Statewide efforts in sexual assault prevention

Yesterday, people from all over the state came together in Lansing for a statewide sexual violence prevention grantee meeting. This meeting consisted of health professionals across the state to talk about the sexual assault prevention projects they all have recently been funded to implement in their communities.

The funding for these projects comes from the Center for Disease Control and is funneled through the Michigan Dept of Community Health Violence and Injury Prevention Section. It is important for the public to know about these efforts for two reasons. First, while there have been in the past a great deal of focus on providing funding for programs for victims of sexual assault there is a growing emphasis being put on prevention. Secondly, anytime programs are being funded with tax dollars it is important for the public to know how those funds are being spent and whether or not they are accomplishing the goals & objectives of the grants allocated. This is what the radical women of color organization INCITE! would refer to as community accountability.

The first presenter was from the Houghton area with a project called Dial Help. This project has recently seen an increase in awareness and volunteers, with roughly 30 people offering their time and talent for the projects. Some of the community partners with Dial Help are the local campus, Health Department, students groups, and local law enforcement. One of the new aspects of the project is a requirement for anyone involved in organized sports to participate in an informational session on sexual assault prevention. They also have used media to promote their efforts, particularly a poster campaign.

The second presenter was also from the Upper Peninsula from the Diane Peppler Resource Center. This project partners heavily with local tribal communities but also is now working with Mackinac Island. The reason for doing work with Mackinac Island is because the island is in the top 10 of locations in the country for reported sexual assault, assaults targeted at workers who come to the Island during the tourist season. The other aspect of their grant-funded project is to do peer-focused educational projects for teens.

The next presenter was from the Kent County Health Department, which has been a recipient of these sexual assault prevention grant funds for the past 10 years. The presenter listed the numerous community partners they have been able to develop over the last decade, with not only help in geting the word out about the projects, but also providing greater access to county wide data on sexual assault and sexual assault prevention.

Their projects have included working with students, mostly through the Yo Puedo Program. This has included youth produced media campaigns on healthy relationships and sexual assault prevention. Here is one example of a youth produced video on sexual assault.

They have also been working on using sports based programs to target athletes and coaches on the importance of sexual assault prevention. The newest component of the project is a workplace project, which will include a toolkit for businesses created by the Health Department modeled on the Corporate Alliance to End Partner Violence.

The fourth presenters were from Calhoun County’s Sexual Assault Services. This group also has numerous community partners, but is confronted with a large geographic area that poses some problems. Beyond the community partners this project is really focused on working in the school systems. This includes providing resources to administrators, teachers, students and parents. They also conduct trainings with students and provide services. Another challenge they face, which is incorporated into the project, is cultural competence, especially since they work with four different school districts with lots of cultural diversity.

The fifth presenters were from the St. Clair County Child Abuse/Neglect Council. Their project is called Working Together Works, which involved both the educational system and the broader community. They spoke about their extensive community partners, with law enforcement, the courts and a neighborhood-based crime prevention project. The main goal of this campaign is to reduce the numbers of first time sexual offenders, thus the focus is with young males. Engaging young males takes place with juvenile offender programs, youth groups and in the school system through presentations and the use of theater.

The community education aspect of the project involves a Women’s Expo at a local shopping mall, a community advocate recognition event and an event called the Roof Sit. This involves a local radio DJ sitting on a roof top for 1 week and presenting lots of information about sexual assault prevention and community resources.

Following a break there were presenters were from Haven in Oakland County. They are also focusing on primary prevention in the community through a variety of avenues, like parents. They feel that the more they can do with parents early on they can prevent young boys from becoming perpetrators of sexual assault. They have recently had to hired new staff and they have been developing relationship and collaborative partners. Student participation is also a component and they have found that working with the sports team and athletes.

The sixth presenters were with a group called The Underground Railroad Inc., based in Saginaw. This project has identified all the programs and services that already existed so as to avoid duplicating existing services. They do a great deal of work in the schools and recently have made inroads into some of the parochial schools. They have also created a toolkit used by service providers and educators. The use of the toolkit led to numerous projects with students, such as a media campaign and a student pledge to prevent violence campaign.

The next presenter was from Women’s Aid Service based in Alma, Michigan. They have also developed numerous community partners and work within the educational systems, including Alma College. This project has also done a great deal of work with the faith community by attending the Ministerial Alliance.

The next to last presenter was from the Women’s Resource Center of Northern Michigan. The presenter stated that this new grant has really revitalized people, because so much of the work and energy was for services for victims and now they can do more work around prevention. They really believe that a primary goal should be to eliminate the services they provide for victims and do whatever they can to prevent sexual assault. One of the focuses of this project is to work on developing the role of bystanders, so that people become engaged in intervening to prevent violence in their community. The Women’s Resource Center also works in the education system and has done numerous projects with students.

The last presenter was a new grantee from the YWCA West Central MI. This project has also developed strong community partners such as the Hispanic Center and the Kent County Sexual Assault Prevention Action Team. The focus of their project will be to expand the amount of groups in the community to work on violence prevention, with an emphasis on prevention and services for young women of color. This emphasis will also include education around sexism and racism within the work of violence prevention. One component of the project with youth will be to meet with Federal Legislators as a way to impact policy.

After lunch staff members of MPHI discussed their role in assisting these statewide funded projects. They also presented some information on ways to use photo-voice as a way of collecting information, data and perspectives on sexual assault prevention from the community.

Hearing all the work being done around the state on the issue of sexual assault prevention not only providing those in attendance with a better understanding of the scope of the work being done on this critical issue, but it also provided an opportunity for people to share best practices and ideas for implementing crucial programs in the community.