Monthly Archive

I am packed and ready to go to Medford Oregon in the morning.  I am looking forward to a short break from holiday preparations.  I have never been to Oregon and everyone that I have shared that with tells me that it is very beautiful.

I hope to see a little bit of it, since most of my time will be spent indoors.  I am going there to certify an instructor for Darkness to Light.  I will arrive in the middle of the day before the training so I am hoping to be able to go for a walk and explore.  Who knows perhaps I will find a Christmas  ornament for the tree that can represent my visit.

Training facilitators or certifying instructors is what I love the most, I think, of the jobs that I do, if you can call it that.  Or teach the teachers.  It has been since 2004 when I took my first Darkness to Light Stewards of Children training.  It was in December that I flew from Iceland to Charleston, SC to attend their first facilitator training.

I had found since I started a non-profit in Iceland with my twin sister in April of 2004 that we desperately needed a tool to educate people about child sexual abuse prevention.  We launched the non-profit by sending the 7 steps to protecting our children (available at www.darknesstolight.org) to every home in Iceland.  The hope was that people would start to talk about child sexual abuse.  At home, at work, with their kids, siblings, partners, friends etc.  What happened was, I started getting calls…  You are telling us to talk about this – no one wants to talk about  it  – can you come talk about it?  That was how my public speaking career started.

Then shortly after, when I found that Darkness to Light had another tool, the Stewards of Children training, I knew I had to learn about it.  My presentation, that I still do today, when people tell me they don’t have the time or money to do a 3 hr training for about $35, touches on all the things that are covered in the Stewards training but not with the same detail or comprehension.  Another difference is that I share my personal story and give people permission to ask me questions, any questions about my past, childhood trauma and recovery.  It usually leads to pretty good conversation and more often than not,  people do attend a training following my prevention presentation.  I leave them wanting to learn more.

I am obviously not in Iceland anymore but in CA.  Still working on prevention, getting the word out when I can and now that I have partnered up with Taalk I am finding myself a little more organized about moving things forward in CA.

My family still takes most of my time.  I am very happy to have the time with them, to be there for my kids is what truly gives me the greatest joy of all!

At any rate I am looking forward to meeting new people, seeing a new place and perhaps forming new friendships.  At least I will have more partners in prevention – and if for nothing else I am very grateful for that.  I believe that we can prevent child sexual abuse.  It will not happen over night, but we are slowly getting there.