{"id":3431,"date":"2022-06-16T04:55:04","date_gmt":"2022-06-16T09:55:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/?p=3431"},"modified":"2022-06-17T16:31:57","modified_gmt":"2022-06-17T21:31:57","slug":"vds-students-field-education-guided-by-vds-alumna-provided-much-needed-pastoral-care-at-local-domestic-violence-shelter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/2022\/06\/vds-students-field-education-guided-by-vds-alumna-provided-much-needed-pastoral-care-at-local-domestic-violence-shelter\/","title":{"rendered":"VDS student\u2019s field education, guided by VDS alumna, provided much-needed pastoral care at local domestic violence shelter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Since a leaked <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2022\/05\/02\/read-justice-alito-initial-abortion-opinion-overturn-roe-v-wade-pdf-00029504\">draft opinion<\/a> from the Supreme Court of the United States striking down its previous Roe v. Wade decision was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2022\/05\/02\/supreme-court-abortion-draft-opinion-00029473\">published online<\/a>, attention has been focused on women\u2019s reproductive health and freedom. (Ironically, the week following the leak was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.womenshealth.gov\/nwhw\/about\">National Women\u2019s Health Week<\/a>.) The reasons why American women seek abortion are varied, ranging from the lack of financial resources to issues of emotional and physical health. A significant percentage of those seeking abortions are in or are fleeing from intimate partner violence (IPV). Thus, anti-choice legislation can jeopardize the safety of those seeking abortions, many of whom would be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC4182793\/\">forced to remain connected to their abusive partner and exposed to continued violence<\/a>. Continuing an unwanted pregnancy increases a woman\u2019s chance of dying by homicide than by pregnancy-related causes \u2013 pregnant women face a <a href=\"https:\/\/journals.lww.com\/greenjournal\/Abstract\/2021\/11000\/Homicide_During_Pregnancy_and_the_Postpartum.10.aspx\">16 percent increased risk<\/a> of dying by homicide compared to women who are not pregnant, and that risk is tripled for Black women.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3453\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3453\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/07\/Camille-Kammer-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3453\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/07\/Camille-Kammer-1-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Camille Kammer. MDiv '22\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/07\/Camille-Kammer-1-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/07\/Camille-Kammer-1-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/07\/Camille-Kammer-1-650x488.jpg 650w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3453\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Camille Kammer. MDiv &#8217;22<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Camille Kammer (she\/her) came to Vanderbilt Divinity School with several years of experience in social work, where she had encountered situations of domestic violence and poverty. When it came time to select a field placement, she knew she wanted to apply her chaplaincy skills with women or queer folks outside of a traditional hospice, hospital or prison setting, and accompany them in a non-judgmental way. <a href=\"https:\/\/divinity.vanderbilt.edu\/people\/bio\/viki-matson\">Viki Matson<\/a>, VDS\u2019 Director of Field Education and associate professor of the practice of ministry, knew just where to place her, and Kammer became the first VDS student to intern at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ywcanashville.com\/domestic-violence\/\">YWCA Nashville &amp; Middle Tennessee<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We had been eager to establish a relationship with the YWCA\u2019s domestic violence program, and Camille was the perfect student with whom to launch that partnership,\u201d Matson said. The challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic certainly impacted the internship. \u201cBut one of the unexpected benefits of the pandemic is that we were not limited to Nashville when it came to connecting her with a conversation partner who had similar experience. I immediately thought of Erika Callaway Kleiner (MDiv \u201902), an alumna who has been working with survivors of domestic violence in the DC metro area for nearly two decades.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>VDS field education is framed by three tenets: <em>doing<\/em>,<em> being<\/em> and <em>knowing<\/em>. <em>Doing<\/em> refers to professional competencies and skills the student wishes to learn and how they plan on learning them. <em>Being<\/em> refers to cultivating wholeness through self-awareness, well-being, relationships and spirituality. <em>Knowing<\/em> refers to theological reflection and academic issues, questions or dilemmas they will consider during their field education.<\/p>\n<p>Kammer approached her field education with the goals of listening and learning from her shelter coworkers\u2019 expertise about how the shelter operated, how the city of Nashville goes about managing IPV cases, and how she could practice pastoral care in such a unique, non-religious setting. \u201cI love working with women because there\u2019s a certain amount of trust and relationship-building that I feel is ready to be nourished when working with them,\u201d said Kammer, who is continuing in chaplaincy with a clinical pastoral education (CPE) residency in Tacoma, Washington.<\/p>\n<div class=\"video-embed-wrapper\"><div class=\"embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9\"><iframe class=\"embed-responsive-item\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PQeE_Im90s8\" allowfullscreen><!-- EMPTY --><\/iframe><\/div><\/div><style>@media (min-width: 1080px) { .video-embed-wrapper { float: right; width: 50%; margin: 10px 0 10px 15px; } }<\/style>\n<p>The state of Tennessee ranks <a href=\"http:\/\/vpc.org\/studies\/wmmw2019.pdf\">tenth in the nation<\/a> for the rate at which men kill women, and the Metro Nashville Police Department responds to a domestic violence call <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ywcanashville.com\/domestic-violence\/\">every 20 minutes<\/a>. The YWCA\u2019s emergency shelter at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ywcanashville.com\/what-we-do\/dv-services\/\">Weaver Domestic Violence Center<\/a> partners closely with the MNPD through the <a href=\"https:\/\/ofs.nashville.gov\/get-to-know-us\/what-we-do\/high-risk-programs\/lap\/\">Lethality Assessment Program<\/a> (LAP), an 11-question screening tool that is administered to anyone who has experienced IPV to determine their level of risk. If a victim screens as \u201chigh risk,\u201d the MNPD immediately send them to the YWCA\u2019s domestic violence hotline. The YWCA always reserves a percentage of beds at the shelter for those coming through the LAP program. The Weaver Center\u2019s 51-room shelter is a fully staffed, resource-rich haven where women and children receive services to heal their trauma and prepare for lives free from abuse and coercion \u2013 the largest of its kind in the state.