Inside Arvada

Inside Arvada's Victim Services with Jennifer & Don

• City of Arvada • Season 1 • Episode 26

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Arvada partners with two organizations providing support and healing for victims of crime and child abuse in our community. Jennifer Griffin of Victim Outreach Incorporated and Don Mosley of Ralston House discuss their organizations' missions, services, and unique partnerships with the City of Arvada. Mentioned in the episode:

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Visit us at ArvadaCO.gov/Podcast or email us at podcast@arvada.org.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Inside Arvada, the City of Arvada's podcast, where we bring you conversations with the people who make Arvada a thriving community. Hear stories about the past, present and future of Arvada through the lens of the city team members who help make it all happen. Explore the complex topics impacting our community, from the roads you drive to the water you drink, the parks where you play to what your neighbors think. Join us as we take you Inside Arvada.

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Inside Arvada, the City of Arvada's official podcast. We are doing things a little bit different in this episode, and so we have some community partners on with us, and so we're going to have two interviews, one after the other, in this episode. April is National Childhood Abuse Prevention Month, and then the week of April 6th is also Victims' Rights Week, and so both of our guests today from Ralston House and Victim Outreach Incorporated work really closely with the city in relation to the work that they do with victims of crimes and child abuse prevention, and so we wanted to bring on the executive directors of those two organizations to talk about how they work with the city and really are super closely tied, as you'll learn in these interviews, to particularly the police department for Arvada but also for a lot of our surrounding communities North Glen and Gilpin County and you'll hear all about kind of some of the different places that they work and support our local Arvada community but also our kind of surrounding areas and yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and so recently we had our first two guest episode. This is our first two segment interview episode. So just some very powerful and impactful work that both Jennifer's and Dawn's organizations do, and it was great to learn about what they do, how they work with the city, how they're partners with the city, and so we'll begin with Jennifer Griffin. They work with the city, how they're partners with the city, and so we'll begin with Jennifer Griffin. She's dedicated over 25 years to supporting individuals affected by crime and trauma, and her expertise encompasses training, law enforcement, prosecutors, human service organizations and community members. Her dedication was recognized with the Outstanding Victim Advocate Award from the Colorado Organization for Victim Assistance. Hi, jennifer, welcome to Inside Arvada Podcast. Thanks so much for joining us. Let's begin by telling us a little bit about yourself and the work you do for Victim Outreach.

Speaker 3:

Yes, Well, my name is Jennifer Griffin. I'm the co-executive director of Victim Outreach Incorporated, also known as VOI. We collaborate closely with law enforcement agencies, including the Arvada Police Department and six different police departments in Jefferson County, Colorado, to provide comprehensive victim services in our community. Our mission is to empower victims by offering resources that protect their rights and promote safety, healing and hope victims by offering resources that protect their rights and promote safety, healing and hope. We envision a community where individuals impacted by crime and trauma lead healthy, productive lives, and we're guided by our core values of advocacy, healing, empowerment, justice, ethics, and we strive to treat victims with fairness, dignity and respect while supporting their recovery journey. We're also known as VOI, so at Victim Outreach VOI, we're dedicated to making a significant impact in our community by providing these essential services to victims, children, survivors, and ensuring that they receive support and resources needed to navigate their healing from their journey.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's really just like a lot of really important work and really heavy work. We've had a couple interviews lately with some really kind of heavy and important work, and so I just want to give that like the space that it deserves for what you do. Thank you for everything you do and how you support our community, and so that's a really great kind of overview. What does that look like in practice? What should folks know about the work that you do?

Speaker 3:

Yes, well, in working in partnership with our police departments, we provide on-scene response. So basically, whenever there are about a police department is working with someone who's a victim of crime or trauma, they call upon us and then we respond out on scene so we can respond anywhere from someone's house to an apartment, to an intersection where there may be a traffic fatality. We'll respond out with law enforcement to meet people who are experiencing this trauma and provide immediate crisis intervention. Victims of crime we'll advise them of their rights resources, provide information and really just crisis intervention to help them through their tragedy or their experience.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and what more can you kind of share about the relationship with the police department, the Arvada Police Department, because most of the guests we have on here work for the city or work directly with the city and so how did that? I don't know if I'm putting you on the spot a little bit, but the history of the partnership with Arvada PD, how long does that go back and how closely do you work with the Arvada PD?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, we started providing victim services I want to say maybe 2012. So it's been a while.

