Content note: This episode includes discussion of child abuse, spiritual abuse, coercive control in high-control religious environments, human trafficking, sexual assault, and domestic violence. Subscribe on Spotify | View full transcript
Who keeps an MDT working as a team rather than a collection of agencies that happen to share a table? In this episode of Season One: The Multidisciplinary Team, Robert sits down with Grace Stewart, who leads Accord and previously served as Chief Strategy Officer for the West Virginia Child Advocacy Network, to talk about the MDT facilitator, a role that is easy to overlook and hard to do well.
Grace describes the facilitator’s job as braiding the strands of a rope: flattening the power dynamics that exist outside the room and drawing out each discipline’s expertise. She and Robert trace the role back to Bud Cramer’s listening tour and Harrison County, West Virginia’s early coordinated response. Then they dig into who should hold the role, why prosecutors and law enforcement are trained to control a space rather than facilitate one, and how neutrality builds trust when a facilitator also wears another hat. Grace shares her approach to partners who stop showing up, starting with curiosity, flexibility, and food. She also gives a pointed answer about who shouldn’t facilitate at all, and explains how to handle team members who lack self-awareness. Along the way, she and Robert talk about the positive peer pressure that helps prosecutors take good risks.
In the second half, the conversation turns to high-control religious environments. Grace explains why most survivors she works with never lived on a compound. She describes how distrust of outsiders is deliberately cultivated and then reinforced when systems don’t believe survivors, and what it means when doctors, police, or judges are part of the control. She also shares how something as simple as a mother’s favorite Motown music helped begin restoring her sense of self.
Whether you facilitate an MDT, sit at the case review table, or encounter survivors of high-control environments in your cases, this episode offers practical tools for building teams that bring every voice into the room. It’s also a call to stay curious when a survivor’s story sounds outlandish.
About our guest
Grace Stewart has spent more than 17 years pursuing meaningful social change alongside multidisciplinary teams across the United States, the United Kingdom, South Sudan, and Kenya. From participating in post-conflict restoration initiatives to advancing innovative community responses to child abuse, human trafficking, and violence, she has witnessed firsthand the transformative power of collaboration, compassion, and shared purpose. Grace lives on a hilltop in WV with her husband, two dogs, and two cats, where she enjoys hiking, connecting with nature, and reflecting on the beauty of the Mountain State she is proud to call home.
Key moments
7:30 — “Braiding the strands of a rope”: the core functions of an MDT facilitator
8:30 — Falling into facilitation in Kenya after post-election violence
14:30 — Who should hold the MDT facilitator role? Flexibility, capacity, and state code
18:45 — Prosecutors control a space, law enforcement secures it: why facilitation has to be learned
25:00 — Neutrality, wearing two hats, and building psychological safety
26:30 — The magic wand for getting partners to the table: curiosity, flexibility, and food
29:00 — Who shouldn’t facilitate: “Go run for judge”
37:30 — “Cult magnet”: what she’s learned from survivors of high-control religious environments
41:00 — It’s not on compounds: what MDTs misunderstand, and believing survivors even when it sounds outlandish
46:30 — Motown, recorded sermons, and helping a survivor reclaim her personhood
Mentioned in this episode
INTRAC, the International NGO Training and Research Centre in Oxford, and Rick James
National Children’s Alliance and early leaders Nancy Chandler and Kathy Crabtree
Bud Cramer, founder of the National Children’s Advocacy Center
Amy Edmondson and psychological safety
Brené Brown on BRAVING and trustworthiness
Want to learn more?
Explore Grace’s facilitation training and coaching through Accord, including the virtual basics of facilitation course she co-teaches with Sean Callahan.
Sign up for Justice in 30, Coursing Justice’s free webinar series.
Bring Daring to Lead: Transforming Conflict on Multidisciplinary Teams, the Coursing Justice workshop Grace and Robert developed together, to your MDT.
Host a CaseReady MDT training simulation in your community. This gives your MDT the chance to work a simulated case together from first response to charging decisions—or all the way through trial, if you combine it with TrialReady MDT.
Episode Transcript
*** Please note that this transcript is AI-generated and may contain errors.
[00:00:00] The work is important enough that we really need all the brains and all the voices in the room, and that takes, purpose
If you plant your feet, you'd be amazed, at how things could change, Food never hurts. Treating people like humans and thinking about what they need physically, on the daily, it never hurts at all.
even the ability, To resist that coercion, I think is a pretty remarkable thing.
When people have this reminder that they are a person, a unique person that's when it starts to break down that influence and control.
It's remarkable, remarkable the things that can be done when they are actually attempted.
We're gonna keep doing the work, and it wasn't today, but maybe it'll be tomorrow.
Welcome to Coursing Justice, the podcast, a program of Coursing Justice LLC. We're a consortium of current and former law enforcement, prosecutors, and CAC MDT members serving the field through innovative training, simulations, and practical content for justice and child [00:01:00] protection professionals. I'm your host, Robert Peters, former prosecutor, attorney at law, and founder of Coursing Justice.
And my guest today is Grace Stewart. Grace has spent more than 16 years according to ChatGPT, but that sounds right, more than 16 years working towards social change with multidisciplinary teams in the US, United Kingdom. South Sudan and Kenya? She previously served as chief strategy officer for the West Virginia Child Advocacy Network, where she supported CACs and MDTs through technical assistance, strategic planning, and program development. Today, she leads ACORD, where her work includes coaching, facilitation, training, project management, and advocacy.
