Causes: Mental Health, Sexual Assault Services

Mission: To eradicate sexual violence and abuse by: challenging the systems and individuals that promote plivilege, oppression and domination. Educating those that will join us as advocates and catalysts for change, and supporting those who have been victimized, empowering them to not only survive but thrive finding power and movement in our collective voices.

Programs: Direct services -since 1985, the sexual violence center (svc) has been serving youth and adult victim/survivors of sexual violence 12 years of age and older. Svc works in hennepin, carver, and scott counties with an office in minneapolis. The sexual violence center meets the needs of anyone affected by sexual violence with a range of services to support them through crisis and trauma, including:24-hour crisis support telephone line staffed by trained advocates, individual, in-person counseling giving intensive, directed support to victims and survivors, support groups for victims and survivors as well as friends and family of victims, crisis support in hospitals for victims of sexual assault during their evidentiary examinations, legal advocacies, ensuring that victim/survivors have the resources they need to file restraining orders, navigate the criminal justice system and get connected to legal representation. Svc provides services to victim/survivors at no cost. Services are provided in various locations beyond svcs offices including schools, correctional facilities, hospitals, police stations and county government buildings. Special support to incarcerated victim/survivors -svc is the prison rape elimination act (prea) community service provider to inmates in several correctional facilities in hennepin and scott counties. Through these contracts, svc advocates provide quality support services for people who are incarcerated at par with those available to the community outside of prison/jail. Svc also runs support groups and provides one-to-one counseling for incarcerated populations. Community education -staff, interns and volunteer advocates of the sexual violence center challenge the systems, attitudes and beliefs that perpetuate sexual violence in the community by bringing training and presentations to a range of organizations, institutions and community groups. Svc has a tabling presence at a variety of special events across the metro area. Presentations and informational sessions are conducted for partner agencies and in institutions housing people who need more information about svcs services. Topical trainings including sexual violence 101 and sessions about reaching marginalized populations with advocacy services are carried out in institutions including schools, correctional facilities and partner agencies. Svc also provides professional trainings for staff of organizations who, through the course of their work, find themselves engaged in supporting people affected by sexual violence. Program to engage the community to respond to sexual violence -we encourage and support those who want to join svc to make change. Svc trains community members to rise up and join us in the fight against the effects of sexual violence in the community through the 40-hour sexual assault advocacy training. This training is offered on a routine basis yearly, and is set in compliance with mn state statute. After training, svc provides the organization, on-going education and supervision for volunteer advocates and interns to participate in every area of svc service delivery. Systems change and prevention -svc coordinates three multi-disciplinary teams focused on ensuring that the systems responding to sexual violence prioritize the needs and perspectives of victims. Each team brings together stakeholders from agencies that have a role to play in the victim response, from law enforcement to corrections, medical professionals to advocacy agencies. Teams are run at the county-level under a national model forsexual violence-focused systems change. The svc-coordinated sexual assault interagency council (saic) team has been bringing together key professionals engaged in sexual violence response in carver county for over ten years. The svc-run sexual assault multi-disciplinary action response team (smarteam) of hennepin county has been working for the past eight years on a collaborative process that has produced the first multi-agency protocol to guide victim response in minnesotas largestcounty. Program achievements are consistent with prior years. Our agency continues to provide uninterrupted, 24/7 crisis support services free of charge to communities across the three-county service area of hennepin, carver and scott. Direct services include: a crisis counseling hotline, advocacy support in 11 hospitals, individual and group counseling and legal advocacy. Support groups newly established in 2017 include a high-school based support group for girls in scott county, a weekly support group based in a homelessness shelter and a support group for male-identified juvenile offenders incarcerated for sex crimes. Newly in 2017, svc has established a multi-disciplinary team involving stakeholders working to support victims in scott county. Additional and up-to-date information about the sexual violence center can be found online at: www. Sexualviolencecenter. Org.