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe only two places that have enough beds to offer the right to shelter are Washington DC and New York City. Here in Nashville, and in other major cities, the number of beds is woefully inadequate for the demand,\u201d said Kammer. The process for accepting victims into shelters is complicated and sometimes deeply aggravating. One must be \u2018actively fleeing\u2019 a domestic violence incident, which means someone who has been surviving on their own for some time and has finally arrived at the shelter would not qualify.<\/p>\n<p>Though the bulk of her internship was answering the YWCA\u2019s domestic violence hotline in 15-minute, high intensity segments, Kammer eventually had the opportunity to create and manage support groups. After ensuring proper COVID-19 safety protocols and receiving support from the YWCA board, she was able to develop a support group curriculum with the support\u00a0 of her off-site supervisor, Callaway Kleiner.<\/p>\n<p>The support groups followed a general curriculum outline designed by Kammer, but they were mostly shaped by the residents and what they needed to talk about. Kammer recalls one impactful week when the conversation turned towards the questions and complicated feelings surrounding the act of fighting back against an abuser, and whether that meant they were \u201cthe violent one\u201d for not turning the other cheek. The conversation dovetailed with a discussion about how pacifism is misinterpreted in Christianity, where Kammer\u2019s role was to provide a safe space for the women to chaplain each other.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe women have so much more intimate knowledge about IPV than I do, and it felt meaningful to witness their discussions and active healing. That is what I would have hoped for from these support groups. I felt like I was doing what I was called to do and that I was where I needed to be,\u201d said Kammer, who met weekly with Callaway Kleiner via Zoom over the course of the academic year as they considered sin, salvation, woundedness, healing and vocation.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3435\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3435\" style=\"width: 321px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/06\/ErikaCK1-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3435 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/06\/ErikaCK1-1.jpg\" alt=\"Erika Callway Kleiner, MDiv '02\" width=\"321\" height=\"344\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/06\/ErikaCK1-1.jpg 321w, https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/06\/ErikaCK1-1-280x300.jpg 280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 321px) 100vw, 321px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3435\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Erika Callway Kleiner, MDiv &#8217;02<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cI really needed to go to divinity school because I had received some bad theology that was painful,\u201d says Callaway Kleiner, who also arrived at VDS with experience in social work. Though she initiated the process to become ordained in the United Methodist Church, it was at VDS where she learned she did not necessarily need to be ordained to practice ministry. For her field education, Callaway Kleiner worked under <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oshercollaborative.org\/news\/nami-radio-hour-guest-linda-manning-vanderbilt-osher-center\">Linda Manning<\/a>, former director of Vanderbilt University\u2019s Margaret Cuninggim Women&#8217;s Center and now the Interim Director at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine. There she began her career in anti-sexual violence and anti-domestic violence work.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA theme that would surface regularly in meetings with Camille was managing the tension between being a minister and being an anti-violence advocate and counselor. She didn\u2019t neatly fit the expectations or assumptions of either vocation, so she needed to speak the language of both areas to bridge the gap between them. That work can be lonely, but it can also be creative and energizing,\u201d said Callaway Kleiner.<\/p>\n<p>Of her own field education experience, Callaway Kleiner says that she uses her MDiv degree every single day \u2013 it influences the perspective of her work and how she goes about doing it. \u201cThe VDS model for field education \u2013 doing, being and knowing \u2013 is incredibly powerful. I don\u2019t have regular theological conversation partners in my work, so to this day I often find myself reflecting on issues using the case study format,\u201d said Callaway Kleiner. \u201cThe VDS model takes the theology from the classroom and puts it into practice. It shows us how to actually be in the world to make change.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Camille Kammer (MDiv \u201922) was one of the few VDS students whose field education at the YWCA Nashville &amp; Middle Tennessee was completed in-person during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Her work providing pastoral care to women fleeing domestic violence served the largest domestic violence shelter in the region and was guided by Erika Callaway Kleiner (MDiv \u201902).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9344,"featured_media":3455,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[508,198,6,1071],"tags":[1135,1091,1137,1041,1136,40,1139,1138],"class_list":["post-3431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumniae-tuesday","category-creating-change","category-feature","category-why-vds","tag-camille-kammer","tag-covid-19","tag-doing-being-knowing","tag-domestic-violence","tag-erika-callaway-kleiner","tag-field-education","tag-internship","tag-intimate-partner-violence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9344"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3431"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3457,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3431\/revisions\/3457"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}