Editor’s note: This is the final story in the Mirror’s In Her Shoes three-part series about domestic violence.

Samantha Cavin woke up in jail last year and couldn’t remember how she got there.

Her friend later told her exactly what happened.

Cavin, then 22, was drunk and got into an altercation with her boyfriend at their home.

“I got mad and I took my head and head-butted him,” the Kent resident recalled. “My friend told me I went into the room and he was screaming for someone to help him and I took my cell phone that he had broken and hit him several times in the head with it. At the time, he was very scared.”

Cavin said her boyfriend, who has cerebral palsy and is disabled, was bleeding from his head so she took him into the bathroom and began cleaning him up.

“I apologized over and over again, ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you,’” she recalled. “Then I was handcuffed and went to jail.”

Cavin was charged with domestic violence assault and a judge ordered her to complete 30 days of domestic violence treatment, attend a panel and do an alcohol assessment.

She didn’t comply. So when she got into another altercation with her boyfriend on July 23, she was booked into jail for 16 days on her warrant for being non-compliant.

“They said I needed to do everything I was supposed to do a year ago or I’d go to jail for 365 days,” she said.

The domestic violence perpetrator is currently in treatment — and it’s changed her life, she says.

Her counselor — Lana Mathew with Counseling Services in Kent, who also chairs the Federal Way Domestic Violence Task Force — has taught her about domestic violence and how to break the cycle, which started when Cavin was a child.

“When I was little, I got punished a lot,” Cavin said. “I didn’t think about this until Lana told me her views on how childhood affects how you grow up. I believe now that being punished all the time, I took that from my stepdad and put it into my relationship and punished my partner all the time. I punished him because it wasn’t done how I wanted it done all the time. It was my way or the highway.”

The goal of most domestic violence treatment programs is to stop all forms of violence.

“Zero tolerance for abusive behavior,” said Kimberly Hicks, who’s been a domestic violence clinician for Valley Cities in Federal Way for over 18 years.

Valley Cities’ program provides a minimum of one year of treatment to court-ordered perpetrators and others who are ordered into treatment. The goal of the treatment program is to maintain victim safety, prevent repeat offenses and develop accountability by the perpetrator.

Victims are also provided with advocacy and case management services throughout the treatment program.

Hicks said her biggest challenge with treating perpetrators is getting them to see what he or she did.

“We always say the abuser doesn’t see the abuse because it works for them,” she said. “Typically a guy will say, ‘I didn’t do anything to get here, or I just slapped a phone out of her hand.’ The biggest challenge is the power and control … the mental and the verbal and the psychological — they don’t see that as abuse.”

She noted that 75 percent of clients in Valley Cities’ program were raised around violence in the home.

“I’ll have the dad and later I’ll have the son as a client,” she said. “Sometimes it’s really sad. To stop the continuation of violence is important because it is a cycle.”

She teaches her clients about what domestic violence is — a pattern of violent and coercive tactics whereby one person seeks to control the thoughts, beliefs or conduct of the other partner and to punish this person for resisting control, according to the city’s website.

She also teaches them non-violent ways of dealing with issues that triggered the violence and to confront their belief systems that justify and support violence.

Hicks asks her clients what their goals are and to look at what the stress factors are in their lives.

She said she is seeing a lot more financial burdens that are creating more stress in families. Social media has also created more forms of control for perpetrators through Facebook and texting.

“When needs aren’t being met, people put their abuse towards others. We have them look at, why are you still angry? What are you holding onto? Resentment I think is big.”

Cavin said she knew she was abusive — but she was scared to admit it, until she began treatment in August.

“I was scared what people would think if they knew I treated somebody so low, it wasn’t even just physical abuse, it was verbal,” she said. “I belittled my boyfriend a lot. I made him feel he was stupid and I was better than him and if things didn’t go the way I wanted, it wasn’t good enough.”

Cavin also learned that she intentionally set her boyfriend up for failure.

“I knew he couldn’t do something, but I tried to make him do it anyway so I could start a fight. I’ve learned a lot of tools to let go of the little things and it’s helping my relationship tremendously. I wish I could’ve taken these classes sooner.”

Cavin has learned to “bite my tongue, let it go and walk away,” when something is bothering her.

She is currently separated from her boyfriend, who she has a 5-month-old son with who they share custody. Cavin is attending alcohol classes and Alcohol Anonymous meetings each week and is working hard to provide a better life for her son.

