- [Anna] Hi, we would like to welcome you to our five-part training series on domestic violence, sexual assault, and disability. This series is brought to you by the Miami Inclusion Alliance, or known as MIA. MIA is comprised of four organizations that have spent the last three years studying domestic violence, sexual assault, and the services in Miami-Dade County, and how people with disabilities are utilizing these services. What we have found is that there is a disconnect between the services that we have in our community and the outreach to persons with disabilities. This training series is the first step to bridging the gap between services and people with disabilities. We're working internally to train our organizations and then we will be going out to the community to share the knowledge and information we have gained. The disabilities and dependence group is an advocacy center for disability rights. The Dade Legal Aid is a legal aid partner that handles domestic violence cases, and MUJER is the certified sexual assault center, who also provides domestic violence services and CVAC is the county's one-stop center for domestic violence, and it oversees the domestic violence safe space shelters. This project was supported by grant number 2015-FW-AX-K001. It's been awarded by the Office of Violence Against Women, the US Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Justice, Office of Violence Against Women. Again, this is a five-part training series. You will notice that we have embedding accessibility features into the training. All the videos have been captioned so that you can be able to read the words that we are speaking. All the videos are being interpreted in ASL, American Sign Language, and the font size of the words on all slides are large and we are using sans serif font that is easy to read. The colors that are used on the slides have been tested to make sure that there is contrast between the colors for better viewing. You can watch these videos in any way that you wish to. The training you are about to watch now is called Sexual Assault 101. It will focus on sexual assault, giving you an understanding of what it is, how it impacts victims, how you can effectively help a victim, and what resources are available in our community. The mission of the Miami Inclusion Alliance is to learn about the intersection of disabilities and domestic violence, and/or sexual assault in order to promote a culture of inclusion between all collaborating agencies. This collaboration will implement the necessary changes so that persons with disabilities who are affected by domestic violence and/or sexual assault have equal access to services. Now that I have entered which portion of the training, let me introduce myself. My name is Anna Obregon. I am the sexual assault program director and I will be your speaker for today. Through MUJER's comprehensive one-stop domestic violence and sexual assault center, we have provided various programs and services that promote healing among individuals, families, and communities. Each year, MUJER serves approximately 600 unduplicated clients. Before I continue, I would also like to share a little about my background. First of all, I have been with MUJER for approximately 19 years in various positions including doing advocacy, care coordination, program development, and now as a supervisor over sexual violence services. I would also like to add that I am also a survivor of childhood incest, acquaintance and gang rape. Today you will learn about sexual violence. What is it? How does it impact victim survivors? How can you effectively support a victim who discloses to you or to your agency? Who and where can you refer victims to? For this presentation, I will be using the term victim and survivor interchangeably. As you can see here, sexual violence is the non-legal term that is mainly used by organizations that recognize that all unwanted sexual acts or gestures are impactful violations. The terms recognized by the legal community are sexual battery and sexual assault. It is essential to know the difference in this language because certain legal services require certain words to be able to be qualifying for services. For example, to file for victim's compensation under sexual assault, the police report must be coded as a sexual battery. This is why we will reiterate the importance of making sure that all victims have access to specialized sexual assault advocates who will know the difference and can make sure that documents are appropriately recorded. I will cover more about sexual assault services later in the presentation. Sexual violence and consent. Basically, what we know about consent under the statute 794 is that minors, vulnerable adults, do not have the authority to give it, and anyone under the influence of alcohol or any other drugs, including prescribed, are not able to give consent either. Please make note that consent is not automatically given when both parties are minors, vulnerable adults, or if both are under the influence of any type of substance. If you have any questions, or need more information about consent, you can reference Florida Statute 794. As you can see here, now we have come to the portion of talking about the different forms of sexual violence. We have here child sexual abuse and incest, drug-facilitated sexual assault, intimate sexual abuse. That includes dating violence, which is very commonly perpetrated among youth or unmarried adults. We have marital rape, which is one of those acts that is not easily recognized by victims because of cultural or religious beliefs. Most women in these cases believe that it is their obligation to have sex with their husbands regardless if they want to or not. We also have acquaintance rape, statutory, sexual harassment, sexual exploitation and trafficking, stranger rape, unwanted sexual gestures, coerced violence, which is also difficult to recognize because the abuser in these cases uses different forms of manipulation. For example, among youth, we hear a lot where one party is asking the other one, if you love me, show me proof of that, and it's usually by asking for a sexual act. There is another form of sexual violence that is very important to know about, and it is with today's technology. In 2011, the sexting Florida Statute 874-847 was added to the listing of sexual violence offenses. It prohibits a minor from sexting, which is transmitting a photograph, video of any person which depicts nudity of other minors. Anyone, as we can see here, can experience sexual violence, including females, males, children, teens, adults, elders, and people with disabilities. I want to include that anyone can also perpetrate sexual violence. Again, it could be a female, male, child, teen, adult, an elder, and even a person with disabilities. Before I continue with the other statistics, let me point out that the following statistics are based on the cases that have actually been reported. We have learned that many victims will never report their abuse for various personal reasons, including shame, fear, and because of threats. Now let's continue with stats. In Florida, it is estimated that one in nine women are sexually assaulted at some point in their lives. One in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before they turn the age of 18. 34% of people who sexually abuse a child are family members. Now we have arrived to question number one. Let's read here. A married man is taking medications which puts him to sleep and it makes his genital area painfully sensitive. He's had conversations with his wife about waiting until he completes the treatment to be intimate. One day she has a couple of drinks and performs sexual acts on him. The next day, he gets up, and he's very upset, and asks his wife, do you not care about my painful situation? Let's see. Do you believe this was sexual violence? Did you choose yes? Well, consider this. Did the husband make his wishes very clear from the beginning? And now let's think about the definition of consent, and the different forms of sexual violence. We know that alcohol does not give or take consent, so would you say that it is not an excuse to do whatever you want to an intimate partner or anyone else? If you chose no, think about the situation and how would it make anyone feel. Do you believe the husband feels supported in his medical condition? Does he have the right to say no? Now the impact of sexual violence. Now we are going to get into the training portion that covers this impact. I want to emphasize that sexual violence does really devastate not only the victim, but the family, other loved ones, and communities at whole. Now we are going to see first hand how sexual violence impacts both women and men. You are now going to be viewing several clips from the video titled Out of Darkness, Into Light.