I've known Grace for years over, well over a decade at this point, which is wild. Yeah. And there are a lot of different perspectives and topics we could have talked about today. Since we're in season one, the MDT, we're reviewing different roles on the MDT. What jumped out to me today is the MDT facilitator, what that role does- Mm-hmm
the [00:02:00] importance of that role, the pinch points of that role. So you've worked in a variety of locations, as was just discussed, a variety of cultures. In the United States, you've also worked in the Deep South.
You've worked in Appalachia. What place gave you the biggest culture shock of all the places you've worked? Oh, gosh, that's a great, great question. Probably... I grew up in North Carolina, which isn't deep South but we pretend at times, right? Like, we can pull out the stops at the right holidays and the right sporting events.
And so what I think was the biggest culture shock for me I left North Carolina in 2008, and I really hadn't lived there or spent much time in, in the Carolinas or in the South until, gosh, I guess, like, 2018. And I was really trying to, get back in my, football season, like tailgating, pick up the color scheme.
Just living in Europe, you just end up, getting into like very practical monochromatic, [00:03:00] lifestyle so yeah, probably that, to going back, like going back to something that I knew how off I was but, trying to reignite some of my cultural knowledge of the Deep South.
And all the events and celebrations and sports, sporting events was probably the thing that actually was the biggest shock, was trying to reignite that. That's hilarious. So the U- the UK to red-blooded Americana, I moved back to, West Virginia from the UK, and so I was in East Africa and then the UK, and then, moved to West Virginia and, started, life working here.
And, but found myself, going back to the Carolinas and further south for, weddings and sporting events, and reconnecting with college friends , and friends growing up, and that was one of the hardest things, was, going back. 'Cause that, 'cause you know, a lot of times with culture shock you don't know exactly what's off.
You just can feel that something's off. But that was a different kind of hard because I knew I was off. I just was like, out of practice with social, nuances so that, that was [00:04:00] probably the hardest thing. That's great. That's great. I'm showing a stunning lack of cultural competency at the moment.
I naturally, being from West Virginia as well, I think of course of gold and blue as you mentioned color schemes. But it occurs to me you went to Southern West Virginia. You're on the doorstep of the Thundering Herd. I am. I'm in Marshall country ... how's that dynamic down there in general? Well, you know, that's really interesting.
I grew up in a family that was split. My mom went to Marshall. She was actually there, like in, in the days that were depicted in We Are Marshall, so right after the- Oh, wow. Wow ... the tragic plane crash. And so there's just a, a real like connection to Marshall. Yeah. My family, a lot of cousins of mine went to Marshall.
I have other relatives who who went to law school at WVU, and of course, like Mountaineer Nation is like a whole... It's like the, that's so fun, right? It's the whole thing. I don't feel like, because they're not in the same conference, they're not in the same division I don't sense the kind of hostility or maybe like struggle to affiliate with both.
You know, I, [00:05:00] I'm a Mountaineer for sure, but I celebrate the Herd down here and everything at Marshall. Love, I love what's going on just, just about 35 minutes, 40 minutes from where I live. Nice. Well, very cool. Yeah. We can edit this out if you'd rather the, the world not know your Enneagram number.
But in the, in the event that's fine, you're an Enneagram nine. From the other nines I know, you all share the Captain America trait where you're able to sort of, as Cap says, plant your feet by the river of truth and until the whole world know you move.
What are you irrationally opinionated about that has nothing to do with child protection? Oh, yeah. That's a good one. Like, yeah, when that trait becomes, silly and dangerous. The, the example that comes to mind straight away, this is a great question, it's really funny. I two things come to mind.
One is I really hate, like, backtracking logistically. So even in my just regular days, it's like I will probably, waste more time and and money, [00:06:00] and fuel to, just not have to backtrack in my days. That's something that I feel, very, like, hardline about in my life that doesn't matter
The other thing is I have had a few instances where I was doing something physically that, I wasn't, in shape enough for or prepared enough for and like- I can relate to that, yes ... i would, like, literally rather die doing this than give up. You know what I mean? Like, I should turn around.
A reasonable, like a reasonable person would turn around. But I've had a few of those those instances where I thought, "If this is where, if this is where it ends, this was a great choice." And then later on you're like, "That's insane. You know, that's absolutely insane." That's fantastic.
I love it. I love it. Yeah. I had the exciting opportunity to train in Vermont, like, a week and a half ago Oh, cool ... it's gorgeous, just stunning. Perfect timing, too, Yeah. That's how, I bet that were the leaves turning up there already? Just initially. Oh, nice. So yeah, these, these trees that were just lighting up or whatnot.
But I had a little bit [00:07:00] of free time, before my flight, so I drove up to Mount Mansfield, the highest point in Vermont, and I got out of the car and started hiking, and I have very recently had a lovely little bout of bronchitis, thanks to my esteemed children. Yeah. And it hit me, "This is dumb."
And I did something I have not done before. I turned around- ... and I got in my car That's some grown-up choices. That's some grown-up choices that's these silver hairs that are coming in. Right, right. Yeah. Coming in. Oh, yep, yep. Good choice. Yeah. We could spend an endless amount of banter time because you're always a delight and fun to talk to.
