Asking the right questions

Resiliency Foundation was honored to be part of a forced marriage/child marriage training held in Indianapolis last week. As we talked about how to screen for these cases I realized that none of us ( doctors offices, social service programs, mental health professionals). Have any questions on our intake forms asking the person that we are interviewing questions about forced marriage.

  • Have you been forced to get married?
  • Do you think that you will be forced to marry?
  • Has anyone in your family been forced to marry?

We need to be asking the right questions and screening for this issue. I am going to ask all my service providers that I work with to add these questions to their forms they use for screening. I challenge all of you to do the same. Even if you do not work in the service provider area, ask at your next doctors visit. Call your local domestic violence shelter or send them this blog post.

If your organization would like to receive training on forced/child marriage please send us an email at genevieve@resiliencyfoundation.com Training is provided for free, we ask that you cover travel expenses if your organization is outside of Fort Wayne. Free training are made possible by donations and sometimes sponsors. If you are your organization would like to donate please hit our donate button. For sponsorship please email us!

Lets all make sure that we are asking the right questions!

Published by Genevieve Meyer

Genevieve Meyer always felt like a throwaway​ child - a lost cause that no one wanted to invest anything into. "When I was married off at 15 that feeling was solidified. People knew it was going to happen. I even asked for help - a place to live, someone to intervene - but no one rescued me. I was just a 'poor white trash girl' with a difficult, mentally-ill mother and no one gave my being married off to a 42-year-old man a second thought." Child marriage is currently legal in all but one state in the U.S. The repercussions of this reality are real - domestic violence, inability to complete education, lack of job skills - all leading to being trapped in the marriage. Meyer has lived in the Fort Wayne area for 14 years. She recently earned her MBA, following completion of an undergraduate degree at Purdue Fort Wayne. She manages a mental health facility in Fort Wayne which helps children and their families heal from trauma. Driven by her own story of trauma, she works to advocate and educate about the harmful effects of child marriage. She lives in the country with her husband of 12 years, and together they are raising 4 children and several animals.

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: