Culturally Specific

This webinar will be a chance to explore and discuss the many critical aspects of safety in sexual assault support groups. From location and time, to confidentiality and closure, this webinar will look at how we can make support groups safer in any community, for the members as well as the facilitator.

The research presented here has several implica­tions for service providers. Our first aims are always to support the safety and self-determi­nation of child sexual abuse survivors in fos­ter care and their foster and adoptive parents. Since many of our interactions are likely to be with the parents, it is important that we ex­plain the dynamics and effects of sexual abuse and situate problematic behavior as a normal response to trauma.

Service providers can ex­plain the importance…

A systematic response to intimate partner sexual violence is one that involves all levels of advocacy, legal, and political realms. The articles within this issue illustrate the complexities of IPSV, while painting a picture of that systematic response.

By capturing the voices of survivors, advocates and legal leaders in this movement to end violence against women, this "Connections" will inspire you to look beyond traditional paths of service delivery, dig deeper into the root…

This "Research and Advocacy Digest" explores sibling incest dynamics and victimization effects. It features an enlightening expert interview by John Caffaro, who provides a quality overview of sibling incest trauma and shares considerations for advocates and clinicians providing services to sibling incest survivors and their families.

Historically sibling incest has been scarcely studied. It has been unrecognized, overshadowed by parent-child incest research, or dismissed as normal…

Around the state of Washington we are working to promote social change by encouraging communities to take an active role in identifying the root causes to sexual violence in their community and taking steps to address these conditions. In this issue of Partners in Social Change are articles on community development, logic models and the statewide prevention planning meetings.

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The articles and featured interview in this issue explore long-term effects of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) to adult survivor wellbeing and functionality.

Upon filtering through the research and critically thinking about reported effects to survivor well-being and functionality, three challenges become quite apparent. These include,

1. designing comprehensive and representative CSA effect studies is intrinsically difficult;
2. there is a need for…

In this issue of Partners in Social Change (PISC) are articles on two public health methods that are useful for re-evaluating and goal setting — Needs and Resources Assessment and Outcome Evaluation. Both methods are valuable to prevention planning, however they are also the two methods most often bypassed due to lack of knowledge, funding, time, and other resources.

Despite these limitations, it is important for us to be familiar with them and to creatively think of ways to…

The theme for this issue is "integration" — integration of direction from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, integration of lessons learned from the field and integration of promising practices. When we weave together these elements with our current prevention strategies, we begin to create best-practice sexual violence prevention plans for our local communities.

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This issue of "Connections" presents relevant information and dialogue on the parallels of racism and a rape culture for those of us who work in the anti-rape community and who advocate on behalf of victims and survivors.

It is important that we break the silence and begin and continue dialoguing about these parallels to ensure that we continue to strengthen and cultivate a path that leads to social change and social justice.

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This issue of "Partners in Social Change" explores the ecological model of health behavior. As the word "ecological" implies, this structural model explores the relationship between human behavior and the environment. The beauty of the model lies in its assertion that our natural environment includes not only our corporeal surroundings, but also social and cultural forces, making the model particularly useful in program planning. It gives us a systematic approach to determine the appropriate…

This issue of "Partners in Social Change" is intended to provide an overview of public health theory that is relevant for anti-rape advocates, and to provide the inspiration and desire to engage in the collaborative effort.

Those of us working in the anti-rape movement know that, statistically, the majority of sexual assaults are perpetrated by someone the victim knows, including intimate partners. According to sociologist and author Raquel Kennedy-Bergen,

Intimate partner sexual violence is abuse or assault of a sexual nature perpetrated by someone in an intimate relationship to the survivor. It includes a wide variety of offenses including rape, coercion, forcing the partner to perform…

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.

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Washington State has embarked on the implementation of a contemplative, systematic plan focused on moving us toward our ultimate goal. Prevention, and more specifically, social change work were identified as essential components to include in our range of activities.

All of us together have designed service structures, implemented new strategies (community development) and provided services to survivors in addition to educating ourselves and communities about the multi-faceted issue…

The publication is organized into five sections in addition to the appendix:

• Stakeholder Recruitment
• Underlying Conditions
• Needs Assessment
• Development of the Community Plan
• Evaluation

Each section consists of a brief overview of the supporting community development concept and a first person narrative from the facilitator of the community development process. It is our hope that information in this…

The purpose of this guide is to help a survivor or guardian of a child survivor understand the advantages and disadvantages of suing the perpetrator or other responsible parties in civil court. It is not legal advice and should not be substituted for the advice of an attorney. Consulting with an attorney can help a survivor determine what laws apply to their situation and what claims they may have against the perpetrator or other parties.

This guide was last updated in 2004, so…

Prevalence statistics consistently show a high incidence of sexual victimization among people with disabilities. In spite of this fact, people with disabilities are not significantly represented as clientele of traditional sexual assault delivery systems.

This issue of the "Research and Advocacy Digest" provides specific information about sexual violence within various communities of people with disabilities. Furthermore, this digest highlights resources that explore socio-political…

"Is feminism still valid?" is the question that became the basis of this issue of Connections. As we began to contemplate that question it came became clear that the question has always been, "Is feminism valid?" First wave feminism, the women's suffrage movement 1860-1920, was viewed as a radical doctrine, focused on dividing the genders. It was thought to be a construct of white, middle class, heterosexual, educated women. Second wave feminism, the women's liberation movement 1960 - 1982,…

Sexual violence can be viewed many ways. Some of the more common perspectives are mental health, criminal justice, medical, social and political. In the 1970’s the anti-rape movement clearly operated from a socio-political analysis of the issue. As service delivery structures were created our analysis expanded to accommodate the collaborations taking place in the criminal justice, mental health and medical systems.

Over the past decade there has been a push to incorporate the public…

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a complex issue. The diagnosis was first acknowledged as a disorder of individuals experiencing the extreme stress of combat situations.

PTSD has now become a term familiar to the general public as well as a common diagnosis. This issue attempts to provide an overview of recent research on PTSD, particularly those aspects most directly related to victims of sexual assault. 

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Community development and social change strategies - something new? As the old song lyric says, "Everything old is new again."

When the state Sexual Assault Prevention Advisory Committee was convened by the Office of Crime Victims Advocacy in 1997 to explore and discuss sexual assault prevention approaches, it was a committee representative of the entire sexual assault prevention community. There were key representatives from the Department of Health, from the Office of the…

At WCSAP, we receive a lot of questions from advocates about the "ins and outs" of mandated reporting. Although Washington's law about mandated reporting is pretty straightforward, it can feel much more complex in practice. Here are some quick answers (that do not constitute legal advice) to some of the recent questions we have received on this topic:

Q:

Do I need to report sexual abuse of a minor that is not committed by a parent or caregiver? What…

A teaching resource from the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University, with activities exploring:

• relationships,
• sexual consent,
• equity and
• sexual and reproductive health.

Curriculum includes:

• topic talking points,
• activities,
• videos,
• handouts, and
• evaluation tools.

• Announcement Page