And you have So many interesting stories. And we won't even get into remotely the most interesting ones on this podcast. But to shift, into our core topic of MDT facilitation, how would you describe just sort of the core functions of an MDT facilitator? Oh, man. I look at MDT facilitators h- as the individual who is responsible for kind of braiding the rope,
braiding the strands of a rope, and [00:08:00] utilizing the individual strengths, helping to invite the individuals who are sitting on a MD- multidisciplinary team, whether it be law enforcement, social services, prosecution, mental health, medical, forensic interviewers, advocacy of community and systems and anyone else.
Sometimes there's schools involved and other partners. But inviting those individuals to a space that's pretty unique it flattens. It should kind of flatten the power dynamics that often exist outside of that room, and invite each of those roles to bring their perspectives, their expertise, their passion, their compassion and braid that together to make this response the strongest it can be for kids and families.
I actually had the distinct privilege of falling into an MDT facilitator, role I was living in Kenya, working in Kenya and South Sudan, and helping to support work across East and Central Africa [00:09:00] with a small nonprofit at the time. And this was in, 2008, 2009.
And there had been a tremendous, level of violence following the 2000 elections in Kenya, and the country had experienced, really just a a unprecedented upheaval- following those elections. I joined this organization about a year in, I believe that it was a gift, like I think it was a divine gift, but sort of fell into a role of weekly facilitating a meeting of multidisciplinary leaders- Hmm ... from different organizations who were trying to accomplish supporting the communities where there had been the most intense violence.
I was young, like, straight out of school. Honestly didn't have all that much to offer the professional world. You know, just didn't have that. Except for a real belief in the idea of coordinated and collaborative work, and the power of that. And so I was [00:10:00] bringing these, these experts that had their specific expertise together weekly, and working, as a facilitator.
Learning how to be a good facilitator. Fortunately, I once stumbled upon some resources out of the UK, out of the NGO training and resource center there, in Oxford. A particular professional is Rick James at the time was really important. Later on, a individual called Sean Callahan became really important in influencing learning how to facilitate groups of professionals and groups of adults.
And so that was really where where I first stepped into this role. And I think, like many of us, we find ourselves with a unique opportunity, and then we maybe have this moment of clarity and humility, and see how- Hmm ... how important, this is. It's a supportive role.
It's key. And I just learned, right? From there on, I learned that many times those, you know, [00:11:00] proverbial cords may accidentally sort of entwine at times, based on the environment. But unless someone is really inviting that or may, or helping to coordinate that, that the purposeful, like, binding of those perspectives and expertise and roles doesn't happen without someone who's doing that.
Hmm. And I think in our work, to bring it back to the, the child abuse response base, that the National Children's Alliance, the field, I think about experts who are in the field. Nancy Chandler Kathy Crabtree, others that understood. Bud Cramer, right, went on a listening tour.
Hmm. He actually came to West Virginia. It was one of the places he went to in the early to mid-'80s, and found a community, that had understood that to respond well to child abuse cases, a coordinated and regular meeting space was important for the professionals involved. And so really, the, the roots of our [00:12:00] work have have, I think- Understood that, seen that role, professionalized that role.
And certainly in the last I lose time, but I would say eight-ish years there's been a focus on that MDT facilitator coordinator role in a way that had kinda, you know, been missed for a little bit of the growth of the movement. So, you know, there was like this, this sort of discovery or recognition that that coordinated response was really important.
And then we focused on professionalizing the individual, disciplines. So really getting good at interviewing, really getting good at mental health services and medical services, and helping to train law enforcement and prosecutors in these specific cases. And then, you know, in the last few years there's been a refocus and a higher expectation in many ways on a MDT facilitator role.
Just as, as you're talking, it sounds like the role of MDT facilitator is sort of the operationalization of the CAC- Right ... model. [00:13:00] Does that feel right? Yeah, I'd say so. I mean, the, you know, the CAC doesn't exist with ... when I work with leaders, I'm like, "You know, you're running a little, a small business," or maybe not so small business.
I don't wanna like diminish any specific role at the Child Advocacy Center. But the model which we are based on, the model is, is a community choice for how we are going to respond to child abuse allegations and supportive services for survivors of child abuse. And so that model I think is fueled by a facilitator and coordinator role.
Yeah, that's fascinating. I didn't realize Bud Cramer for those not familiar, Bud Cramer, senator out of Alabama, founder of the National Children's Advocacy Center, is a huge consequential figure in the CAC movement- Mm-hmm ... catalytic figure in the CAC movement. I didn't realize he had made a trip to West Virginia.
Yeah, he was actually in, shout-out to the Clarksburg area. Shout-out to Harrison County. They have had, and I tear up easy these days but shout-out to the professionals up there. They've [00:14:00] had a coordinated child abuse response since the, I think it was '85.
I think it was- Wow. Yeah, it's been a long time. It's incredible. So yeah, there are other places in the US that were doing that too, but but yeah, up there was one of the, places that Bud visited and has been coordinating ever since then, and there are a lot of places that do some just really nuanced work, in this space.
And appreciate what they've done for many, many years. Well, listener, you'll hear directly, from Clarksburg, the Harrison County, the Hero’s Haven, Child Advocacy Center, on an episode that's released around the time that this one will be. We'll see. We're doing a, a Halloween special there.
I love that. It'll be fun. It'll be fun. Or was fun, if you've listened to it previously, hopefully. Yeah, so this role of MDT facilitator who should have this role? Do you see this as being something that's, you know, naturally aligned with a particular organization, a particular role on the MDT? So maybe that's sort of a role agency question, and then maybe a personality question, who should have the [00:15:00] MDT facilitator role?
