Resources

This webinar will provide an overview of definitions of and recent research regarding factors that elevate risk for sexual assault perpetration. Contributors to sexual violence at the individual, social network, and broader societal level will be considered, as will both general risk factors and culturally and community-specific factors. Participants will be engaged in identifying risk and protective factors in the communities they serve and identifying ways to prioritize and target specific…

Therapists can be a critical component of a child's support system and healing process following abuse. However, many children are reluctant to participate in counseling because they don't want to talk about what happened or they may believe that going to therapy means something is wrong with them. While there are significant areas of overlap between a therapist and an advocate, it is because of their differences that they are both important members of a child's professional team after a…

Conversations about how to integrate support for advocates that mitigates vicarious trauma have become common within our organizations, but the need to put these conversations into practice is greater than ever. While widespread coverage about the prevalence of sexual violence has gained traction with the #MeToo movement, resources for organizations haven’t seen much of an increase to meet the need. This requires managers and executive directors to find creative, low-cost ways to support…

It is important to understand that immigration in the United States dates back longer than the current immigration discussions that we currently see on the news, or read about on social media. Often Immigrants and Refugees are compartmentalized in being labeled one in the same. Here is a quick breakdown:

Refugee

a refugee is a person who has been forced to relocate to a foreign country due to political turmoil, religious persecution, an outbreak of…

The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer / Questioning (LGBTQ) community is by no means monolithic. The experiences of sexual assault survivors that are queer, transgender, bisexual, gender-variant, lesbian, gay, pansexual, questioning, and/or gender-non-conforming are as unique as each identity.

Homophobia and transphobia in our society create barriers to services for LGBT survivors.

Gendered assumptions impact LGBT folks as much as, if not more so than,…

Understanding multiple levels of oppression, the history, and the contributions of women in the African American community can help advocates and programs consider more culturally relevant services and intersectional approaches.

From the earliest days of America to today, African American women have been at the forefront of movements against sexual violence and rape.

Long before Rosa Parks became the patron saint of the Bus Boycott, she was an anti-rape activist and…

Sexual violence against Native women is the result of a number of factors and continues a history of widespread human rights abuses against Indigenous peoples in the U.S. Historically, Native American women were raped by settlers and soldiers, including during the Trail of Tears and the Long Walk of the Navajo. Such attacks were not random or individual; they were tools of conquest and colonization.

The attitudes towards Indigenous peoples that underpin such human rights abuses…

There are a great multitude of cultures and faiths that make up Asian and Pacific Islander communities. Ethnic identities that can be referenced in the aggregate (Southeast Asians) or disaggregated (Cambodians). Asians and Pacific Islanders are generally grouped by regions although some of these can be politically controversial. There is tremendous diversity, with Asia having more than 40 countries, and there are more ethnicities than countries (the Hmong…

Adultism: Power and Control

Power is not inherently good nor bad, but it is used to benefit or target individuals along a spectrum of accessibility. We can easily identify ways in which racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, etc., manifest in our society, and how they might intersect with each other. We can also see how individuals and groups of people who have less access to power, or who are targets of power, are more vulnerable to sexual violence. Sexual violence is indeed about…

Sexual assault often goes unreported and this can be especially true for assaults committed against men and boys. We know that sexual assault against men and boys is not new but rather has remained invisible as a result of the societal myths about men's sexuality and the cultural norms around masculinity. These influences can be extremely harmful to male survivors' healing.

Addressing the misconceptions and stereotypes that have served to silence male survivors, both within our…