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Tallahassee, FL – A woman who overcame a long history of abuse and trauma was the keynote speaker at a Thursday conference of professionals in Florida's criminal justice and mental health systems. Margie Menzel reports.
Today Tonier Cain is a team leader for the National Center for Trauma-Informed Care. The oldest of nine children of an alcoholic mother, her past includes 83 arrests and 66 convictions for prostitution and possession, 19 years of homelessness, a stint behind bars, and multiple rapes and batteries, including some as a child and some by counselors and law enforcement officers.
"He reached out, grabbed my arm, threw it around my back, threw me against the cruiser and broke my nose on top of everything else," she recalled of one episode. "They really couldn't get past the way that I looked, maybe the way that I smelled, or what they believed me to be. She's just a crack addict, she's just a prostitute, she's just a crazy homeless person.'"
Cain told hundreds of service providers meeting at Tallahassee Community College that people with a history of abuse can easily be re-traumatized in the mental health and criminal justice systems. The documentary "Healing Neen" is based on her life.