- [Narrator] Like Roberto, Susan Rubio-Rivera was also victimized by members of her own family. A third generation Mexican-American, Susan's childhood was shattered from the very beginning.

- I was five years old when my mother finally decided to leave my dad, who was very abusive. There isn't a whole lot of memories other than just bad stuff, because we were all witnesses of the domestic violence and the beatings that my mother suffered. What I can remember, it happened, I think, right after we started living with my grandpa. My grandpa also was a Mexican-American Mexicano, very controlling, very domineering. All the family would be in this one little sitting room watching TV and he would be here, in front of everybody, he would sit there and then he would sit one of us on his lap and then he would put a blanket over him and he would start abusing us, in front of everybody. I don't know if anybody knew what was going on. Now as an adult, I think back to those times and I say, how could you not know? How could you not know?

- [Narrator] In trying to come to terms with these devastating experiences, victims undergo a range of emotions. Defining sexual abuse can often be the first step to understanding it.

- Sexual abuse is not about sex. It is an act of aggression and it has to do with power and control over another person. It is never the victim's fault.

- [Narrator] This power and control begins with a process called grooming, in which the victim is manipulated by the abuser in order to achieve his or her goals.

- Grooming is a gradual process that a perpetrator will develop with the victim. They will take the victim to special places, special activities, maybe be involved in their extracurricular activities or school. The perpetrator will give them special treats, buy them gifts, make them feel they're special, and build that emotional bond with the victim.