Um- Good question. So, legislatively, the MDT facilitator or MDIT for West Virginia, and maybe other states call it different things but sometimes legislatively that sits with the prosecutor or, the district attorney, depending on where you're at. So I, what I don't wanna do is to communicate that if you have a legislated expectation for where that role sits to diminish that or say that's wrong or anything like that.
I do think a couple of the capacity questions that I have when working with communities around developing their MDT facilitation is, what agency has the flexibility to- Hm ... house this role? Or collaborate with another discipline on this role and and who has the time. So who has the flexibility, who has the time?
I'm hearing less so prosecutors. Right. Right. [00:16:00] Yeah, yeah. So what I would say is that that a lot of times state code doesn't explicitly state like a A job role for, they just say this, this kind of responsibility, the facilitation of the multidisciplinary team is part of an expectation of the prosecutor's office in their county.
That can be shared. That can be delegated. And so once again, I would just encourage listeners and communities that are thinking about this to think of it creatively. And I find that this, the Child Advocacy Center is often a pretty natural either sole carrier or primary facilitator , role or that partnership with a prosecutor.
Because there is quite a bit of flexibility comparatively, right? I know that doesn't feel like it in our daily lives at child advocacy centers. But when we, oftentimes when we look at our other partners [00:17:00] the flexibility to professionalize a role, a facilitator is most likely at a child advocacy center.
Not always, but usually there's a bit more flexibility there. Capacity is the other question. More and more so in the field capacity is ... if this does not apply to you, I'm so, so heartened by that. But as I, as I work around the nation, I think capacity is a struggle.
And so- Yep ... I don't say this lightly. But you know, maybe the ability to figure out how to staff a facilitator role, from a capacity standpoint might be a slightly easier fit at a child advocacy center. You don't have the same bureaucracy to go through in terms of adding the position that you might have with the other partners.
Of course there's a lot of different models for child advocacy centers too, so I wanna acknowledge that. But while I'm not saying there's one way to do it, I think that if I can give [00:18:00] a real simple like two-lens question is, what agency has the flexibility to staff this role?
What agency could have the capacity to staff this role? And then how do you, fit within what are the legislative, if those exist in your state, requirements for MDT facilitation? I love that. Yeah, and to nuance my glib remark a moment ago, prosecutors certainly need to be
integrated- Yeah ... into the MDT, of course. And I think that's one of the broader weaknesses, I think, in our current movement is so often that's not the case. You know, I- Mm-hmm ... I know directly of CACs whose accreditation was risked because the prosecutors just didn't show up. , And there's a variety of systemic factors and individual factors that lead to that, but it's critical obviously for prosecutors- Right
To be a part of this certainly. And if we can pick on prosecutors a little bit- Oh, we can Kathleen and I just picked on them in a prior episode, so keep it rolling. Roll it. So I'll say of, like to move to the second part of your question about personality one of the things that I think [00:19:00] is is important to differentiate is I'm starting to hear universities teach facilitation.
But just now. And I'm not saying people haven't had it, in other places. I'm certainly not aware of every educational model and expectation. But many of us in the field, including myself, did not come up being trained in typical, education or higher education on facilitating groups of adults.
And, that is certainly, I would say for most prosecutors, you guys are trained to, it's control a space, right? Right. To like win a space. Yeah. Law enforcement is trained to secure a space, right? And to like at times bring power to a space when things are chaotic and dangerous.
And so a lot of times we're not naturally, and you know, if I'm picking on, like so mental health is different than facilitation. [00:20:00] Great at listening, reflecting, helping with self-reflection, may not be able to move things along naturally in a way that a facilitator needs to at times most of the time, quite frankly.
So what I would say is facilitation is it, there's training. There's a international association for facilitation. And there's great training out there that you can, certificates out there. Like I said, if you're young in this work and thinking about this work, you may have it at your university or your master's program.
So look into that. Look into those classes available around how to facilitate. For those of us who are a little bit older and haven't had that advantage looking into courses that help us consider how do you facilitate, how do you gather groups of adults both virtually and in person?
How do you create spaces where everyone's voice is invited to the table? How do you invite, internal processors and external processors to contribute within a space? How do you... What's the [00:21:00] continuum of decision-making, right? Like, how do you decide to move forward on, in the active way when a lot of times no one's policing.
There's no, like, hall monitors for a lot of the work we do. There's, our professional ethics and standards, but a lot of those co- collaborative decisions How are we making sure that we agree enough about the decision in the room to implement it externally, to the space?
Like, when, when the rubber meets the road. So, what I would say is I think that there are... I don't know that there's, one type of personality that makes a good facilitator. I think if you have an interest in it and you're willing to to get a little bit of training, go observe good facilitators.
A lot of the work I did was just like, having the privilege and asking. Asking. So with, some of the individuals I mentioned early on, asking this guy Rick James not the funk singer obviously. I was... You beat me to the- I wish. I wish. He's like- ... clever, clever quip. Yeah. Yeah, right, right. But, a delightful, a delightful coincidence.
But, [00:22:00] uh, he's, like, very British and very cool, but very British. And academic and, I kinda love the paradox. But Rick James, Sean Callahan, watching good facilitators at work was was part of how I learned to facilitate. And it's a skill that just is useful, Mm-hmm
like, a lot of scenarios, quite frankly. You're not shouldering everything. You are learning how to increase participation In a group setting and how to keep that group moving ahead towards its goals. That's really what it is at its core. But what I'll say is that a lot of us did not come up learning how to do that naturally within our careers.