Speaker 3:

Historically, arvada Police Department had their own in-house victim services and as a nonprofit, we've been providing victim services in Jefferson County since 1986. And so there was a commander. Our liaison at the time reached out to victim outreach and asked if we were interested in providing law enforcement-based victim services for Arvada, and we did so. We became a partnership when we have a contract with Arvada Police Department along with other police departments to provide their victim assistance. So we're basically in-house. We have an advocate at the police department every day, we have a cubicle over in investigations and we're available to our officers whenever, 24-7. So they can call us and we'll respond out to that scene.

Speaker 3:

We also do a lot of training with our police departments. It's important that law enforcement have an understanding of how to provide trauma-informed care and victim-friendly services, and so we're constantly going in and providing in-service training, along with some other training at the police departments, to help officers understand how it is to communicate with victims, because sometimes it can be challenging. They have a lot of things on their plate. Officers specialize in so many different things and to be able to utilize our service to be able to help make sure we're providing victims with their rights and resources. It's a great partnership. We really work hand-in-hand together. We've also learned that when victim services is provided and offered to victims, it really helps the prosecution of a case. So making sure a victim feels valued and heard and treated with fairness, dignity and respect. We can help facilitate some of that with our police department and be able to help the investigation process make it a little bit easier for our victims and our community.

Speaker 1:

Is there something that you talked about training kind of generally. Is there specific training that police officers go through to know like signs, or maybe there's like certain types of crimes, I don't know, like a traffic accident, maybe wouldn't kind of bring you to the scene, but how do they know when to call you guys or kind of activate victims outreach?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's really up to the officers. So we are officers, are trained and aware that they can call us whenever someone's experiencing trauma or a victim of a crime, so it's strictly up to them. If they have somebody that maybe a loved one died at home in a natural death, but that's, you call 911, you don't know what to expect, it can be very overwhelming and emotional. They can just call us and we'll respond out on scene. So it doesn't have to be a crime, it can just be any kind of incident that we can respond and meet with people, explain to them some resources available.

Speaker 3:

It's helpful to have someone explain the process. Why are officers taking pictures? Who's going to see these pictures? I worked with a domestic violence victim who was really afraid to have her pictures being posted on social media, and so once I was able to help educate her to say that this wasn't going to be posted on social media, but this is who's going to be able to see those pictures and the benefits to the criminal justice process and why officers might need those pictures was very helpful. To really give that information, help a victim, empower a victim to make some choices and decisions and know that they have rights in the process too. So we're very thankful for the partnership with law enforcement that they call us out and we can work collaboratively to help our community.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's great. Well, one of the reasons we wanted to have you on now is that April has Victims' Rights Week, the week of April 12th, and so can you tell us a little bit more about what that week represents and kind of what's going on?

Speaker 3:

Absolutely so. The National Crime Victims Rights Week is an annual observance that promotes victims' rights and services across the United States, and in 2025, it will be commemorated April 6th to the 12th, and this year the theme is kinship, connecting and healing. It really emphasizes the importance of shared humanity and supporting all survivors of victims of crime and, in alignment with that, in Jefferson County, we have our annual Courage Walk and that's going to be held on Saturday, april 12th, where participants gather in front of the Jefferson County Courthouse A lot of people know it as the Taj Mahal Building in Golden and basically we proceed. There's a courage garden behind the courthouse and so we walk from the beginning of the courthouse all the way to the back and it's really a space dedicated to commemorating victims and survivors. It's a great opportunity for everybody to gather and be thoughtful about the victims in our community.

