Healthy relationships: How to cultivate a community of care in Centre County
What does a caring community look like? I’ve asked that question many times in this column but was reminded today that like tiny seeds and tender sprouts, a community of care requires cultivation.
April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month and Child Abuse Prevention Month and the theme for Centre County is “Cultivating a Community of Care.” All of us are concerned about sexual violence and child abuse in our communities, and some of us work full time to respond to victims of those crimes. But the cultivation of a community of care is broader, I think, than simply a feeling of concern — and it must be broader than just those of us who get paid to respond to survivors.
Truly cultivating a community of care requires the active involvement of all of us, but what does that look like in our daily lives if we aren’t social workers or attorneys or volunteers for the sexual violence hotline? When we think about cultivating a plant, we think about planting seeds, making sure that the seeds have the right amount of water and sunlight, pruning and tending to the buds and shoots. Cultivating in this sense of the word is caretaking, it is nurturing the plant so that it can grow to maturity.
Likewise, when we cultivate a community of care, we take care of those in our community who need our care — in this case those who have experienced sexual violence or child abuse. We make sure that we have the resources in place to investigate these crimes, to provide support for those who have been victimized, to nurture and support the healing of survivors. One of the ways that we cultivate a community of care is to care for the caregivers by supporting their work financially or by volunteering or through legislation.
Cultivation, however, has a secondary meaning. Cultivation also can mean the process of trying to acquire or develop a new quality or skill. What if cultivating a community of care means that everyone in the community engaged in the process of acquiring the quality of listening, believing and responding appropriately? To be sure, there are skills involved in being an advocate or a police officer or a social worker and we can and do value and support those engaged in that work. But everyone in the community can cultivate the qualities of listening non-judgmentally, of supporting unconditionally, of believing without preconceived ideas of who should have done what or how victimization could have been avoided.
For many in this community of Centre County, the cultivation of these qualities, the cultivation of this kind of care, is already the norm. It is easy to say, “I believe you.” We can always say, “I’m sorry this happened to you.” And we can learn to say, “I know where you can find help.”
This is the cultivation of care that survivors of sexual violence and child abuse need from everyone in the community. And these are the qualities that with a little bit of cultivation will help us create the caring community we hope for.