We sort of lean on, either the command and control side of the spectrum, because of what our disciplines, require and invite, or the, sit back, observe, and slow it down side of the spectrum. And really- Mm-hmm ... you kind of need help, you know, wedding those two [00:23:00] extremes. That's a little bit reductive but, for podcast purposes.
I love it. Do you offer training on such things? Yeah. Actually, I do. Shameless plug. I really believe in learning how to facilitate. So actually Sean Callahan and I, who I mentioned on here, he's a fascinating and great trainer. He's a South African living in the UK, has worked in every scenario imaginable, facilitated every scenario imaginable from, out in the open, in Southern Africa or in in refugee camps in the Middle East- Mm-hmm
So Sean and I do a, a basics of facilitation. We deliver that virtually.
And it's been a joy to do that with a few state chapters here in the US and a couple other clients, around the world. So, you can go to to Accord's website and it'll link to, to our facilitation offerings if you're interested. If that's something you're interested in. There's also great resources available at that International Association of Facilitation.
So if you go to their website [00:24:00] too, there's a lot of different trainings offered there. Awesome.
The work is important enough that we really need all the brains and all the voices in the room, and that takes, purpose to do that. And we're also all moving so fast, and our team members are moving so fast. And I I think that, one of the sweet things that happens when I get to facilitate is I watch groups have this pride in what they did- Mm ... and it is what they did. It's just you helped to draw it out, right? Mm-hmm. And braid that, like braid that rope. I'm always really tired after I facilitate well. But that's a real gift to see groups have like relief and pride that we really do have the expertise, the knowledge, the creativity, the compassion in the room to meet the needs that we're seeing in our community.
And let's be honest, these are some like, working in some dark [00:25:00] spaces, day in and day out. So that's one of the, the huge gifts of being a facilitator. What do you see, or rather, how do you see MDT facilitators be able to cultivate trust and psychological safety on an MDT? Yeah.
There's the nuts and bolts of psychological safety, right? So treat things as a learning, don't shoot the messenger. Treat things as learning. We haven't been here before. I think maintaining a neutral role is the key thing that I would leave, especially if your listeners are in the child advocacy center landscape.
I think that a lot of times we do have dual roles, so you might be the multidisciplinary team facilitator and an interviewer, or the multidisciplinary team facilitator and the ED. And I think it's the key thing to do is to maintain neutrality when you're in that space, and that consistent neutrality and dedication to inviting all the [00:26:00] voices to the table is how you build trust.
And sometimes when you have to step outside your role, so say you're a forensic interviewer and you've got a comment for the team to move forward on something, being very purposeful about like, "Hey, guys, I'm literally taking off my facilitation hat right now, and I'm gonna put on my interviewer hat and comment on this, and then I'm gonna put my facilitator hat back on."
So neutrality and a commitment to inviting all the voices to the table is how I would say are the key components of building trust with teams. Do you have a magic wand for, I know the answer to this, but do you have a do you have a magic wand for getting partners to the table?
That law enforcement agency that just doesn't show up, or if they do show up, they're unprepared. How is MDT facilitator, and of course the, the circumstances vary, but how does an MDT facilitator overcome those types of barriers? Yeah. Are you talking about food as the magic wand?
'Cause food is my magic. Oh, there it is. Yeah. There's the gold star. Yeah. So food, food doesn't [00:27:00] hurt. It doesn't hurt. The less whimsical magic wand is asking the question having the courage to ask the question "You know, we haven't seen you at case review in the last four months.
Can you help me understand what's preventing you from, being able to attend or making this choice to attend?" And a willingness to be flexible about changing things. The one example that it may be that they say, "This meeting is just not like a valuable use of my time.
I'm too busy." And then the follow-up question, of course, is, "Well, okay, what would make it a valuable use of your time?" I don't naturally go straight to, "Well, protocol says that you have to be here." I mean, like, it does, and that's important, and integrity to protocol is really important.
But I think a, a sense of curiosity about why people aren't attending would be the harder work than a magic wand. There was an administrative change in a state I was working in that meant that state police ended up covering a hu- like, you know, doubled their territory basically.
So the, the- Wow ... state [00:28:00] troopers who were responding to child abuse cases in the state ended up having a structural change within the state police, and all of a sudden these great team members literally couldn't make it to, from 4:00 to 8:00 case reviews every month, right?
Hm. And so I was working with those facilitators that covered the geographies that those troopers were responsible for. How do you make that achievable for them? Mm. What do you need to do? And there was all sorts of things from, getting the technology to make their virtual, hybrid offerings for case review, more workable in rural areas to the facilitator going to the detachment and getting updates,
They were working the model in a new way to meet the challenges that they'd experienced with this administrative change within state police. And so I would say curiosity and then once again, flexibility and creativity to implementing how to get people to the table.
And then I'd say food for sure. Food never hurts. Treating people like [00:29:00] humans and thinking about what they need physically, on the daily, it never hurts at all. We're a fan of provocative questions in these parts. I'd asked, Hannah a question in , her podcast on victim advocates if there's people, personalities, or approaches that just should not engage in victim advocacy.
