George Fox Alumna Uses Experience and Education To Advocate for Domestic Violence Survivors

In a hearing room at the Oregon State Capitol, Lisa Jones stood before the Oregon Senate Judiciary Committee. She steadied her nerves and looked into the eyes of senators who held the power of law. With hard-won confidence, she began to share her story as a survivor of domestic violence. 

It was a moment that, just a few years earlier, she never could have imagined.

“I literally got to look senators in the eyes and tell them they could– and should – do better. The laws they pass shape how survivors and their children are treated within our legal system, with real and lasting consequences.”

Jones had given testimony in court before, when judges decided the fate of her family. And in that instance, they had failed her. In a system that lacked education on family violence and sexual assault, she was treated like a perpetrator, rather than a victim, and her family suffered because of it. 

With a steady voice, Jones told the committee how she had needed protection when her case appeared in the family court system, but instead her children were taken from her. After the difficult loss of her mother, who was her strongest support and court-ordered safety service provider during a CPS case, the court decided to place her children in a system that failed to recognize the trauma they had all endured. 

“My young son was separated from me for months, and when he returned, he was no longer the joyful child I had once known,” she shares. “ The biases and lack of trauma- and abuse-informed understanding in our court system led to devastating consequences – not just for me, but for my children.”

With conviction, she advocated for Senate Bill 710, which would require continuing education for judges on the dynamics of abuse and effects of trauma – legislation that would, hopefully, prevent stories like hers.