- Physically, it would be a hug or a long touch. I didn't say anything. She knew when she did those little things to test boundaries, to test the relationship, that I didn't go talk to my parents. And it's not just with touching. It's special attention. It's getting to sit in the front seat all the time. It's extra dessert. It's 10 minutes more of TV, 20 minutes more of TV, which to you or I, at this point, doesn't seem like a big deal, but to a child, it does, especially to a child who's starving for attention. She also worked on her grooming process with my parents. They could always trust her. They knew they could. She stopped taking days off, so she was always there at the house making sure that everything was okay.

- [Narrator] As this grooming process evolves into abuse, the effects can manifest in a variety of ways, depending on a person's nature.

- Each person responds to the sexual abuse in their own way. However, there are three basic behaviors that we do categorize it into, and that is the sexualized behavior, the internalized behavior, and the externalized behavior. For externalized behavior, which we often find in boys, they're using more aggressive acting out, more maybe hurting themselves or hurting others, having difficulty with authority, getting into trouble with the law, possibly breaking things, becoming physically aggressive just in general.

- By the sixth grade, I was convicted for my first felony on attempted murder charges. I had stabbed a young man because he had hit me. And while this is going on, I was in a sexual pedophilic relationship with a 50-year-old man.

- [Narrator] As a way to cope with the turmoil inside of him, Roberto began to act out.

- [Roberto] I would have different masks. I would have different outfits I would wear. Through my adolescence, one of the outfits I wore was promiscuity. I became very promiscuous with young ladies. You know, I had to have a lot of girlfriends to validate my masculinity, to make me feel like a man, to be rid of the feelings that somehow, am I homosexual? Am I heterosexual? One of the other masks was aggression, hostility, anger, rage. If I'm the toughest, if I'm the baddest, you're not gonna touch me. You can't get close enough to me to be intimate with me, to hurt me again.

- The internalized behavior, which we often find more with girls, is where they may socially withdraw. If they're younger, they may regress back to baby talk or maybe their toilet training also goes back. And for older children who internalize it, they may have eating disorders or they may also excel in their schoolwork, in their extracurricular activities, because they feel that this is a way to kind of run away from the problem.