Same question for MDT facilitators. Are there aspects, personalities, or approaches that you're better off just not, engaging with? Yeah. If you want to use facilitation to handle difficult personalities or overpower do us all a favor and take a different seat. Go run for judge.
If you're hoping to gain these skills to, deal with people you find difficult as the primary goal or if you're, hoping to gain these skills to to overpower colleagues there, there are quite frankly, there are less frustrating ways to do that.
So yeah. Yeah, just [00:30:00] go be that way in the open. I love it. I love it. Great answer. I'm I'm thinking of a specific situation we shouldn't discuss publicly. But there's a nugget I wanna draw out from it. When you just encounter just a stunning lack of self-awareness as an MDT facilitator,
how would you navigate that just over time? If you have, a partner where just the, the expectations aren't there, and just that internal insight is just not present. Mm-hmm. And I can tell that you were tracking now. How do you navigate those, those types of dynamics as an MDT facilitator?
Yeah. A facilitator, you are sort of, like, responsible for inviting the psychological safety of the space, for setting the tone, and for like holding those values, and calling out when those values aren't being met. The kind of the art of it is doing it in a way that doesn't shut people down or really invite them, straight to shame, because of course you're trying to all draw each other together, right, for this [00:31:00] common- Mm ... purpose. And and you will. You will encounter people who, have had less, less practice I'm way above my pay grade when we're talking about psychology or counseling.
But, for a million reasons, they have had a lot less practice in, self-awareness and self-reflection and emotional intelligence. And in those spaces, I would say you trust the foundations of concepts of psychological safety. So Amy Edmondson's work on psychological safety is fantastic.
I'm a big fan of Brené Brown's work on- Yes ... braving and what trustworthiness looks like. And then just the core, the really basic stuff of facilitation, of what groups of adults need to participate with equality. Those are the space that that you kind of trust and you hold to.
I will often say, when people lack self-awareness, that sometimes other, uh, you know, other prosecutors I'm working with or other law enforcement or other social workers or other mental health providers or other doctors I work [00:32:00] with say this. , Is that. The idea of helping them consider that there are other people in the same discipline that they are in that think about things a little bit differently.
So just inviting some curiosity on their part. Holding to, hey, I'm interested, if we're taking a lot of space up in the discussion,, I'm interested in what Robert has to say. I'm interested in what Anna has to say. Tony, I can see your wheels spinning.
What are you... So just modeling creating space for other people and as a facilitator doing that consistently and well, I think helps, individuals who you kind of described who, may not even consider, What tone they're setting or they're inviting of their other team members.
But holding to those core components and living confidently in those core components. And I'll have to say a million times, this work is so complicated. There's no lone ranger. Multidisciplinary team members. We need [00:33:00] prosecutors, and we need law enforcement, and we need social workers, and we need interviewers, and we need the medical community, and we need the mental health community.
It's so complex that no child is going to be served sufficiently by just one or two of our disciplines. And therefore, I wanna hear from mental health. I wanna hear from medical, what we know is effective, and what kids need and deserve almost gives you that continual , why, in those spaces to help broaden the discussion and responsibility of others and expectation of others to create space for each other.
Yeah. That's well said. Just picking on my profession, in prosecutor land, if I had a nickel for every time I hear, "Oh, oh, we just can't do that," or, "That, that would never work." Yeah. "The judge wouldn't allow it. It'll never work." I've seen that in states where, it's, "Well, here's the law right here on a silver platter."
You know? If you plant your feet, you'd be amazed, at [00:34:00] how things could change, Yeah ... in any event. That's a whole- Yeah ... whole other topic. Yeah, man, I, and I appreciate that. Just reminding them, like, it's possible. Like, has it been done? Maybe not, not yet. But you know, I think we need to encourage each other that, like, you know, it may not have been done, but it's possible, and somebody's gotta do it first.
And we won't ostracize you if it fails. You know? You know, I think to, honor, prosecutors who are trying hard things a little bit to say that, like, even if this doesn't work the team knows you tried hard, and we're here. Like, we're here.
We're gonna keep doing the work, and it wasn't today, but maybe it'll be tomorrow. Yep. And it wasn't for judge X, but it might be for judge Y. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. Yep. As James Baldwin says, those who say it can't be done are usually interrupted by others doing it. Yeah. It's remarkable, remarkable the things that can be done when they are actually attempted.
And it's easier to do it when you have [00:35:00] a team with you. Yes. You know? Like, yeah. Definitely. Yeah, I think that's one of the benefits, I think that's one of the benefits just of the CACMDT process more broadly is just this, for lack of a better term, positive peer pressure. Right. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, that sort of collective courage building. Yeah. It certainly has that potential. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, genuinely I think it's like- It's hard as humans to take the risk when you don't know that people who get how big the risk is are there rooting for you and behind you- Mm-hmm
whether it works out or not. I think that's, the advantage of that positive peer pressure and collective resilience, right? That once again, I rarely go around the nation and hear teams that saw their prosecutor take a good risk- Mm ... that are down on them.[00:36:00]
Right. Like, even when it doesn't work out. I'm trying to think if I've ever heard that, quite frankly. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but what sticks with the team members when you're the front person in court or the front person in the medical setting or, you know, or an interviewer, front person in that interviewer room, I rarely hear teams come down to the thing that they, most connect with is a disappointment in their team member who tried hard and took a good risk.