Speaker 3:

We have the sheriff's department they make a welcome All of the different police departments in Jefferson County. We have the chiefs read names of victims and survivors and really, really stubs. It's a really great event to honor crime victims in our community. I think the walk is like 0.3 miles right, so it doesn't take very long and sometimes people can actually cut through the courthouse if they don't want to do the walk around the building. But it's really a great event to gather people to respect everything that people are going through.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thanks for sharing that. I used to work for the county and that Courage Garden. It's a really neat, beautiful place back there. So anyone who is interested in attending that's coming up here April 12th Before we go to the lightning round. We wanted to provide to you the opportunity to clarify or clear up some things about the work you do, perhaps maybe some volunteering opportunities that folks might be interested in.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely, I would love to. We are a nonprofit agency, which means we're also volunteer-based, so volunteering with victim outreach offers a unique opportunity to collaborate directly with law enforcement agencies, providing immediate support to individuals experiencing trauma. As a volunteer victim advocate, you can respond on scene along with our police departments and our police officers, to provide emotional support, essential resources to victims in critical moments. This role allows you to have a significant impact in your community, insisting those in need and promoting healing and recovery. We provide a comprehensive 40-hour training with a lot of continued learning opportunities. It's just really a great opportunity to give back and partner with the police department and get to know your police officers that are serving our community. It's really a great opportunity. We hold two trainings a year, but our victim advocates are part of the law enforcement family and part of our team, and our law enforcement officers respect us and they see us as an important part of this process, and so we're so thankful for that. But it's a great opportunity to be involved in your community, to be a volunteer victim advocate.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you mentioned before that before we started that the it's a 20 minute response time for those support services to be kind of at a crime or a accident or anything, and I think that just kind of speaks to the like neighbors helping neighbors piece too. Absolutely, these are community members helping one another and so having those folks locally that are supporting one another is a really unique opportunity.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. I mean, it's so—when officers respond to a scene and they want someone to help, we want to get there as quickly and efficiently and safely as possible. So our volunteers all live very closely to our responding jurisdictions and you know, it's a great process, it's a great opportunity and just so thankful that we have people in our community that are willing to help each other. And that's one of the things that is special about Arvada is the community members. They're so special.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. We can include a link to the volunteer information on the website.

Speaker 3:

I would imagine you have that in our show notes, so check that out.

Speaker 2:

If you're listening, I think we're about ready for the lightning round. This is Katie's segment.

Speaker 1:

She specializes in it, so I'll turn it over to her. Okay, quick questions for folks to help get to know you a little bit better.

Speaker 3:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

What's your favorite thing about Arvada?

Speaker 3:

I think I just mentioned it the people, the people are amazing here. It's such a great community and everybody is just dedicated to helping each other. There's so many nonprofits and other opportunities for the community. So I would just say the people here are special.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, definitely Okay, First, last or best concert.

Speaker 3:

Paul McCartney in Toronto Years ago. It's like I'm aging myself. It was in the early 90s I think, but it was a great concert.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome. What brought you to Arvada?

Speaker 3:

You know, I think because of the work that I do with Victim Outreach. That's really how we got connected to Arvada, and I love it here. It's a great department. The people in the city are amazing too. What was your first job? Oh goodness, my first significant role was an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer. Some people are aware of that. It's like a domestic Peace Corps program and that's really what brought me to Colorado. I'm originally from New York and I started I assisted in developing a suicide prevention hotline.

Speaker 1:

Very cool. What has been your favorite project that you've been a part of?

Speaker 3:

We have this project that we started a couple years ago that I assisted in developing a juror assistance program for Jefferson County, colorado. It's basically an initiative that addresses often overlooked issues of jurors experiencing trauma. I think when you're selected for service as a juror, you really don't know what you're getting into and you might not have a job or even understand what it's like to be exposed to a 911 call or severe injuries or a homicide, and so there really wasn't anything set in place for jurors. After you know you listen to all this horrific stuff in a trial and then we're like thank you for your service. You know best of luck to you, and so this was a program to really help jurors understand what vicarious trauma is, what resources are available to them, and really help them know that, what some of the normal trauma reactions. If someone's having a hard time sleeping, that that's okay, that's normal, but let's get you some services.

