Rape Crisis Barriers

Clients who have experiences rape in the past can deal with traumatic reposes after the event. Many of them have to deal with the effect of the rape, such as anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Clients may feel that they are held back because of the trauma that happened to them. Clients could feel helpless and be reminded every day of the trauma that they had to endure. The topic of this paper is the use of trauma informed practice using social work practice in women who have PTSD and other trauma symptoms from enduring a past rape.

The Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence (WSCADV, n.d.) provides training for advocates of domestic violence (DV) survivors and their families. This paper reflects my experiences as I worked through the first three sections of training: the history of the DV movement; the key requirements of DV advocacy; and safety planning. The primary thread throughout the training sections is the importance of providing advocacy based on survivor-empowerment and meeting clients where they are. In this paper, I also explore my role as a mental health counselor in an interdisciplinary response team working with survivors of domestic violence.

This paper will go in detail about a conducted in-person interview on a victim advocate named Christine Heer. Christine has a Master’s degree in Social work (MSW), including a Juris Doctor degree (JD). In addition, she is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) and a Domestic Violence Specialist (DVS). Christine earned her education at Rutgers University and has been practicing social work for as long as 27 years and is still going strong. She is also part of the NASW Ethics committee. Christine’s work mainly involves with victim assistance services that specializes in family law, collaborative law, mediation, mental health, education and therapy. As of now, she is teaching at Rutgers Continuing Education and the Victim Assistance Academy.

In the fall of 1995, Kristin Cooper was a sophomore at Baker University in Kansas. She was a member of Alpha Chi Omega, an expert skier from the mountains of Colorado, a swimmer, and was active in band, choir and drama.

Date rape is a form of acquaintance rape. The definition of date rape and acquaintance rape two phrases are often used interchangeably, but date rape specifically refers to a rape in which there has been some sort of romantic or potentially sexual relationship between the two parties involved. It’s a massive issue and is getting worse day by day, despite the continuous effort of law enforcement as well as many aware-raising organizations. Date rape is a grossly widespread issue among the United States and needs to be looked at closely and taken more seriously in order to get a handle on the constantly rising statistics, the mental and physical dangers of the victims, and the large amount of illegal pharmacies that are online supplying the very people who commit these heinous crimes.

The advocacy service selected for this assignment was REAL Crisis Intervention. During my interview with Real Crisis Intervention I spoke to Jess at the office in Greenville NC and Nadine at the office in Washing NC. The program was founded in the 1970’s and was been around ever since serving individuals in the community with crisis; the most common, victim’s of sexual assault.

With a new organization, there will certainly be challenges along with opportunities. For the men’s sexual assault center, using anti-oppressive practice (AOP) can be challenging for workers. In the reading by Lisa Barnoff, she suggests five strategies to help maintain the use of AOP in social work practice. These strategies included increasing

The article stresses the fact that the interviews were conducted without the presence of PAS providers and that alternative assistance providers were offered on site. I’m recalling personal visits to the Emergency Department and having my friends/significant others/parents being asked to leave the room momentarily while the attending asks me questions about whether I feel safe at home or if I’m afraid that someone might hurt me. I’ve always felt silly about it, but this article demonstrated to me the importance of that practice. If the person abusing me had been in the room, I never would have told the doctor about my problem. Before this class, I felt very strongly that my social work path was not one that led to public policy. However, the more I learn and read, the more I’m realizing that public policy is not a choice, but a necessity of this field. In that regard, this article invokes in me two thoughts. First, the women interviewed reported “constantly” that they withstood abuse from PAS providers because finding and keeping providers was difficult and that there was a huge lack of emergency back-up PAS supports. For many of these women, firing an abusive provider could mean being admitted to a nursing or foster home because they did not have assistance (p. 408). Public policy wise, it seems obvious that the gap that needs to be filled there is funding and support for emergency back-up PAS providers. The second public policy or education that feels necessary is on behalf of battered women’s shelters and crisis lines. None of the interviewees reported ever considering utilizing these resources. This could be a tremoundous resource, but disabled women don’t know it. I also don’t know if most battered women’s shelters would be