It's pretty rare that happens. It's hard to think of something more honorable and respected than fighting a losing fight that needed to be fought. That's a good fight. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Sometimes, sometimes you need to go down swinging. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, yeah. Most of the time. Most of the time. Yeah. Most of the time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's shift gears. So we've, uh, all extremely helpful pieces. And I should note, you know, there's a whole incredible, skill set that you bring when it comes to conflict transformation. You and I have done a workshop [00:37:00] together called Daring to Lead, another shout-out to Brene Brown, who you just mentioned.
Mm-hmm. I say we did a workshop. That's very charitable to me. Definitely the lion's share on your end. No way. No way. It was shared. But check that out. I know, I believe we still have that up at coursingjustice.com, the Daring to Lead workshop on transforming conflict on multidisciplinary teams, or reach out to Accord.
Great and a topic that's relevant to all multidisciplinary teams certainly. Yeah. But shifting gears the phrase cult magnet has been tossed about in some parts, with relation to you. You have had intersections with significant high-control environments, particularly high-control religious environments.
If you had to summarize at a high level, what have you learned about the world of high-control environments when you think not an individual one, but collectively, what has struck you about them? Well, just to clarify I don't have personal experience of being a part of a high control religious environment or a cult.
[00:38:00] But I have in the past few years had a remarkable amount of work associated with survivors or investigations associated with abuse and misconduct within high control religious environments leaning towards the cult spectrum. And my high level takeaway while I don't wanna be alarmist is that it feels like there's more of that than I realized, around the US. And once again, without inviting alarm and fear. I think it is occurring more frequently even associated with... what I'm most associated with is, within the, Christian spectrum, so , the Christian spectrum of high control or, cults.
So I can't speak to other religions or other kind of secular spaces that are high control. So there's more of that going on than I realized. The second takeaway is just, how, easy. It is, most of the survivors [00:39:00] that I walk alongside from high control religious spaces grew up in pretty authoritarian families.
Intense patriarchy usually. Or were just simply raised within a high control mindset, high control- Hmm ... theology. And often participated in, mainstream American life. But had a belief that The cultural norms, that's even weird to say 'cause sometimes I don't know where we're at with our cultural norms right now.
But more typical cultural norms of , education for males and females, and opportunity, equal opportunity, um, are kind of the things I'm talking about and thinking about there. Bodily autonomy. That those expressions within American life were secular or unholy- Mm ... [00:40:00] or wrong or outside of God's way.
So a lot of the survivors I've worked with have had jobs and raised kids and lived in many ways in very typical existences. And yet had, such a strong lens that was sort of very strategically and very purposely established for them that they often, chose separation at times from what I would say is, kind of admirable American values like, equal education and bodily autonomy, and
freedom, liberty. So that's another thing, that I would say. So, the prevalence and then sort of the strategy I haven't worked with survivors who lived on a compound. Hmm ... I haven't worked- Hmm ... with survivors that lived geographically isolated- Hmm ... from the rest of us who've had the privilege of not, growing up in an [00:41:00] authoritarian environment, high control environment.
These are people who shopped at Target and dropped their kids off at school and, had jobs. But many ways were very confined, beyond that, in what we couldn't see. For an MDT audience, what do you think are some of the misunderstandings about both how high control environments operate and how victims experience high control environments and respond to high control environments.
Yeah. For MDT members, I would say that first one is that it's not on compounds. Most individuals who are experiencing crime within high control religious environments and cults, who are experiencing human trafficking, sexual assault, systemized child abuse domestic violence, all of that, those are all crimes that I [00:42:00] hear about daily from survivors of high control religious environments and cults, that they are not, none of them are living in, on compounds.
Many of them have been told that you are bad and untrustworthy, that you will take their children from them, that you don't care. And a lot of times interactions with, team members, kind of reinforce that because it's hard to believe that this is happening.
So a lot of what I do with survivors is trying to help them understand that while they absolutely have a place in our society and our culture that also there's a really big divide, and I think a sort of cultural pride that- Mm ... prevents many team members from believing that this is happening in the United States of America in 2026, and it is.
So it's not on compounds, and [00:43:00] also there's been a strategy in every case I've heard or worked with in every scenario that that there's a distrust that's sometimes compounded by the system's reaction of not believing. So believing survivors even if it sounds outlandish.
I work with survivors that are stalked most days of the week because they're whistleblowers. I've worked with survivors who knew of, instances of disappearance of people within their religious community, several instances of disappearances. Yeah. Those are some of the things that I would talk to teams about.
Yeah, I think another challenge with some of these environments is unfortunately, the high control environment is not necessarily separate from the- Right ... criminal justice systems. And so you have bad actors who, you know, whether it's medicine, whether it's law enforcement- Mm ... the legal realm, [00:44:00] who know the system.
And so that's just- Right ... another, another layer, Yeah ... difficulty certainly. Yeah. There, I mean, that's a great point, Robert. I'm thinking of a couple interactions I had with survivors that had part of their abuse and bodily harm had been perpetrated by medical professionals. Licensed professionals, licensed doctors within their environment.
Other medical professionals are seeing the evidence of this on someone's body and still not willing to believe that their colleagues, even though, they're not close to them, they're not in their facility maybe, but, like, that other doctors would do this to people.
That other medical pro- and so it sometimes feels disheartening for advocates like me, and I'm not the only one out here working with this community. But to just explain to the system the good actors within our systems, like, doctors do bad things. There are some doctors who do bad things, illegal [00:45:00] things.