Speaker 1:

That's very cool. Yeah Well, thank you so much, Jennifer, for coming on with us today. We really appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 3:

This was a great opportunity. I appreciate it.

Speaker 2:

Thanks, jennifer, appreciate it All right. So our next interview is with Don Mosley, the executive director of Ralston House. He's been in that position since 2006, and he's worked in nonprofits since 1980. Throughout his career, don has worked with victims of crime, homeless families, abused and neglected children and youth and adults suffering with long-term mental illness. Hi, don, welcome to the Inside Arvada podcast. Thanks so much for joining us today. Let's begin by telling us a little bit about yourself and your work that you do with Ralston House.

Speaker 4:

Sure, well, thanks for having me. I'm the executive director of Ralston House and Ralston House is the child advocacy center for the 1st and 17th judicial districts, that's, jefferson and Gilpin counties and Adams and Broomfield counties, and we're a nonprofit. But we're a little different than most nonprofits in that the only people who can refer to us are police, social services or district attorneys. And they refer to us for kids who they think are suspected of being abused, and three types of cases. Really, about 70% of our kids we see are suspected of being sexually abused, 15% have been severely physically abused or long-term tortured and 15% are kids who have witnessed a violent crime, primarily homicide, domestic violence, any kind of crime that might traumatize a kid. And we provide them with three services. We do forensic interviews. These are specialized interviews. We have specially trained interviewers who can do those.

Speaker 4:

Police, social services DAs watch from another room. It's all recorded onto a flash drive and that way they can watch it over and over, so we don't have to bring those kids back in and re-interview them time and time again. These interviews are fascinating in that they're not. Our interviewers aren't allowed to bring up anything about the crime, so they start Not by saying tell us what your coach did, your uncle. They say hey, I'm somebody who talks to kids. Tell me what you had for breakfast this morning. From that question gets kids to talk about their victimization in great detail Sight, sound, smell, touch, taste, texture, all those things which then investigators can use to investigate those cases. And again, they have to be sure that they're not leading, that they're not pushing the kid in any direction and we're not there to prove a police officer's theory. We're there to get the kids to tell their story and that we don't re-traumatize the kids during that. If we felt like we were and that we don't re-traumatize the kids during that, if we felt like we were, we would end that interview immediately. And in the 18 years I've been at Ralston House, I think once or twice we've had to end an interview because a child was becoming traumatized. They also have to be able to defend it in court because with that interview shown, they have to be able to answer for defense or prosecution. Why did you choose that word over this word? What made you go this direction with that? What research did you base that on? And they have to be able to answer that.

Speaker 4:

Most of us don't have somebody watching over our shoulder every minute of our job. They do. They have that. We do medical exams. We do pediatric sex assault examinations. We're outside of Children's Hospital and Denver Health and Hospitals. We're the only other setting in the metro area that does those.

Speaker 4:

We will find evidence in very few cases, less than 5%. That's not why we do it. We do it to make sure the kids are physically okay. We can do sexually transmitted disease testing if we need to. We will look in their ears, listen to their heart and do all that kind of stuff Because sometimes, if their parents are their perpetrators, they may never have been to a doctor and so we want to make sure they're physically okay. But really, what our medicals do, more than anything else besides ensuring that they're physically fine, is they help the families and kids with mental health because they think their kids are broken.

Speaker 4:

Kids think they're broken and what our doctor can say is we almost never see any long-term injuries from these kind of sexual assaults and that these kids can grow up and live great lives. You know, get married, enjoy sex, have children go to college all those kind of things that parents and kids wonder well, am I going to be normal? Will that happen to me and parents say you know, will he be gay or straight because of this? He'll be who he's going to be. This doesn't make you one way or the other, but they don't know that. Kids don't know why their body reacted the way it did, what was going on. Our doctor can take the time and explain that. And it is a comfortable exam. Every kid fills out an eval. You see these things like on SVU that show these exams and people are crying. Every kid fills out a survey for us and they say didn't hurt and was comfortable. Almost 99% of the kids didn't hurt and was comfortable.

