Visioning BEAR Circle
Strong Oak Lefevre from the New England Learning Center for Women in Transition describes the community-based prevention work of Visioning Bear Circle to prevent sexual violence in Native American communities. This program was featured in the 2011 report Innovations in Prevention from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.
Check out more interviews with other programs featured in Innovations in Prevention.
was very impressed by what Strong Oak described in the focus on community when working with sexual violence. The conscious inclusion of elders is unique, in my experience. I wish all others working with sexual violence would follow this brilliant model and include elders in both intervention and healing. I also found the reverence for all human beings – even those who commit violence – to be unprecedented and visionary. I hope this model will be used in the development of intervention and healing models for all people. How fortunate we are to have visionary teachers like Strong Oak!
I am also so grateful that some of my own work with abuse has been helpful.