A western New York five hundred bed hospital in an urban community sees victims of abuse both in the emergency room and the women’s health center. Nurses are confronted with young female victims of various ages, class, culture, and race, who are in abusive relationships or have been assaulted. The vast majority of these victims’ female, and college aged. Addressing the issue of rape is sometime difficult and uncomfortable for both the victim and caregiver. The dialogue, voice tone and body language and advice that nurses articulate to victims can have a lifetime affect. It is important to establish a trusting relationship with victims, to allow for open communication when addressing the sensitive issue of sexual assault. Rape leaves emotional scars that do not heal as quickly as physical wounds. The nurses best equipped to handle victims like this are forensic nurses. The problem stems from underage drinking, loss of control and the ability to say “no” against a deaf perpetrator. The disgusting act of perversion weighs heavy on the minds of the victims, family and friends. It is unfortunate that the innocent victims feel the guilt, shame and stigma. Nurses’ must advocate for female empowerment, self worth and respect by securing their rights, health and wellbeing after a rape. Rape victims are not always followed up with after leaving the hospital, the unresolved emotional end of trauma can lead to long term affects

The looks I get when people ask ‘what I do’ and I proceed to tell them that I am a rape crisis therapist is quite telling. Many people give me a look that’s a mix of horror and pity. And most of them are not interested in learning any more about what I do; in fact, they are pretty quick to change the subject. I suppose this is due to the continued discomfort and stigma that surrounds rape. Being an advocate for sexual assault and not wanting to lose any opportunity to educate and raise awareness, I just as quickly let them know that I am very happy with what I do because I get to see women and men heal from a very traumatic time in their lives. I get to facilitate and bear witness to this transformation that happens while someone is in therapy. To say that my career is rewarding would be an understatement, after nine and half years of this work, it is a fundamental part of my identity.

Rape Crisis Centers are around to provide comprehensive services to victims of sexual assault and their families, and to conduct sexual assault prevention and education programs for everyone (About, n.d.).

Over time, the media has made society more and more aware that sexual assault and harassment are major problems, but how come there is not much being done about it? From suspending a student rapist for only one day to completely ignoring the case altogether, this problem has grown out of control. Sexual assault is defined as unwanted sexual contact or threats, and includes physical penetration and other non consensual forms of sexual contact. Not only does rape culture include physical abuse, but verbal abuse as well. Rape culture, such as victim blaming, tolerance for such behaviors, and verbal sexual harassment affect men and women every day, and as a society, we must stop it.

Feminism: rated E for everyone. "..In order to be considered a feminist, you need to be on board with one idea: All humans, male and female, should have equal political, economic and social rights" (Cavanagh, 2014).

The Human Services Organization I analyzed is New Beginnings. New Beginnings is an agency that provides sexual assault support services in Daviess, Hancock, Henderson, McLean, Ohio, Union, and Webster counties. The clients of this organization have all been affected by sexual assault or child sexual abuse. Issues within clients are best described as acute trauma responses or chronic trauma, such as sexual difficulties or loss of trust. In order to analyze this agency as efficiently as possible, I interviewed Terri Crowe, the Advocacy Coordinator, from New Beginnings. Terri was able to provide very useful information regarding this organization and how it ticks. Although New Beginnings provides services to seven different counties, there are

Most people would agree that as you grow up you learn by seeing, feeling ,touching , smelling, and hearing . Albert Bandura supports this by a theory he created called the Social Learning Theory (McLeod, 2011). Social Learning Theory is a theory that explains that behavior is learned by your social environment, interactions and observations of others. With this theory I would say it supports opinion in which I would say that rape is not something somebody just decides one day to do. I believe that rape is learned throughout time. There are many social and even media factors that sometimes may come off with the intention that rape is acceptable. In some media factors they may even perceive that being forcibly raped is pleasurable. Movies tend to do it often and sometimes movies don 't realize that what people see on television can sometimes influence people to see these acts as a norm. For instance the fact that a college kid is in a frat and he 's in a party there is a good percentage that he would reenact what television had stereotype frats boys to do. Television would label the frat boys as potential rapist and the human mind would consider that when you take on that role as a frat boy. One of the biggest media factors all the way from television to the internet that for so many years that perceive rape as acceptable is pornography.