Speaker 4:

Because we give two hours to do a 15-minute exam, we provide victim advocacy for both the parents and kids so that we're making sure they are comfortable. The kids are comfortable before they go into the interview and when they come out they're doing great and that they're ready to leave. If they're not comfortable yet, then they don't leave Ralston House right away. We can sit and work with them for a while longer.

Speaker 4:

For the parents, we're trying and I say parents, not offending parents or caretakers we're trying to make sure they get all the information they need to proceed forward. They're going to want to know about what the legal system might do. How will this affect our family? And we're going to try to get them to focus on that. How can you and your child heal? We'll make referrals to appropriate therapists. We will sign them up for a program that pays for all that, so they don't have to pay for that therapy, and we're going to follow them as long as they want to be followed and try to provide whatever resources they might need to make sure that they and their family heal in the long run, whether it goes to court or not. So those are really the main things we do at Ralston House, yeah that's fascinating.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's just a huge umbrella of work. I mean we talked about this with Jennifer too, just like it's such heavy and big, important work, and you kind of were talking about how the victims get to the space of being with you. I imagine one of those routes is through victim outreach, and can you speak a little bit more about kind of like how that process works to get a lack of a better word client to you all and then like so it sounds like you have people with a variety of different professional backgrounds on your staff?

Speaker 4:

We do.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 4:

Primarily. I'd say most of them are social work or mental health. We have had we don't have right now, but we've had ex-police officers who had done interviewing. But even with those backgrounds our forensic interviewers have to go through additional extensive training Once a month. They have to have somebody review some of their cases. They do what they call peer review, where they sort of try to tear each other down so that they can do a better job down the road. And then all our staff get additional of at least 40 hours additional training in some subject that we're dealing with, so that we constantly try to keep our staff up to date on all of that.

Speaker 1:

And then can you speak a little. My first part of that question was kind of more like how does that process work to get from kind of moment of identification to you all?

Speaker 4:

What typically happens is some adult hears or suspects something from the child. Maybe a child comes home from school and seems upset and might tell their parent. Most of the time it's accidental. You have a four-year-old act out something sexual that they shouldn't know. Somebody sees a text message, somebody walks in on something they tell a friend, something they're concerned about. Who tells that friend's mom? And somebody in the public makes an outcry to police or social services. At that point an outcry to police or social services. At that point police will do a quick what we call minimal facts interview. Just get some minimal facts to say what does this seem like? Does it seem like physical abuse, sexual abuse? Who might the perpetrator be? And is this kid safe right now or do we need to do something immediately? Then police or social services one of the two calls us and says we want to set up an appointment.

Speaker 4:

At that point VOI all the police agencies we work with bring in a victim advocate with them. So one of our victim advocates work with the family and one of theirs and with Arvada, for instance. Voi is their contractor to bring in to provide those victim services. So they work closely with the Arvada Police Department. They will come in and work with that family and then, as that family goes along, they can turn to VOI and say, hey, where's the officer at at the investigation? Because often they feel they don't want to interrupt the officer or that, and VOI can be that conduit between them and police. Plus, voi knows all the resources to be able to get them. So we work with VOI hand in hand.

Speaker 4:

Once those victims come into our facility, voi also may, if something happens and they're called on scene, they may have met that victim even before they came into a Ralston House. Sometimes it's not, it's a report after school, it's somebody at school, the kid's safe. There's no reason we need a victim advocate out that night, but the next day or week when they might come in, that's when VOI would meet with them. At the same time our staff is working with them and so we both. We want the whole system, the reason we have victim advocates, police, social services and DAs, all there is, so we're not going off in different directions, that we are all working in a coordinated fashion. So this family is getting the best services they can get and that investigation is getting the best investigation it can have, because we want to make sure those kids are safe, and we also don't want anyone who hasn't done something accused of something.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I know shifting gears a little bit. Arvada is one of several municipalities that you work with, but with a name like Ralston House. Half the things in Arvada, I feel like, are named after Ralston. Can you share a little bit about the history of Ralston House and how it relates to Arvada, because I know I think it started here right and now it's expanded to other like what? Lakewood and North Glen?

