by step, with suggestions and feedback," said Jones, 45, who also has two adult children. "She also told me when I was wrong. People don't do that."

Jones now communicates occasionally with her former partner, who struggles with mental illness and addictions, but only about their daughter. She never speaks ill of him to her daughter. "Everything he did went back to the drugs and alcohol and mental illness," she said. "I don't hate him. I wish the best for him."

And the best for her kids. Her daughter, once withdrawn and fearful, is now "talkative, outgoing, fun," Jones said. "I grew up seeing violence and I assumed that was the way it was. It's time my kids see something different."

Two good resources

• www.co.ramsey.mn.us/ph/hb/violence_prevention.htm)