Former Utah attorney general led crusade
Graham passionate about ending domestic violence
Graham was passionate about the issue and drove a campaign that delivered domestic abuse information to companies, doctor's offices, churches, schools and community groups throughout the state.
The programs went straight to the heart of stigma around domestic abuse — the notion that abuse is a secret, that people don't want to look at it, and that to do so makes an observer nosy or meddling.
"Our goal was to get abuse out of the dark corners and into the light of day," Graham said recently.
The program's direct objective was twofold, said Reed Richards, Graham's second in command at the time. It was designed first to stop the cycle of seriousness in family violence that begins with yelling and escalates to pushing, hitting and even killing. It also aimed to stop the chain of violence by which children repeat behavior they learn at home and become victims and abusers themselves.
So Graham, Richards and their staff led training sessions everywhere.
"We went to every city council that would let us in," Richards said.
More than 300 people showed up at an LDS Church gathering in Roosevelt.
They spoke to employees in hundreds of companies, including steelworkers at Geneva Steel near Orem. Afterward, Graham got anonymous calls from women whose husbands came home saying they recognized themselves in the presentation and wanted to get help.
Another training avenue took them to churches, synagogues and mosques, where clerical leaders told state officials that family violence was one of the major problems in their congregations.
They passed out thousands of copies of a video titled "One Hit Leads to Another."
There are few copies around now, and there's no one to produce it anymore, Richards said.
Nothing Graham ever did as attorney general was state funded. Community volunteers led many "Safe at Home" presentations.
Graham is mostly out of public life now. She practices law and has worked anonymously to help Joe Torre, manager of the New York Yankees, to build his "Safe at Home" Foundation in New York. She is reluctant to speak out about domestic violence now, or to say what the state is doing wrong and what it could be doing right.
"I can also tell you from experience that the personal cost in leading out on this issue is notable," Graham said recently in an e-mail interview.
"The realities of it day after day for me created a huge emotional burden that, yes, drove my passion, but also left me with great sorrow and a feeling of powerlessness to change the harm so many children endure."
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