Speaker 4:

do I think it started here right, and now it's expanded to other, like what Lakewood and North Glen do. Yeah, ralston House was started in 1990 by the Arvada Police Department and at that point we were called the Arvada Child Advocacy Center. It wasn't until I was hired 18 years ago that they really decided they needed to. They had requests from other departments to expand and they actually brought me in to expand it out of Arvada. And that's when we changed the name, because a lot of the other police departments were like well, we're not Arvada. We don't like saying we go to the Arvada Advocacy Center. And when our board renamed us, one of the reasons we named it Ralston was to honor our Arvada roots.

Speaker 4:

And we have a very unusual relationship with the city of Arvada in that we serve all four of those counties, every police department, human service agency and the prosecutors from all those areas. But city of Arvada, all our employees at Ralston House become City of Arvada employees. We have to raise the funding, so the city doesn't give us money to pay for salaries or any of that, but they provide in-kind services. So our staff of about 18 people get all the services that Arvada employees do. So we buy our benefits through the city of Arvada, which gives us incredible benefits compared to what we'd be able to afford as an agency of 18. Arvada provides legal services to us, payroll human resources services to us, payroll human resources, our finances it's one of the things I can tell donors. Our finances go through the city of Arvada and you can look at those books anytime and see how we spend our money. And I don't even have a bank account. It would be very hard for me to you know, maybe I could charge something on my purchasing card, but I'll get caught me to. You know, maybe I could charge something on my purchasing card, but I'll get caught. So we can assure our donors that we are safe and it saves us so much money from that.

Speaker 4:

Our building is provided by the city of Nevada.

Speaker 4:

They clean it inside and out and that may not seem like a big deal. But if you look at any of our, if you look at our Nevada site, it is beautiful inside and out and families often tell us they feel respected and that's an odd thing for somebody to say. But many nonprofits can't afford to keep their places nice and when they walk into ours they're like it is beautiful at Arvada. Who do the maintenance take a little extra care of us, because they understand what it means to walk into a clean, perfectly maintained facility when you're dealing with these kind of crimes, and so it saves us money that then, when we raise funds because we don't charge for any of our services we can use those directly for supplies for our clients for medical exams, those directly for supplies for our clients for medical exams and to pay our staff, and we're not having to raise a lot of other funds and it's an in-kind service for Arvada. They're not having to hire a new accountant to deal with our small amount of money, but for us it's a great savings.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's just such a unique structure and I don't know, gives the warm and fuzzies a little bit.

Speaker 4:

I guess it really does to us.

Speaker 1:

Well, and April is a big month, for that's why we wanted to have you two on, so it's also in addition to Victims.

Speaker 2:

Victims Rights Week. Thank you, I've been using that. There's a week and a month, yeah.

Speaker 1:

So it's also National Child Abuse Prevention Month and folks maybe are a little bit more familiar with that because there's the blue pinwheels, that are all over town. So tell us a little bit more about the month and how folks can be a part of it.

Speaker 4:

Well, april is Child Abuse Prevention Month and we are some people know us only through our pinwheels. We sell blue pinwheels that's the color of the month and pinwheels are a symbol that has been used around the country for child abuse and we sell those and ask people to plant those all over the cities we work in. It does two things it is a fundraiser for us and I don't want to act like that's not one of the reasons we do it but it is also a remembrance that we do have children who get hurt and that they can heal. It's not a sad symbol. It's a symbol that kids can heal and I've talked to adult victims who, when they see those, one of the problems, especially with sexual abuse, is that kids believe they did something wrong and they never do anything. It's always the adult who's doing something wrong to them and they say, when they see those, it's a sign to them.

