As a former marketing professional and journalist with MSNBC, Hampton Barringer Luzak has worked on many creative projects. Also active in charitable giving, Hampton B. Luzak contributes to the Joyful Heart Foundation, an agency that advocates for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.
The group’s founder is Mariska Hartigay, an actor who stars on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. As Ms. Hartigay prepared for her role, she became aware of the enormity of the problem. Once the show began airing, she received many letters from women describing their trauma. She responded by forming the Joyful Heart Foundation in 2004 after being trained as a crisis counselor. The organization fulfills its mission through several programs.
Survivor retreats promote healing of mind, body, and spirit through the experience of nature, yoga, artistic expression, and movement. Researchers have generalized the retreats’ method to develop a treatment model for other agencies to use.
Joyful Heart’s End the Backlog initiative encourages law enforcement agencies to process the thousands of rape kits that have not yet been analyzed for use in prosecution. Ms. Hartigay helped produce a documentary on the subject.
Another program, Heal the Healers, reaches out to the counselors, attorneys, and other professionals who experience “vicarious trauma” through repeated exposure to descriptions of violence. These reports can trigger feelings of helplessness, guilt, and even post-traumatic stress syndrome.
Recognizing that women are not the only gender that can be traumatized, the organization has also launched an effort to aid boys and men who have been abused. An episode of Law & Order: SVU that dramatized the problem drew 15 million viewers when it aired in 2011.
