This document provides guidance for compassionate and effective care for adult and post-pubertal adolescent sexual assault patients. It does not represent the only medically or legally acceptable response to any sexual assault patient or establish a legal or medical standard of care, and deviation from this document does not necessarily represent a breach of a standard of care. The ultimate judgment regarding a healthcare provider’s recommendation on a course of action for a patient must be made by the clinician in light of all the circumstances presented.

A national network of survivors willing to stand up and speak out about sexual violence.

Four trans and nonbinary survivors of sexual abuse/assault share their stories of resilience and healing. This is a recording of the Live Premiere event on April 10, 2022.

This Strategies article is Part I of a two-part series addressing two types of victim privacy laws – confidentiality and privilege. Part I provides an overview of confidentiality laws in order to assist prosecutors in effectively balancing offender accountability with the safety needs and expectations of victims during criminal investigations and prosecutions.

Part II provides prosecutors with a greater understanding of legal privileges that exist in the following relationships: qualified community advocate/client, clergy/penitent, psychiatrist/patient, physician/patient, spousal, and attorney/client. This Strategies issue will also include common scenarios in which these privileges may be challenged and suggest strategies for prosecutors to protect privileged communications where the victim’s privacy interests outweigh the need for the sought information.

We’ve Been Put Through Fire and Come Out Divine: Stories of Hope & Survival is a raw and powerful anthology that documents the harrowing experiences of survivors of sexual violence and abuse. The collection explores the loss of identity, agency, and voice that often accompanies trauma, painting a stark picture of its damaging effects.

This toolkit is a step-by-step guide that leads SART Coordinators through the Sexual Violence Justice Institute (SVJI) process of reviewing law enforcement case files. In this toolkit, you will find an effective process for identifying areas where your SART is successful in its response to victims and areas where your SART can improve. Each of the core agencies (Law Enforcement, Medical, Prosecution, Advocacy, and Probation) will learn specific information about their response that can be further developed or sustained for an optimum response to victims.

This report provides data describing how sexual assault reports that were not previously indicted were initially processed through the system from the Reporting Phase, to the Investigative Phase, and the Prosecution Phase. We then track what is currently happening with these cases as part of the Cuyahoga County Sexual Assault Kit (SAK) Pilot Research Project.

This resource provides 15 concrete suggestions on how faith leaders can respond to domestic and sexual violence.

This statement from the Catholic Church provides information on domestic violence and the Church’s Response.

This training bulletin was written to respond to the question of whether victims should be allowed to sleep before conducting a medical forensic examination or detailed law enforcement interview. Several concrete suggestions are offered to help meet the needs of victims when they are intoxicated and/or want to sleep.

The Urban Institute, George Mason University, and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center collaborated to learn about the payment policies and practices that have been set up to address the requirement for jurisdictions to provide medical forensic exams for sexual assault victims (1) free of charge and (2) regardless of whether they decide to report to law enforcement or participate in the criminal justice process.

Published in June 2015, this brief essay explains basic brain responses to being attacked, including sexually. It also has links to key scientific review articles on the brain bases and evolutionary origins of commonly misunderstood effects of the fear circuitry taking over: impairment of the prefrontal cortex, survival reflexes (e.g., freezing, tonic immobility) and ineffective habit behaviors.

This brief essay explains how fear and trauma, including in the midst of a sexual assault, shape how memories are encoded, and thus how we should expect the memories to be later, when the victim is trying to recall what happened with investigators, school administrators, family, and friends. Understanding these basics can be very helpful to everyone involved, including by decreasing victims’ shame and self-doubt about fragmentary and incomplete memories.

Testing all sexual assault kits, regardless of the ability to prosecute, will increase law enforcement’s ability to respond to victims, prevent future victimizations, and bring justice to victims.

The application of Crawford principles in the context of forensic evidence continues to plague the criminal justice system. The United States Supreme Court’s decision in Williams v. Illinois raises more questions than it answers about when and how an expert may testify to conclusions based upon the opinions or work of other (non-testifying) experts or technicians. This article reviews the relevant case law, and explores how trial prosecutors can present a case involving forensic testing conducted by a multitude of technicians and experts. It also addresses Williams’ impact on cold cases, in which original experts who performed autopsies and other forensic examinations and testing are no longer available for trial.

Domestic Violence (DV) occurs among all race/ethnicities and socio-economic classes. DV is a pattern of many behaviors directed at achieving and maintaining power and control over an intimate partner, such as physical violence, emotional abuse, isolation of the victim, economic abuse, intimidation, coercion, and threats. For women of color, high rates of poverty, poor education, limited job resources, language barriers, and fear of deportation increase their difficulty finding help and support services.

This summary report begins with a brief overview of elder abuse and abuse in later life. Subsequent sections describe seven key guiding principles as well as minimum guidelines and practice strategies for advocates to consider in their work with older survivors.

In addition to written content, this document also includes supplemental video resources.

This toolkit for service providers explains the importance of working with the media, how to cultivate relationships with members of the media, responding to queries, considering media requests for survivor interviews, how to prepare staff and survivors for media interviews, and more.

A desire to speak out is important, but preparation is key. Survivors of rape and abuse can talk about the issue of gender-related violence with unique authority. And for many who have lived through such violence, the act of sharing their stories can be transformative, and even healing. And yet. Speaking publicly about an issue that the world is still largely unwilling to confront can be a harrowing and even retraumatizing experience. At CounterQuo, we believe that the best way to embark on a media journey that you will not regret is to think through the challenges you may encounter before you come forward. That’s what “Your Voice, Your Choice” is all about.