Speaker 4:

Other people get it. It's a support to them that you know people understand it wasn't my fault. It's a support to them that you know people understand it wasn't my fault. And it is such a stigma for kids that I don't think we can conceive the average. If you're molested under the age of 18, the average age you're going to tell is 52 years old Because you believe it's something in you instead of realizing it's something in the person who hurt you. You just happened to be the person who got hurt and not because of anything you did, so pinwheels one. It's a nice fundraiser to us, but, more importantly, it's a way of communities sending a message back to their children and victims that not your fault and if we can get that through, then we wouldn't need places like Ross House, because kids would just tell. Part of our reason we have to have these specialized interviews is kids don't want to tell and our interviewers know ways of helping them get this out.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, you know seeing those pinwheels around town and not quite sure what you know the significance of them. So what a cool campaign that not only does it bring in money but it also spreads information and awareness. And just such a cool campaign Before we go on to the lightning round. Was there anything else you wanted to clear up about the work that you do? You were very thorough in a lot of your answers.

Speaker 2:

So I think you covered it all, but I wanted to provide you that opportunity of any misconceptions or any final thoughts.

Speaker 4:

You know, I think we're always going to say we depend our kids who we see have all come in because some adult heard or saw something and was brave enough to make that report. And we understand making a report on child abuse is scary for adults. But imagine what being abused is like and hoping someone will see or get it. At Ralston House we have these marble jars and when a kid leaves we have these big, giant jars and they're full of marbles and when they leave we will have a kid take out of a small jar a marble and say will you please put this marble in so we can remember you and you can remember all these marbles represent other kids. You're not the only one this happened to, so it's not about you. Represent other kids. You're not the only one this happened to. So it's not about you.

Speaker 4:

And we had a kid last two summers ago say to us a nine-year-old turned around to the victim advocate after he dropped his marble in and he said that's a jar full of courage. And I think if you're an adult and you're suspecting something and you think maybe I won't say anything, we have a jar full of courage. You can be as brave as these kids because he knew talking about this takes a lot of courage. So to the victims out there, to people who might think they know you know, suspect something, talk about it. It's not the kid's fault and it's up to adults for us to make the reports when we know Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, only the second time they've got me crying on this.

Speaker 2:

I know I'm sorry. Seriously, yeah.

Speaker 1:

But our homelessness navigators got me, and now you've got me.

Speaker 2:

I was just thinking that in the back of my mind.

Speaker 1:

I'm like, wow, this is getting emotional, it's really important work and we appreciate the stories and the anecdotes and just everything that you do and we're happy to share it with our listeners. So on that I'm going to move us to the lightning round. We're going to do just some quick questions for folks to get to know you a little bit better. So first, what's your favorite thing about Arvada?

Speaker 4:

I think it's their generosity. The city I mentioned we serve other counties. When we first went to the city council and said you know, if we serve other counties, can our staff still be part of Arvada? They said yeah, they're our neighbor's kids, we'll help take care of them too. That's something you don't hear other cities say and it is truly amazing that the city did that and the residents of Arvada were our first supporters and continue to be one of the biggest groups that support us.

Speaker 1:

It falls under hidden gem for me. Yeah, First, last or best concert.

Speaker 4:

I'll go with. My first, which was to show how old I am, was Three Dog Night at the Forum which is in Englewood, california Dog Night at the Forum which is in Englewood. California Okay, nice, I can't say I'm familiar, yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2:

I don't know if that building still remains?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, it's not Even the building is not around. What brought you to Arvada. It was the job that brought me to Arvada. I was working at another nonprofit and I saw that they were going to expand this, and it's something my heart's always been in is with kids, and I thought I want to try this and I was lucky, somebody hired me.

Speaker 1:

So here we are. What was your first job?

Speaker 4:

Working in my family's pizza place. Like anybody who has a family business, I was in it very early.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's cool.

Speaker 2:

Not the first one to say that. Yeah, or at least the pizza place yeah pizza.

Speaker 1:

And then what's the favorite project that you've been a part?