- [Anna] Now that you have seen the video, were you able to pick up on life-changing traumas? Do you now agree with the statement made by Brian Rogers that says, "Unresolved trauma is the fuel "for the cycle of violence in our country"? Well, I believe that this statement not only resonates with our country, but it also is true for other countries where child abuse and unresolved trauma exists. There is a saying that goes, "Hurt people will hurt people." We need to help victims heal so that they can too put a stop to the cycle of violence. To view the full-length video, go to YouTube and look it up. It's called Out of Darkness, Into Light, and select the one that titles Child Sexual Abuse, a WRLN original production. As we see here, sexual violence changes the way the victim perceives the world, making it difficult many times to trust people or systems. The trauma caused by sexual abuse affects the victim's whole being. It overwhelms their natural coping capacity. This is why we find people engaging in various forms of coping behaviors, including using or abusing alcohol or other drugs. It does not matter whether the trauma is caused by a single incident, or by repeated, prolonged exposure. One person's trauma should never be compared to another's, and their healing needs to be individualized. What this means is that each survivor's thoughts, feelings, behaviors are filtered through his or her own experiences and perspectives. Unfortunately, survivors will likely experience other painful events that contribute to more trauma, which makes it harder for them to heal. You want to know how sexual trauma affects victims? Well, here we have it. We are three times more likely to suffer from depression, six times more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress, 13 times more likely to abuse alcohol, 26 times more likely to abuse other drugs, and we are four times more likely to contemplate suicide. Did you hear me say we? Yes, I will admit that I am too part of these statistics. Question number two. Well, here we are again, testing your knowledge. Someone walks in for services and demands to be served immediately. While waiting, she loudly comments, "These people better hurry and not waste my time." The receptionist smells alcohol on the client's breath and informs the care coordinator. What do you think the care coordinator should do? Number one, respectfully bring the client in to assess his or her situation, immediately decide to have her return when she is sober, or, three, call the police when she may not be drinking. I'm sorry, call the police because she may be drinking and driving. Well, consider what was said in the video. Victims deal with a lot of pain, so they may find different ways to cope. Some of the ways include using or abusing alcohol and other drugs. If you choose number two, you can be turning a victim away who is in crisis and needs your help. If you choose number three, you may be sending someone to jail who is dealing with sexual abuse trauma, and they could have gotten a ride or not be under the influence anymore. It could be they drank the night before. If you choose number one, it may give you and the victim an opportunity to have a conversation about what is happening and you can find out what the victims needs to be okay. She or he may need crisis counseling or intervention. I wanna add that if you smell alcohol or marijuana on someone's breath, it could be that it was lingering from the night before. Now that we have gone over the impact of sexual violence, I want to talk a little bit about services. Trauma-informed services, what is it? Well, it's a practice where we go beyond looking at what the victim's behaviors are, or it doesn't focus on what the person's coping strategies are either. It takes into consideration the whole person's being, including their cultural and spiritual beliefs. It also takes into consideration their emotional and psychological state. It is impossible to provide holistic services without entering the victim's world. This could be done through respectful, compassionate, active listening. Trauma-informed care services does that for you. It allows you to focus on the survivor and not their symptoms. Keep in mind that the trauma caused by sexual violence is not an illness, so you should not be trying to treat it as one. What else do we know about trauma-informed services? Well, all types and levels of services are influenced by the direct staff's understanding on the impact of interpersonal violence and victimization on an individual's life and development. Assessing staff's belief, their knowledge on the intersection of sexual violence, it's really, really important, and other influencing factors that also contribute to providing a good service. Did you know that a person's personal bias can compromise a good service to victims? What does trauma-informed care try to do? Well, it tries to avoid the re-victimization to the victim, and it promotes their healing. It increases the awareness about a person's abuse trauma history, how they perceive what happened to them, and its overall impact. This will help in assessing victim's needs and their efficacy, so they can better be served. It helps us understand each victim in their own context of their own life experiences, again, cultural background, and beliefs, which include religious. It helps us understand how many problem behaviors begin as attempts to cope. It strives to maximize choices for the victim and gives them full control over their healing process, including the pace it takes for them to heal. It also seeks to be culturally and linguistically competent. What else should you know about trauma-informed care services? Some victims are going to be reluctant to access services because of previous re-victimization experiences they have had with other entities, or because of lack of service knowledge, and the victim blaming that still continues to be a huge problem in communities, and also among other providers. Immediate trauma recovery services are very vital so that victims can thrive, and not just cope through life in a cycle of reoccurring abuse. It creates an accessible, safe, seamless system of care that promotes dignity and respect in all survivors who are affected by sexual violence. Having a better understanding of what a person has experienced will help you