Focus Areas

The intent of this presentation is to provide a starting place or a template for your program when responding to requests, typically from corrections agencies, for presentations for staff or incarcerated people about advocacy services. The concept of advocacy may be a new one for corrections staff and for incarcerated people. We have included the key points and best practice approaches to discussing the topic and expect you may customize some aspects of the slides to meet your community’s…

This edition of the "Research and Advocacy Digest" focuses on the issue of prison rape and sexual coercion behind bars. While hard data on sexual assaults in prison is sparse, most of us in society and within the anti-rape movement know that the rape, torture, brutality and sexual assault of inmates by other inmates and staff are part of the fabric of everyday prison life.

…

The Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) was signed into law in 2003 and in 2012, the Department of Justice standards that govern its implementation in most types of detention facilities were finalized.

The purpose of these standards is to tell facilities that are covered under PREA, what they need to do in order to be compliant. A number of these standards relate to a facility's responsibility to provide incarcerated survivors with access to sexual assault advocacy services. It was…

This 1.5-hour training is an introduction to working with child victims (12 and under) who have an intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) and their non-offending parents/guardians. The training will be valuable to service providers who want to expand their knowledge about this unique and pervasive disability and develop skills in working with this underserved population. The training will include the following information:

• An introduction to IDD with…

Advocates and other social service providers who have been in the field for any length of time are all too familiar with the revolving door syndrome. That is, we witness the system-wide oppression of a small but growing percentage of people seeking our services who are revolving through the social service system over and over again, going from one agency to the next, sometimes for years. They experience multiple barriers, multiple forms of abuse (including provider prejudice) and are often…

Providing advocacy services for children and teens who have been sexually abused often requires specialized knowledge and skills. Ensuring that your young clients and their parents are fully informed and supported means having specific information about things such as:

• The rights of child victims
• The procedures for a child medical exam
• Confidentiality and consent considerations for minors
• Mandatory reporting
• The roles…

This Advocacy Station addresses several frequently asked questions in regards to sexual assault advocates and their mandated reporting responsibilities in regards to minors. It also provides guidance on best practice procedures to eliminate issues in regards to over-reporting.

This 20 minute DVD was produced with the assistance of Safe Horizon, addresses the need for the victim services field to work in partnership with those who provide services to immigrants and with other allied practitioners

1. Human Trafficking
2. Global Issues
3. Oppression

• Publisher: Office of Victims of Crime

Service providers generally view sexual assault victims in rural areas as an underserved population, mostly because of a well-recognized, low rate of reporting and because of the often dispersed nature of services. Rural populations are often marginalized from mainstream power structures, which hold more opportunities for assistance, services, and resources.

Barriers for survivors in rural areas include:

• survivor isolation from services
• …

A guide for developing tools to assess for sexual assault within the context of domestic violence¹

1. Rapport should be built with the victim before screening questions are asked.
2. Questions should use specific language when referring to the crime. Words such as hurt, threatened, or forced should be clarified by the interviewer (i.e. did they hurt you vs. did they hit or push you).
3. Due to rape myths, some victims of intimate…