Summary:

In this session targeted toward Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners, participants will learn about some of the advantages to telenursing, as well as some of the potential obstacles, such as cross-state licensure, credentialing for nurses responding to a hospital where they are not employees, provision of medications, and maintenance of medical records. Collaboration with hospital medical and nursing staff is key to an effective telenursing response.

Summary:

Batterer Intervention Programs (BIP) provide an opportunity for program participants to be accountable for their abusive behavior. One key aspect of BIPs is the outreach they provide to partners of abusers for the purposes of making referrals to victim advocacy programs and safety planning. Various outcome studies show that BIPs often provide empowerment for victims by validating their experience and reinforcing that they are not responsible for the abusive behavior. This session will describe model practices for BIP outreach to victims as well as collaboration with victim advocacy programs.

Summary:

Multidisciplinary Sexual Assault Response Teams (SART) are highly regarded as achieving success in communities, improving responses for victims, and increasing prosecution rates. The newly updated SART Toolkit is an online manual that supports SARTs in all aspects of their work, from building a team to responding to victims. The SART Toolkit connects teams with information on topics, resources, and access to experts. In this session, we will walk through what this resource is and how to use it.

Summary:

Vicarious trauma (VT) is related to secondary traumatic stress. The victim experiences primary traumatic stress, yet as a victim service provider who uses controlled empathy, you can become secondarily traumatized. By attempting to remain objective, your inner sense of who you are, and your beliefs about feeling safe and trusting others, can change. From not being able to sleep to feeling overwhelmed and not keeping boundaries, VT symptoms can hurt you. It's important to know what contributes to VT, such as professional isolation after hearing trauma-related narratives and being empathetic.

Summary:

Victim service providers and academic institutions can create mutually beneficial relationships in which subject matter expertise, learning experiences, data, and best practices are developed, exchanged, and improved upon. This session explores how to initiate relationships between these types of organizations, strengthen existing collaborations, and ensure that the working relationship is fair and productive to all parties.

Summary:

Social media and technology can be powerful tools to connect with and assist crime victims, but they can also be tools used against victims and survivors. Learn ways to manage social media and technology successfully when working with victims and strategies victims can use to help increase their online safety and privacy.

Summary:

Assisting survivors of domestic violence can often involve multiple legal jurisdictions. In many cases, these survivors may also have protection orders that need to be enforced. The Full Faith and Credit (FFC) provision (18 U.S. Code § 2265) of VAWA requires that protection orders issued in one jurisdiction must be recognized and enforced in other jurisdictions, but enforcement across state, tribal, or territorial jurisdictions can sound daunting to survivors as well as service providers. The effective enforcement of protection orders across jurisdictional lines is essential to the safety of victims. This session will discuss the legal concept of FFC; what interjurisdictional enforcement may look like for survivors and abusers; and help advocates navigate some of the challenges associated with interjurisdictional enforcement of protection orders under FFC.

Summary:

Stalking is generally defined as a course of conduct (rather than a one-time act) directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person fear. This course of conduct may be a combination of overtly criminal acts and otherwise nonthreatening behaviors, all of which frequently intersect with domestic violence and/or sexual assault. In this session, providers will learn how understanding these links improves their response to victims and the provision of appropriate victim services.

Summary:

For many boys and men, the harm of the initial betrayal of domestic violence and sexual abuse is compounded by the lack of a compassionate response from their friends, family, and community. This session will focus on holistic and trauma-informed solutions that take into account the unique challenges and sensitivities in responding to the behavioral health needs of male survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse.

Summary:

In this session targeted to sexual assault clinicians, providers will learn about the prevalence of strangulation associated with intimate partner violence, the physiology of strangulation, and patient care considerations.

Summary:

Merely understanding the concept of trauma-informed programming is not enough; this understanding must be integrated effectively into all levels of programming. In this session, providers will hear from survivors and learn about effective tools and processes to help them apply trauma-informed theories to day-to-day practice.