strengthen the relationship with the victim. Ultimately, having a strong bond will give you a strong victim-staff rapport, which can make interventions a lot more successful. When you have the trust of a victim who exhibits challenging behaviors, you will know how to reach them. You will know how to communicate with them and what they need to help them through the crisis, and, again, you will be able to help the victim identify what they need to regain control. Now that you have learned about what sexual violence is, what is the impact? How services can be set up to effectively help victims. Let's talk a little bit about how we can support a victim. Well, there's a couple of things we need to know in order for us to be the compassionate, supportive people that they need to encounter. It's important to know about the common reactions. Not everybody reacts the same way. Some victims deal with their crisis by crying. Others will be quiet. You will find some who are acting out with anger or you may even encounter some who are laughing. Many may act out inappropriately by being loud or demanding. Others may seem reluctant to disclose, even though they are the ones who are coming to you for help. That's why it's important to develop a rapport with the victim, so they can feel comfortable talking about their sensitive personal situation. Now that we are familiar with some of the common reactions, let's talk about some of the things that are needed to provide trauma-informed responses. Well, first of all, we need to always start off by believing the victim. That's really, really important. Always treat victims with respect and dignity and compassion. Never, never judge a victim by what they are wearing, their appearance, or what they are doing. When victims feel safe, they will also feel safe to talk. Here we come again, question number three. Now let's see what you think about this scenario. A victim goes to your office and asks to speak with someone, but refuses to fill out the prescreening form. Staff asks, what seems to be your problem? Do you think this is a trauma-informed response? Well, let's think about the impact of sexual violence and what do we know about it. Well, we know that it is something that is very sensitive. It's a sensitive, traumatic experience that is still, to many victims, a shameful experience. So you should not believe that you should be able to make a victim talk in a brief encounter you have with them. Keep in mind that many victims seeking help do not know what to expect from us, or how we will support them, or how our services work. Think about that before making your answer. MUJER has a sexual assault certified center. There's a couple of things that it's important for you to know, so you can be able to share it with anyone who discloses sexual violence. Number one, we cover the area from Florida City to Kendall Drive, which is south Miami-Dade County. Our advocates, because they do work at a certified center, have privilege. That means our conversations are confidential. We are able to provide support to the victims during the medical exam, and we are also allowed to be present during law enforcement or the state attorney interviews. To get more information about this counselor/victim privilege, you can look up Statute number VII 90.5035. What are the required core services that we need to provide as a certified center? Well, we have to have 24 hours, seven days a week advocacy services, which means we have advocates who are ready to respond on scene at the request of law enforcement, or we can also respond to the local hospitals. We also provide crisis intervention 24 hours a day. We can do it in person during business hours, or through our 24/7 helpline. We provide accompaniment services. We are able to go with the victim to access services that are outside the agency. We provide information and referrals. We provide individual, family, and group therapy services, community education and awareness. We also take into consideration the importance of not being able to do things on our own. So we are constantly working on coordinating community services and responses to victims. As a certified center, and as someone who works with victims of abuse, it's really important to know what are the requirements for reporting. Here we have two. The Florida Statute Chapter 39 mandates that any person who knows or suspects of any type of child abuse is required to make a report to the Florida Department of Children and Families. In the case of vulnerable adults, here you have Florida Statute Chapter 415, where we also have to be responsible for providing a report when we suspect that someone is abusing or exploiting a vulnerable adult. Here you have the number. The hotline number is 1-800-96-ABUSE. Here we go again, testing your knowledge. Every time that your family is going to visit Uncle Joe, your son immediately says that he doesn't wanna go. When you ask him why not, he shows signs of fear and starts to cry and fidgets. As a mom, I suspect that Uncle Joe is molesting my child. What do you think I should do? Should I call DCF? Yes or no. If you have any questions about this Sexual Assault 101 presentation, please contact MUJER at contactus@mujerfla.org. There are several resources available to victims. For domestic violence, there is a National Domestic Violence hotline. The phone number is 1-800-799-7233. At the state level, you can call the Florida Council Against Domestic Violence, which stands for Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence. The phone number is 1-800-500-1119. At the local level, you can contact CVAC. The phone number is 305-285-5900. For sexual violence national services, you can call RAINN, which stands for Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network. Their phone number is 1-800-656-4673. And at the local state level, you can contact the Florida Council Against Sexual Violence. Their phone number is 1-888-956-7273. Or here in Miami-Dade County, you can reach our sexual assault helpline. Our number is 305-763-2459. Thank you for watching this Sexual Assault 101 training. Please make sure to watch the other four training parts of this five-part training series. Again, if you have further questions, please contact MUJER at 305-247-1388, or by email at contactus@mujerfla.org. You can also visit our website at mujerfla.org.