Unserved/Underserved Victim Advocacy and Outreach

Strength United is committed to providing trauma-informed, culturally sensitive services to LGBTQ survivors and their support persons. The plan to ensure that services are trauma-informed includes: 1) Training all staff and volunteers on the principles and practices of trauma-informed care (TIC) (in addition to completing SU's 56.5 hour Cal-OES certified RCC training); 2) Continuing to embed, monitor, and enforce the implementation of TIC principles in service delivery; 3) Ensure through discussion and policies/procedures that the core values of TIC are known and widely accepted, including each person working within their scope of practice; 4) Training the Sexual Assault Response Team on the principles of TIC; and 5) Providing opportunities for staff and volunteers to recharge and practice self-care. Note that the LGBTQ Advocate?s supervisor is an LCSW, which will support the exploration of vicarious trauma as well as the safety and needs of survivors. As a facet of ensuring that no client is revictimized during service delivery, all of SU's locations are ADA compliant to ensure access for persons of all abilities. SU has no relocation plans and will be certain to maintain ADA compliance if any major facilities repairs are completed. The plan to ensure that services are culturally sensitive is to: 1) Train all staff and volunteers on LGBTQ sensitive and affirming practices; 2) Partner the Advocate with a topic expert to modify client documents to ensure inclusivity and sensitivity; 3) Partner the Advocate with a topic expert to walk SU's facilities to ensure that the physical space is sensitive and affirming; 4) Monitor and ensure that SU's visible cue signs remain present in all public spaces; 5) Continue to hire staff that reflect the LGBTQ community; 6) Provide ongoing training to continue building staff capacity; 7) Update outreach materials to ensure that they are inclusive; 8) Conduct meaningful outreach; 9) Connect to other LGBTQ sensitive and affirming providers to ensure meaningful referrals for other services; 10) Partner with the Child Care Resource Center to secure child care for LGBTQ survivors attending counseling and/or going through the criminal justice process; and 11) Coordinate taxi services when transportation is needed. The LGBTQ Advocate will act as a Sexual Assault Counselor (SAC) and provide survivors with services including crisis intervention, follow-up, accompaniments, advocacy, and counseling. Each service is discussed in detail below, but the general plan on how the LGBTQ Advocate will be called upon to provide services is similar for all. Victims are primarily referred to access Strength United via SU's 24-hour, seven-day-a-week telephone crisis line that is staffed by SACs. In the case of forensic accompaniments, the SAC on the hotline receives the notice from the forensic nurse that law enforcement and a victim are on their way to the FJC. The LGBTQ Advocate will be assigned as the SAC for forensic interviews and exams for all survivors identifying as LGBTQ. The Advocate will also be offered as a resource to hotline callers identifying as LGBTQ, and the LGBTQ Advocate will provide follow-up and support services to callers accepting the resource. There is a licensed clinician accessible to all SACs on each shift. The LGBTQ Advocate will also access this clinical support as needed to facilitate their work and will also have 24/7 access to the Clinical Program Manager supervising them. The LGBTQ Advocate will provide timely and trauma-informed crisis intervention to sexual assault victims, using best practices. The Advocate will be trained to assist clients in viewing their adaptations to the assault as a normal response to an abnormal event. The Advocate will help victims in crisis recognize and correct temporary affective, behavioral, and cognitive distortions brought on by traumatic events; as without addressing faulty cognitions, the survivor might feel helpless and hopeless. The Advocate will utilize psychological first aid by providing contact and engagement, safety and comfort, stabilization, information gathering, practical assistance, connection to supports, and linkage with collaborative resources, as well as assessing and addressing coping and current needs and concerns. The LGBTQ Advocate will also explore aspects of the experience and that are unique to the LGBTQ community, including cultural norms and the availability of affirming services to support healing going forward. These strategies will allow the Advocate to quickly build a working alliance with the survivor and support the survivor in beginning the healing process. Related to this, the Advocate will provide follow-up services to LGBTQ survivors and their support persons. Re-contact attempts are conducted within 24-72 hours of initial contact, based on survivor need and preference. Messages are only left if the client has approved. At the time of follow-up, a general check-in is completed; safety is assessed as are emerging questions and unmet needs. The Advocate will provide additional crisis intervention, advocacy, information, and referrals as needed. Emotional support is also provided as a means of letting the victim know that they are not alone, which can reduce the isolation associated with suicide. Strength United is committed to providing accompaniment services to sexual assault victims. The LGBTQ Advocate will undergo extensive training including mock accompaniments and will be mentored during their first accompaniment. Accompaniment services will be provided to the FJC, hospitals, law enforcement agencies, district attorneys' offices, court proceedings, and other locations as indicated by the needs of the survivor. The LGBTQ Advocate will be trained on their specific role in the judicial and forensic process and conscientious about providing only those services that are within their scope. With the LGBTQ Advocate stationed on-site, there will be no wait time for accompaniments at the FJC during their scheduled hours and a 30 minute response time to other locations. Culturally competent individual, family, and group counseling services will also be offered to LGBTQ survivors and their support persons. Committed to providing high quality, impactful services, Strength United utilizes a detailed clinical assessment pathway, including Trauma Symptom Inventories and the Protective Factors Survey, to monitor clinical client progress. Results confirm SU's effective, healing counseling services as evidenced by improvement across all changeable domains including trauma related symptoms, family functioning, social emotional support, and nurturing/attachment. Highly qualified, culturally competent clinicians drive these positive effects, and