There are some law enforcement that do illegal things. There are some judges who do illegal things. Um, there are some prosecutors who do illegal things. And that supports the, incredible systemic strength of these operations that are not just providing, Supporting a way of life for those at the top, and then a theology for those at the top.
Also financially upholding systems or organizations that rely on, high control organizations that rely on the proceeds of human trafficking for example. Yeah, for me, it's become less surprising that these high control environments exist, or that they thrive, or that they're apparently prevalent.
Like you, I'm surprised. I was surprised by the prevalence. , But I think to me, what's, I think, more surprising now is that anyone is able to leave them, [00:46:00] frankly, is remarkable. , Just given, you describe sort of the conditioning from birth a lot of times. You know, you're so- Right.
Yeah ... naturally conditioned. Like, that's your entire environment. You don't sort of have context. You're sort of operating in the shadow world where you're shopping at Target, but there's this coercive control over you that very much dictates- Right ... you know, every, every aspect of your life.
And so even the ability, To resist that coercion, I think is a pretty remarkable thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is. And I think a lot of times you know, there's just a break. You know, I can think like a, a connection, a heart connection, an emotional connection, outside of the system of control.
I'm thinking of an instance where there was a survivor. I was partnering with a survivor's child who certainly had their own experience within this scenario. But he was saying, " my mom only listened to the leaders," like when she was cleaning, if she was cleaning, when she was home, when she was not involved in work [00:47:00] or something else, she was listening to recorded sermons on repeat all the time.
It's all she listened to. Mm-hmm. All she listened to. Mm. All she listened to. And we remembered that she loved, like Motown artists, and- Hmm ... so, you know, we were concerned about this. And so we would just start playing music that was just too, you know, it, it was just like her heart, you know, her music, right?
And that sort of was the thing that started to invite his mother, in this case, them knowing her well enough and then having the courage to try something when it had been incredibly frustrating. And along with, it's not just the listening to the sermons, right? It's the access in your life, in your psyche, in your soul that those leaders occupy and then the power and coercion to really, give up- Your personhood, right?
That's kind of the point of all this, right? To make, to taking [00:48:00] away or coercing people to give up their personhood in order to fulfill the goals of someone who has a level of influence and authority over that they helped their mom gain her personhood back, right? And it started with just- Mm
listening to music that they knew she loved, and then, and it was a long, long, there was a lot of things involved there. It wasn't just about listening to sermons all the time. But that was just an example of reminding people that they are, unique. , Or helping them learn if they've never learned it, as children if they never had the opportunity to, and teenagers and young adults, if they never had that opportunity to develop an individualized personhood and personality and understand their likes and dislikes, and is part of, I think some important early work for folks.
That was long-winded, Robert, but just comment on what you said was it's like I think when people have this reminder that they are a person, a unique person that's when it starts to break [00:49:00] down that influence and control. There's a lot of work after that.
Have you watched the show Andor? No, I haven't. Ah, it's so good. You know I'm so lame with, like, pop culture. Right. Although I did just finish A Different World, which is like my... was like one of my favorite shows in the, like, late '80s and early '90s, but I watched the reboot of that.
So, no, but tell me about Andor. Well, it's... Andor is an incredible show. Yeah. It's a Star Wars show. Yeah. Mm-hmm. But I think it's objectively great television, even if you're not a big Star Wars person. It's the series essentially to Rogue One, which is the prequel movie to the original trilogy, and just like that, I lost all non-Star Wars people.
But it's a standalone very good show. But the directors of the show looked at actual revolutions throughout history- Mm-hmm ... and sort of distilled some of the- That's cool ... key themes, and so it just resonated. But yeah, there's something called Nemik's Manifesto in it, and it's sort of this nobody character that, spoiler alert, dies off very early in the show, but
the manifesto [00:50:00] itself grows- Ooh ... into a crescendo, like, over the- Mm-hmm ... over the course of the show. It's really, like, beautifully done. But there's some very good lines in it that, that resonate with what you were just saying. In particular the imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural.
Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Yeah. Authority, authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Anywho. Yeah. Yeah. That's... I would cheer on all of that. I mean, I pray almost daily for liberation for folks who are living specifically in our country under the control of religion or other environments .
And I'm a religious person. I'm a Jesus follower. I teach Sunday school. I'm active in my church. , But what I mean by saying that is that , the ungodly control and like, like you said, the desperate need to command and lord power over and use other humans for your own gain may that be broken.
And quite frankly we need team members doing that and looking for that, right? We [00:51:00] need law enforcement and prosecutors. And I know some prosecutors out there doing it. Shout out in some neighboring states of mine, some prosecutors who are doing that in these scenarios, Mental health providers, medical providers.
We need nurses , in emergency rooms who, when people walk in and say "I think I have a microchip in me," that it's not a psych workup straightaway,, that they'll get a little curious about what's happening with this person. Because I've seen that. , And yeah, but I do. I pray for liberation, and we need more and more people to join alongside , the revolution for the freedom of those who are oppressed , in our country.
Very well said. Well, so much more I'd love to talk about, but time fails us, as per usual, so I'll have to have you on again. Thank you for having me on, Robert. Yeah. , It was a real joy to be with you today. It always is fun to have these conversations, definitely.
Agreed. Yeah. Thank you for listening to Coursing Justice. Sign up for our newsletter at coursingjustice.com, and join us , as we continue charting a way forward [00:52:00] for justice in the cases that matter most.
