FLORENCE ZHU WAS a freshman at UC Berkeley when she first heard about intimate partner violence (IPV) in her community. Only a year later, Zhu was running her own nonprofit organization, inspired by these stories, to fill the gaps in IPV prevention.
IPV is a form of domestic violence characterized as abuse between current or former romantic partners, while domestic violence can also involve family or other household members. According to the California Department of Public Health, around one in five women and one in seven men in the state have encountered physical violence from an intimate partner.
“I had many experiences in my freshman year of college where my friends had dating violence encounters. I would hear stories of things that happened in relationships that were violent, physical or emotional,” Zhu said in an interview. “That triggered a red flag in my head, this is a recurring issue that’s happening to so many people.”
Reports of domestic violence and intimate partner violence among college students in California remain high, with 1,339 offenses reported in 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s Campus Safety and Security website.
In the rural area of Mendocino County, there is also a high number of IPV and domestic violence cases, with hundreds of calls related to partner abuse recorded by the local police department each year.
According to Capt. Quincy Cromer, commander and public information officer of field services at the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, the department’s dispatch office recorded 477 domestic violence-related phone calls since last February. Some of these calls were just arguments between partners and were not filed as official cases, while others were filed as “reports,” indicating that the victims were in immediate danger and needed support. In terms of official reports that required law enforcement to offer help and visit a victim’s home, there were 276 cases in the last year.
“When I came to Mendocino County and started working at Project Sanctuary as a teacher for kids, I started looking at the issues that were there,” said Debra Ramirez, the Tribal Chairwoman for the Redwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians. Ramirez is also the shelter director of the women’s safe house at Project Sanctuary, an organization in Ukiah that helps victims of IPV and other domestic violence cases.
Ramirez, who has worked at Project Sanctuary for 31 years, has seen firsthand how domestic violence adversely impacts communities. She explained that Native American women also experience this kind of abuse at a high rate, but it is often underreported.
According to a report published by the Judicial Council of California, IPV and domestic violence offenses are often undisclosed in tribal communities due to a fear of interacting with the judicial system, stemming from historic discrimination against Native Americans. There are also fewer recorded cases because of the lack of culturally appropriate services on reservations.
“I started getting more training on domestic violence and doing trainings for tribal communities that experience domestic violence,” Ramirez said.
For Ramirez, the decision to become a champion for domestic violence survivors was a gradual and organic choice — a journey she fell into and grew to love as she helped people.
Beginnings of Secure Steps
Like Ramirez’s journey, Zhu felt she needed to get involved and act. After hearing the harrowing stories from her group of friends, Zhu combed through social media and noticed an alarming number of domestic violence reports on university confession pages. These pages allow students to anonymously share complaints, struggles, and other experiences.
Typically created by a university student, confession pages offer a space where students can post anonymously without fear of repercussions from college administrators or authority figures. Many students use them to share personal struggles they aren’t ready to report to a counselor or university health services. These pages are often hosted on platforms like Reddit, Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.
One of the forums, hosted on Instagram, is called Calfession and still operates to this day.
“I saw many posts about how this person was being assaulted or about how a boyfriend did something to the woman,” Zhu said. “It’s insane how these things are being normalized to the point where individuals have to resort to this Instagram page to find some sort of relief within themselves.”
Baffled by the lack of prevention services on university campuses, Zhu began gathering resources for those impacted by IPV and domestic violence, which can include emotional, physical, verbal and financial abuse.
“I did more research on available support systems at different schools. I realized that a lot of schools did have a response team but there’s hardly anything on the prevention end,” Zhu said. “In a sense there’s not much education on what IPV is. I decided to do something in relation to prevention, that’s how Secure Steps was created.”
Secure Steps, Zhu’s nonprofit that she launched in June of 2024, aims to help college students find resources to end abusive relationships and find legal assistance. The nonprofit has partnered with organizations such as the National District Attorneys Association, the National Crime Victim Law Institute, and Law Help CA to provide college campuses across the U.S. with free workshops on prevention. These organizations have provided access to cost-free speakers for the events.
Raising awareness against IPV, domestic violence
Zhu emphasized that to reduce the number of IPV and domestic violence incidents college campuses need to have a heightened focus on prevention, rather than just responding to people who are already in abusive relationships.
“Our primary goal has always been to raise awareness and like prevention,” Zhu said. “We want everyone to have a safe space, no matter where you go, what campus you’re on, or where you are in the U.S.”
Secure Steps and its partner organizations have worked with 25 schools across the country, including California schools such as UC Berkeley and UC San Diego, to present workshops on IPV and domestic violence prevention. The educational campaign, which Zhu said is crucial for creating a network of support for college students, brings a speaker event to campuses where the presenter, usually a legal advocate for victims or a professor specializing in social welfare, speaks to students about the signs of IPV and shares their own story of how they became involved in prevention.
Additionally, Secure Steps creates one-page resource guides to distribute after each event, listing local clinics, resources, and websites that students can use if they are in an abusive situation.
“We verify the information with the National District Attorneys Association, and we have the schools distribute the guides across campus, so they are getting the word out there and the students can know where they can go for help,” Zhu stated. “There is a lack of awareness of what the options are when you are in a situation, and our goal is to get that information out there.”
Secure Steps has also launched a podcast for those wanting to learn more about these forms of abuse, called “Steps Towards Safety,” which features nonprofit directors, professors, and survivors of IPV or domestic violence. The podcast features experts from across the country and can be heard on platforms like Spotify.
While Zhu hopes to expand the educational events to more local colleges, she said that California is not her primary concern when it comes to providing prevention resources.
“The landscape of different schools in the Southwest or the Southeast is a little rockier and those are the schools that we’re trying to target in terms of getting prevention out there,” she said. But she did note that there are federal laws in place, like Title IX, that require colleges to have some sexual violence resources. “The main issue just comes down to how much funding schools have, so even if sexual violence is a low-priority issue for them, they must allocate funding.”
“There is a lack of awareness of what the options are when you are in a situation, and our goal is to get that information out there.” Florence Zhu, Secure Steps founder
Title IX, a landmark civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education, is one reason that universities usually have sexual violence prevention programs. However, some schools have less funding for prevention programs because private colleges and smaller schools don’t receive as much federal funding as larger public universities. The budget priorities of state and local governments can also impact how much is spent on sexual violence prevention programs at universities.
According to Zhu, her campus of UC Berkeley has an extensive list of prevention resources for students experiencing IPV and domestic violence. The Path to Care Center and the Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination both provide counseling and legal assistance to students in need of support. These offices also have their own workshops on preventing sexual violence.
For Zhu, the focus of Secure Steps is to bring resources to as many colleges as possible across the country, especially campuses that have limited services for those who are struggling in abusive relationships.
“In about five years, I would love to see secure steps developed into a nonprofit where individuals from any state, even if your school has barely any resources, can utilize Secure Steps as a resource,” she exclaimed. “I would be happy to see it spread in as many places as possible to raise awareness. I also want it to be a place where individuals can get involved in the IPV fight.”
Secure Steps is still reaching out to colleges across the country and in California and is looking to organize an event locally on the North Coast. To contact Secure Steps and organize an IPV or domestic violence resources workshop, email Zhu or use this contact form.
This story originally appeared in The Mendocino Voice.