SU provides ongoing training to ensure that treatment plans are grounded in current best practices and standards of excellence are constantly updated and reinforced. To further ensure impactful direct services, SU clinicians utilize evidence-based practices including TF-CBT, Seeking Safety, and MAP; Strength United also utilizes A Window Between Worlds clinical strategies. Work with caregivers of LGBTQ youth will follow the principles of the Family Acceptance Project and support caregivers in developing parenting skills that promote a positive relationship and maximize outcomes for LGBTQ youth. In addition, Strength United will provide effective, 24-hour advocacy services and criminal justice support to LGBTQ sexual assault victims. Strength United is committed to empowering victims to act on their own behalf if that is appropriate, healing, and preferred by the victim. SU also embraces its role of providing advocacy and intervening with agencies or individuals on behalf of the victim. This is always done in partnership with the victim and only after their interests, priorities, and agreement with the plan have been secured. The addition of the LGBTQ Advocate will enable Strength United to provide vertical advocacy for LGBTQ survivors throughout the entire criminal justice process; this will align synergistically with the District Attorney's new Victim Impact Program vertical prosecution approach. The LGBTQ Advocate will provide SAC services for each client that they have initial contact with and will support those clients by providing all of the advocate services presented herein throughout the criminal justice process (and facilitating access to counseling). The LGBTQ Advocate will provide victims with assistance in seeking crime victim compensation benefits using SU's well-honed, established practices. SU has a decades-long relationship with local victim assistance providers, and victim assistance staff work out of SU's family justice center one day each month. The LGBTQ Advocate will be introduced to SU?s victim assistance liaison and trained on the process of signing up for benefits and connecting survivors to victim assistance staff. SU has kiosk computers at each location set up so that advocates can support clients in applying for benefits. SU also has printed materials in multiple languages that explain victim assistance benefits and how to access them. The LGBTQ Advocate will fully utilize all of these resources to support the survivors they are working with in accessing benefits. As a part of this project, SU will conduct outreach to LGBTQ populations to increase access to services and inform victims of their rights. A part-time Outreach Specialist (OS) that reflects the LGBTQ community will be hired and supervised by the Chief Administrative Officer, a proven expert in community engagement and outreach as well as LGBTQ empowerment. Together they will formalize the outreach plan, revisit and update printed victims? rights and service-related materials, and implement outreach. Strategies to ensure meaningful outreach include delivering materials and spoken communication in LGBTQ hubs. This includes, but isn?t limited to, the Pride Center and similar centers at the two major universities and four community colleges in SU's service areas, Gay/Straight Alliances at local high schools, LGBTQ meet-ups, businesses that are established as LGBTQ friendly, street outreach and drop-in centers, homeless shelters, and other community based organizations. The OS will also attend community based meetings where they will announce and disseminate information about SU's LGBTQ affirming program. Evaluation will be ongoing to validate the effort and drive modifications of approach, and consultants will confirm the appropriateness of materials. Strength United will train all staff, volunteers, and Sexual Assault Response Team members with mandated LGBTQ sensitivity training that will be coordinated by the Advocate. This will be done in partnership with established experts, Chris Tompkins and CSUN's Pride Center, who will come onsite to provide multiple trainings on topics including, but not limited to, vocabulary, violence against LGBTQ persons, the LGBTQ experience, coming out, suicide, proper gender pronouns, intersectionality, and family acceptance. In addition, follow-up in-service trainings will be provided to SU staff and volunteers to reinforce and practice the learning from the initial trainings. SU has also built a library of printed materials that can be accessed by staff and volunteers to explore specific issues on their own as needed. LGBTQ staff have also offered to act as in-house consultants to provide on-going training. Strength United will also remain established as an active participant in the local public and non-profit social services network to promote coordinated services, adding an emphasis on expanding this work to the LGBTQ community. The Executive Director is committed to leading these efforts including advocating to local political leaders (with which SU has established relationships) for LGBTQ safe and affirming services across all publicly funded facilities. As an established leader in the community, Strength United attends more than 300 community-based meetings a year and provides leadership at many of them. Within those meetings, SU will ask other providers and leaders how we can better coordinate services and create a norm of LGBTQ-sensitive service delivery. This discussion will include specific strategies and formalizing warm hand-offs for accessing support services. The outreach work previously discussed will further establish the network and the focus on enhancing LGBTQ sensitive services. SU will also partner with SART members to coordinate services and share best-practices for LGBTQ victims from initial contact through the entire criminal justice process. Volunteers will be a key part of the work proposed herein. Volunteer SACs (who have completed SU's 56.5 hour Cal-OES certified RCC training) will provide safe and affirming initial response (via hotline calls, accompaniments, and walk-ins) to LGBTQ survivors and their support persons, and will connect clients to the LGBTQ Advocate for follow-up services and criminal justice process support. Volunteers will research and vet LGBTQ-specific referral resources for SU's Referral Guide. Outreach efforts will also be supported by volunteers who will research LGBTQ hubs in SU's service areas. Trained outreach volunteers will accompany the OS during street outreach and outreach to non-traditional partners such as businesses, restaurants, and nightclubs. Lastly, volunteers will assist with data entry to ensure that all information is up-to-date and readily available to share with funders within statistical reports.