Safeplace expands the sexual assault response team

By David Zielenski Koska

(January 23, 2008) This last quarter has brought fast-paced, much needed revitalization to SafePlace’s Sexual Assault team. The team of dedicated volunteers and staff, formerly named Sexual Assault Nurse Examination advocates, were on call to go to the hospital each time a sexual assault survivor went in for a forensic exam.

In the last three months, we have worked hard to fill the on-call calendar with staff and volunteers and increase our capacity to respond to more than just St Peter’s Emergency Room; we have done so successfully! The team, renamed Sexual Assault Response and Prevention team will now go with sexual assault survivors, at their request, to court proceedings, and police departments, as well as medical exams. We also are now available to work with parents and family of child survivors at Monarch Children’s Justice Center.

Summer Carrick, SafePlace Community Services Director, says of this expansion, “It feels so good when a survivor is courageous enough to call for help and we can respond and support them in their time of need. It is hard enough to ask for help, and now we can answer ‘yes’ to their request. We couldn’t do it without the support from our community and especially our volunteers. We give a heartfelt thanks for those who have helped us increase this capacity.”

In addition to the newly revised Sexual Assault team, SafePlace has officially launched the Counseling Program. Dr. Janice Walton, our clinical supervisor, supervises interns from area counseling programs. From these interns we now have two sexual assault support groups running for the community, one sexual assault support group for residents at the SafePlace house as well as some time for individual and child therapy sessions. As this program grows, we hope to host additional Master’s level counseling interns as well as Doctorate of Psychology students. Thank you to St. Martin’s University and Argosy University for working with us in building this much needed program.

If you would like to get involved with these, or any other programs, here at SafePlace, please contact the business office at (360)786-8754.