Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Christy Heiskala. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Christy, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.
I work for a civil law firm that specializes in sexual assault, sexual harassment, and child sexual abuse cases. It is extremely rare for a personal injury firm to only focus on these cases. It makes a huge difference in the way we work, the way we treat our clients, and the outcome of their cases. The biggest difference is that civil law firms have an intake person that is not trauma-informed and not trained as sexual assault counselor or victim advocate. I am a credentialed victim advocate and sexual assault counselor with extensive and continuous trauma-informed training. At our law firm, I support our clients from intake through resolution. I check in with them regularly, send them care packages, and help them find the best resources. I provide self-care tips, grounding techniques, books and other resources to help them heal. This has never been an industry standard and not something most law firms would do. I want to change that! I think it should be the industry standard and survivors should have this treatment no matter where they go for legal matters.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
In 2007, my daughter was molested by her third-grade teacher. Life changes instantly when you are faced with something like that. I spent the next eight years navigating the criminal justice process and the civil justice process. Even though I had some of the best lawyers in the country, I felt alone and lost from start to finish. I wanted to speak to someone who understood the situation from my perspective, someone who had been in my shoes, and someone who could explain things to me in plain language, not legalese.
I emerged from the situation determined to fill the void I felt going through the process. I wanted to be an advocate for survivors and parents of survivors going through similar situations so I could help them understand how to report, where to report, how the criminal and civil justice processes work, what to expect, how to get justice, and resources for healing. I felt like law firms were missing this critical piece.
I did a lot of research and found that this position did not currently exist at law firms. I took extensive training from the Department of Justice Office for Victims of Crime and various other victim service organizations so that I could become a credentialed victim advocate and sexual assault counselor.
When I started on this path, I had no idea how hard it would be to convince attorneys this was a much-needed service. Most people have never been through a criminal or civil matter and do not understand the language or the process. Lawyers have to spend their time building their strongest case. Law firms need advocates to spend their time supporting clients and building the strongest plaintiff. I worked for many different law firms as an independent victim advocate until I finally found an attorney who understood the value of having a victim / survivor advocate full-time in-house and believed survivors deserved this support.
Since I have been working for Jessica Pride at The Pride Law Firm, we have trained hundreds of attorneys throughout the US on how to provide trauma-informed service from intake through resolution. My goal is to pave the way for other victim advocates. I believe every civil law firm that works with victims of crime should have a full-time victim advocate on staff. Survivors deserve nothing less.
I have always been interested in a multi-disciplinary approach to addressing issues. The experience of fighting for my daughter and my own personal experience as a survivor has led me down a multi-disciplinary path of prevention, advocacy, justice, and healing. These are the key services I offer now, individually, and as part of our law firm.
Prevention – I founded the non-profit Educate to Eliminate to provide training on child sexual abuse prevention and bystander intervention for parents and youth-serving organizations. I also certify others to provide this training.
Advocacy – I mentor those who are interested in becoming an advocate and I am writing an anthology on How to Become a Victim Advocate. There are dozens of ways to advocate for victims besides working in a civil law firm. It is a guide for survivors who want to take their personal experience and what they have learned and use it to help others.
Justice – I am passionate about legislation to prevent, protect, and bring justice to survivors. At The Pride Law Firm, in addition to helping survivors obtain civil justice, we work with legislators to pass laws that help prevent sexual assault and help survivors get justice. We work hard to expose predators that are posing as nurses, doctors, dentists, teachers, coaches, clergy, and massage therapists.
Healing – I provide trauma-informed massage specifically for survivors. I have been a certified massage therapist for over twenty years. After working in this field, I realized there is a very specific need for this vulnerable population. I provide a safe space and support materials for their healing. In addition to massage, I hold annual retreats just for survivors and include many healing modalities such as trauma-informed yoga, sound healing, and various grounding techniques and fun!
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
My own child sexual abuse served as the catalyst for me to teach my daughter from the time she was born to speak up if she was touched inappropriately. When my daughter was molested by her third-grade teacher she did exactly what I taught her. I had no idea how much that day would forever change both of our lives. I had to fight every step of the way, not only to get justice for my daughter, but to make sure it didn’t happen to other students. The education system is not designed to properly support victims of sexual assault regardless of the perpetrator. Our laws are also not written in favor of sexual assault victims. The third-grade teacher who plead guilty to molesting three of his students only served twenty-two months in jail. I spent the next eight years fighting for criminal justice and civil justice.
At the end of that battle, I could no longer tolerate the industry I had been in for half of my life. I could no longer accept all of the sexual harassment and discrimination that was rampant in that male dominated field. I was determined to make a difference and have my voice heard. When I quit, I was at the top of my career, making very good money. I left it all behind because I knew I could rebuild while doing meaningful work that would make a difference in the world.
It was a struggle for the first five years. I worked for free and volunteered a lot in exchange for training. It took a huge toll on my life and my health. I never regretted my choice and just kept moving forward. I networked and made connections. I tried things that didn’t work out but it all paid off. People were paying attention and I landed my dream job that also allows me to have my own side business.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
When I originally left my former industry and started on the path to advocacy, I first chose to teach child sexual abuse prevention. During the criminal investigation we discovered the teacher had been reported for sexual misconduct numerous times over seven years but the administration shrugged it off. I felt strongly that if school staff were trained in prevention it would have never happened to my daughter.
I spent a lot of money getting trained and certified to teach individuals and youth-serving organizations how to prevent abuse and founded a non-profit. I went to the San Diego County Office of Education. I spoke at several education conferences all across the state of California. I called schools and youth-serving organizations all over San Diego and offered the training, mostly free of charge. Only a few wanted the training, many believed the did not need it and nobody wanted to discuss the topic. The only time a school or youth-serving organization would request my training was AFTER an incident had already occurred.
I came to the realization that schools and youth-serving organizations would rather gamble with kids lives. They understand the odds of a child reporting and having it lead to a conviction are low rare and the odds of fighting the teacher’s union are high. So I decided, if I was going to make a difference, I had to do two things; train parents instead of institutions, and work with civil attorneys to hold the institutions accountable for failing to protect kids.
I began training parents on how to identify grooming behavior, how to demand that anywhere they left their child in the care of others, the staff were trained in prevention, not just reporting. I began advocating for parents and their kids who had been abused. I would help them navigate the criminal and civil justice processes. That was challenging because without working directly for an attorney, there are confidentiality issues, so I was left out of a lot of the conversation. I knew I had to become a victim advocate for a law firm that specialized in these cases so that all of my hard work would be more effective in creating change. Unfortunately, nothing creates change within organizations more effectively than filing a lawsuit, documenting their negligence in public records, and holding them financially accountable. I have also witnessed the healing it brings to survivors and their families and that is what matters most to me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.advocateforvictims.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christyheiskala/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/advocateforvictims
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christyheiskala/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/advocate4victim
Image Credits
Christy Heiskala