“I don’t want my son to grow up and be like me and abuse a girl. I don’t want that. I’m not proud of anything that I’ve done in the past two years. I’m very ashamed. I’ve learned to take the guilt and forgive myself,” Cavin said, adding that treatment has changed her life.

Domestic violence panel, task force

Federal Way resident Janet Schneider-Chance has dedicated over 40 years of her life trying to prevent domestic violence.

As secretary of the Domestic Violence Impact Panel, she was instrumental in creating the panel that is now used statewide to treat perpetrators.

Schneider-Chance worked as a court administrator for the Bainbridge Island Municipal Court for 20 years, where she got her first inkling” of what domestic violence is.

As a mediator between couples, she would meet with parents going through custody battles at the courthouse when they exchanged their children.

“So I saw the conflict and especially the hurt in the kids’ eyes,” she said. “Some were crying that they didn’t want to leave mom; some were crying that they didn’t want to leave dad and I thought something’s got to be done, this is absolutely ridiculous.”

She also noted one woman, who constantly hit her elderly husband with an umbrella. The court was next to the ferry terminal on Bainbridge Island, so one day ferry personnel approached her about the couple and asked what they could do to about the violence.

Schneider-Chance spoke with the prosecutor and they eventually charged the woman with domestic violence assault. She noted the elderly man would speak with her whenever he got a chance.

“Finally one day I said, ‘Why did you allow her to do that to you.’ And he said, ‘You know, I was in the Navy and I cheated, so I feel worthy of her hitting me like this.’ That was his belief,” she recalled.

When she later worked for the city of Fife, she got together with a group of counselors, court administrators and other professionals to try and tackle domestic violence.

They were familiar with DUI panels, where people who were involved in DUIs come and speak to individuals who have been charged with DUIs.

“I remember one gentleman had his leg broken off — he was his own victim — he’ll take off his cast and throw it on the table to make an impact,” she said. “I thought well maybe that would be an impact for domestic violence, so that’s how it began. We modeled the panel off of the DUI panels.”

For two years, Schneider-Chance advocated for courts to use the panel, speaking with judge associations about ordering perpetrators to attend a domestic violence panel.

“So because of that, judges here, particularly (Federal Way) judge David Larson, all the courts in the state of Washington, part of a convicted perpetrator’s sentence is to attend the Domestic Violence Impact Panel.”

She stressed that the panel is not offered in lieu of counseling. Part of the stipulation for attending the panel is incarceration, so there’s an incentive to attend the panel, she noted. Perpetrators are charged a $35 fee to attend and that money all goes towards victims.

The Federal Way Municipal Court holds the panel about twice per month in the courtroom, where a panel of domestic violence victims and perpetrators offer a real look into the issue. The presentations include graphic stories and images — including a dead baby in a crib — of domestic violence victims.

She said one convicted perpetrator who attended the panel came up to her afterwards and said the panel should be a prerequisite for marriage.

“I had another individual draw me a rose while he listened to the panel and he gave that to me. So we are making a difference, I know we are,” Schneider-Chance said.

The Federal Way Domestic Violence Task Force, which she is involved in, is also making a difference.

The task force, created in 1999, consists of a group of professionals who represent the Federal Way Police Department, prosecutor’s office, local counselors, City Council officials and citizens who create a coordinated community response to domestic violence.

Last year, the task force created a resource guide for teens to protect them from dating violence. The guide, which took them four years to produce, is now offered in every high school in the Federal Way school district and in local libraries.

The goal of the pamphlet teaches students how to identify whether they are in a domestic violence situation, how to handle it and provides resources for assistance.

“That’s where it starts,” she said of domestic violence. “Kids learn, what they see, what they hear, that’s why it’s so important.”

She said the mission of the task force is to educate the public what to look for with domestic violence and how to get help.

Seeing the task force making a difference is what drives her. But it’s also seeing the victims of domestic violence.

“Just seeing so many people hurt, particularly the kids,” she said, crying. “They’re so confused. Just the hurt. I know the world will never be completely 100 percent peaceful and loving … but that’s why I do it. We are helping. I truly, truly believe we are helping.”

More information

For more information about the task force, visit www.cityoffederalway.com.

For information about the panel, visit www.CCRADV.org