Speaker 4:

of with Halston House. One of my favorite things is all our staff. We give them at the beginning of the year $200, and we tell them they can spend that on a customer service issue any way they want. All they have to do is report back to us and we have had. We had a victim advocate, had a 16-year-old girl who said her bucket list was to go to Elitch's. They just never could afford it and she bought the kid Elitch tickets and gave her some money to spend there that day and she took her dad who she said also had never been there.

Speaker 4:

We had another staff buy a kid some books because she said she had been abused from 4 to 14. A kid some books because she said she had been abused from four to 14. And she said that books helped her regulate and calm down. But she couldn't afford new books and she's always wanted some. We gave her a gift certificate for Barnes and Noble. It's that $200 is not much to spend but it just shows the staff hears and listens and doing something a little extra. It's not much of our main business but for me it's been one of the favorite things to hear how staff are creative and figure a way of helping these kids in a different way other than just food and supplies a little extra thing.

Speaker 1:

That's a really great project. So thank you, and thank you Don. So much for coming on.

Speaker 4:

Thank you for having me. This has been great and we love getting the word out, so thanks very much.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I appreciate it, Don. We'll definitely link in the show notes how people can participate in that pinwheel garden effort that's going on. So thanks again.

Speaker 1:

Okay, before we let you go, our news and events section. As a reminder, we love to always hear from our listeners. You can stay in touch with us by texting us that link right at the top of the show notes for each episode or email us at podcast at arvadaorg. We love feedback on what you're enjoying, any questions you might have or what else you'd like to hear about that's going on in the city and upcoming news and events.

Speaker 1:

There are three bulky item drop-off events and the first one is coming up here on April 26th. Those are open to all Arvada residents as a part of the city's waste hauling program and so from 9 am to 2 pm on Saturday April 26th you can drop off any bulky items you have. There is a list online of what are the acceptable items, so be sure to check that before you show up. That is at the North Area Athletic Complex Hard to say that and we'll link that with more information in the show notes for you all. And then our Mayor, lauren Simpson, is having the annual State of the City Address coming up Friday April 18th. That is at 830 in the morning at Social Capital right there on Wadsworth and about 68th, and that event is actually hosted by the Arvada Chamber of Commerce and it is a ticketed event, but the recording will be posted online after the fact, and so we'll link to information about getting tickets to that and the recording after the fact.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and spring is here, and so that means the first, or the Arvada Kite Festival is coming up. Not too long from now it's Sunday, april 13th. That's 11 am to 4 pm at Stinger Sports Complex. This is the 20th Kite Fest this year, so come on out and celebrate with one of our flagship events, a really well-run event by the Arvada Festival's commission. And then a couple updates from the Majestic View Nature Center. Their annual Earth Day poster contest is going on now, and this is for any Arvada area students from kindergarten all the way up to 12th grade. They can submit a poster for Earth Day and the winner will get a tree planted in their honor at the Arvada Park or school of their choosing. And we'll link to that in our show notes with more information on how you can participate. The Nature Center is also looking for hosts for their annual pollinator garden tour. That will take place in July, but they need people right now to sign up to be hosts for that pollinator garden tour. Again, we'll link in the show notes. If you're interested, if you have a pollinator-friendly garden and you'd like to show other folks what that's all about, we encourage you to participate and be a host on that tour. And then, finally, the Arvada Reservoir is now open for the season. The Reservoir is open daily from 7 am to 7 pm, and you can purchase your passes online by going to arvadacogov slash reservoir.

Speaker 2:

Thank you again to our guests today Jennifer Griffin and Don Mosley. Be sure to check out our next episode featuring Joe Kunze. He's the city's manager of golf course maintenance and operations. You can always stay in touch with the podcast by visiting our website at arvadacogov slash podcast. You can subscribe to the show, you can always email us at podcast at arvadaorg, and we appreciate everyone who listens, who subscribes and shares the show with their friends and neighbors and coworkers. Today's podcast, as always, was recorded and edited by Arvada Media Services, and I'll leave you with the fun fact that Ralston House plants over 10,000 pinwheels each April throughout the counties. They serve to help with volunteers. You can look for them at schools, libraries and churches, and they raise over $40,000 a year through that campaign.