SEXUAL ASSAULT RESOURCE AGENCY

Goal: To maintain, strengthen, and improve direct services to victims of sexual violence Charlottesville City, Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa, and Nelson Counties. Maintain, strengthen, and improve outreach to victims of sexual violence to facilitate victims’ access to SARA services, community resources, and options.

Our prevention goals and projects are as follows:
A total of at least 150 students at Louisa County High School will have received Green Dot training (called Gold Dot) and promote the Gold Dot norms among their community. 75% of students at LCHS will know what Gold Dot is, and 60% of students will be in support of the Gold Dot norms. Follow-up survey will demonstrate increased bystander intervention.
School-wide, students will decrease their risk factors.

SARA uses these strategies in pursuit of its mission:
• prevention education to reduce the risk of young people perpetrating or being targeted as victims;
• services to survivors to support healing and accessing justice;
• community outreach to increase the number of people in our community prepared to support survivors; and
• systems advocacy to improve services to survivors throughout our area and in every setting.

SARA has experienced a great amount of success in 2019. We’ve increased our outreach and service areas, solidified important community partnerships, worked with state representatives to pass meaningful legislation, and increased the direct services we provide to survivors. We provided 79 clients with qualified trauma-informed therapy during the last year between our three therapists, and we currently have a waitlist for clients who would like to begin therapy, and for whom outside referrals have not been a good fit. Our therapists bring varied skills of evidence-based trauma-informed therapy. Advocacy for children and adults continues to be a strong component of our direct services. Court advocacy, especially, can take a significant time commitment in order to help clients through this process.

Our offerings for children have increased this year. The support group for teenage girls, called Connections, is run by our Child Advocate and reached capacity in the fall, so we added an additional support group. Connections has ended for the summer, but the Child Advocate just finished up another successful week of horse camp at the end of June. The Child Advocate is also in the planning stages for a new support group for boys ages 8-14.

FY 2017-2018
Advocacy
We provided trauma-informed services to 308 survivors of sexual assault. We answered 240 hotline calls and 227 program calls. Our staff provided 2608 hours of services to 245 adult survivors and 886 hours of services to 62 children and youth. We saw a 33% increase in medical accompaniment services and a 67% increase in survivors choosing to proceed with physical evidence recovery kits during forensic exams. Among individuals served this year, we saw at least 40 college students, 15 individual living with a disability, 12 survivors who identified as refugees or immigrants, and 11 individuals experiencing homelessness. Our clients this year were approximately 70% women, 10% men, and 20% children or youth.

Prevention
Over 5,660 individuals were reached through 65 trainings for adults and 465 sessions for adolescents. Through our prevention programs we reached 2606 high school students, 2374 middle school students, 236 teachers and school counselors, 264 university students, 65 allied professionals and clergy, 25 school administrators, and 89 parents.

Outreach
11,739 individuals reached through programs, training, and events
302 community engagement events where staff/volunteers provided information about the agency
710 hours of events and training programs, including
34 professional training programs to support allied professionals in providing trauma informed services to survivors of sexual assault
15 trainings with law enforcement
71 media coverage events including radio and television appearances, as well as print and digital media