Welcome to my “Local Highlights” Blog! As a doula, an amazing part of my job is to not only provide my clients with the information needed for them to make informed decisions, but to connect them with professionals with the skills and knowledge to make those decisions a reality. If you have taken any of my classes, you will know that building a fully supportive birth team is at the core of my practice. There are so many, extremely unique, and wonderful people filled with passion for every step of your birth journey, right here in the KC Metro Area! Today, I would like to introduce you to one of them, Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault, or MOCSA, and one of their amazing employees, Madeline Musil, LMSW.

Madie has deep roots here in KS, having lived in Overland Park for her entire life. Her sister is a Pediatrician, her dad a private attorney, and her mom a district court judge. Madeline is also the proud mother to two happy fur babies, Harriet and Roscoe, with her fiance that she plans to marry in August of 2021! She loves taking them for walks on the trails or going to the dog park, is an avid reader; loving thriller and mystery novels so she can deduce the plot while reading, and loves romance novels. She is also an incredibly passionate employee at MOCSA, writing “as an educator it is my job to re-frame the way we think about our bodies and the control we actually have around what happens to us and what we are comfortable with.”

Madeline attended KSU for political science with a mind focused on a law career, but decided to pursue a Master’s in Social Work her senior year, graduating from the University of KS with her MSW in May of 2019. “I wanted to work in the realm of sexual and domestic violence, but wasn’t entire sure what I wanted my role or position to be,” Maddie remembered. She interned and worked at a domestic violence agency in Johnson County, then interned with the University of Kansas Health System. “I found joy in all of the roles I held throughout my graduate program, but kept feeling drawn back to my work with survivors of domestic violence.”

She found what she was looking for in MOCSA, a non-profit that provides services to those who have experienced sexual assault at NO COST to them. “When sexual violence happens to someone,” Maddie writes, “it was not their fault, so they should not have to worry about how they are going to pay for a counselor or an advocate. Survivors should not have to pay out-of-pocket for something that was done to them, so we are incredibly fortunate to offer our services completely free of charge.”

Supporting survivors of sexual assault is incredibly important in the birth world. I will never forget when I sat down to do my first prenatal with a KCWM client, a very young woman who had grown up in the foster care system, and asked the question “have you ever been sexually assaulted”? Her casual tone and small shrug when she answered, “Oh yeah, I’ve been raped 13 times,” shocked and changed me. My experiences with this client grew and changed me for the better. I went home and immediately bought “When Survivors Give Birth” by Penny Skimkin. The more I read, the more I grew to understand the incredible size of this problem. According to Skimkin, as many as 65% of women were sexually assaulted by family members as children. Yes, you read that correctly. Sixty five percent. This is a real problem that needs real solutions, and I plan to be a part of those solutions as much as I can. For me, that’s through education and support.

In that since, I feel that I have found a kindred spirit in Maddie. When asked about what passion she hoped to pass onto her audience, Maddie answered “In all of my presentations, but specifically this presentation [Supporting Survivors], I hope to pass on to my audience that everyone places a role in both preventing violence and supporting survivors of violence after the fact.” I could not agree more!!

If you or anyone you know has been sexually assaulted and is in need of support, please reach out! If you are a birth worker looking to learn how to better support clients that have been assaulted or just the people in your life, ticket’s to Maddie’s presentation“Supporting Survivors: Sexual Assault, Trauma-Informed Care, and the role of the Doula” are available now! Learn more about MOCSA on their website, linked above, or read my blog, Celebrate Local: MOCSA with Lana Franco

As always, thanks for reading and God Bless!