Miss-Delectable
New Member
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2004
- Messages
- 17,160
- Reaction score
- 7
Iowa Group Lands Grant to Help Deaf Assault Survivors | Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org
Maggie Gambill’s hands move furiously, air currents swirling the smoke from her cigarette, as she describes what it was like for her — a deaf woman — to go through the process of medical exams and legal red-tape after she was sexually assaulted nearly 30 years ago.
“The only person the medical team could find who knew sign language was my brother,” Gambill, speaking through an interpreter, explained. “I didn’t want him to know. I really didn’t want anyone in my family to know. I was physically hurt, ashamed and embarrassed.”
At the time Gambill was assaulted by an extended family member there were few resources for the “normal” survivors of violent or sexual crimes, much less those survivors with a disability.
“It’s important that all people who are abused have someone to talk to — someone impartial and knowledgeable who can offer advice without judgment,” she said. “I would say that it is even more important for victims who have a disability to have that.” She paused long enough to extinguish the cigarette before smiling and adding, “I honestly didn’t expect to see such a thing in my lifetime.”
The Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault, which has led the National Sexual Assault Coalition Resource Sharing Project since 2003, was recently named the benefactor of a $400,000 federal grant from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women. The monies will be used to provide structure for the Justice for Deaf Victims National Coalition (JDVNC), an organization that has been in existence in an informal way since 2000.
Although the main goal of the program will be to enhance and further educate the already existing 18 JDVNC-related organizations throughout the nation, leadership is hopeful that the grant will also lead to expansion into additional geographical areas.
“One of the goals of the project will be to establish a national data collection process so we can get solid numbers to back up the need we know is there,” said Gretchen Waech, executive director of JDVNC. “What I can tell you is that, statistically, persons with disabilities are at least twice as likely to be victims of domestic or sexual assault; when you consider that the statistics for the general population are already incredibly high — one in three women is the accepted statistic, although it varies — this is a mind-boggling problem.”
In the grant proposal submitted to federal agencies, the deaf community was highlighted as “a widely overlooked cultural minority group.”
“Victim advocacy programs are not equipped to provide culturally appropriate and linguistically accessible services to deaf survivors,” Waech said. “At best, most programs will make a half-hearted effort to find an interpreter for support groups or make sure their shelters are physically accessible. This is not enough. Thus, deaf victims and survivors rarely get the services they need to help them heal and move on with their lives.”
Gambill knows firsthand about the system’s inability to work with her particular disability.
“Because my abuse was at the hands of a family member that had nearly constant access to me, I moved into a facility for battered and abused women,” she said. “It was nice enough — rather like living in a dormitory. But, no one there spoke my language and I had a very limited ability at that time to read lips. It was isolating. Although I logically understood that I was there to be helped and out of concern for my safety, the day-to-day reality is that I felt as if I was being punished for what happened.”
The 18 JDVNC programs were formed with the goal of providing direct services to deaf victims of domestic and sexual violence. However, only 10 currently provide direct service to victims using paid staff. Three provide advocacy with volunteer staff. Of the remaining programs, some provide a mix of community and mainstream provider education, and others are unable to provide services at all.
With the newly established federal funds, which have come into the state under the umbrella of the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault, the JDVNC hopes to standardize curriculum for advanced training of experienced deaf advocates, enhance training for new programs, standardize training for mainstream providers (victim service programs, law enforcement, medical personnel), establish a certification program for advocates at a national level, centralize resources and information for new and existing programs, and develop guidelines. Organizers had been planning a national conference in October, but, due to the timing of the grant, the event will not be held. Alternative dates for such an event are currently under consideration.
“The broad focus of this three-year process will be building a strong foundation for JDVNC at the federal level, focusing on sustainability,” Waech said. “All of us involved in the project have a goal of making sure this organization is around for the long haul; we have a lot of dreams to accomplish.”
In addition to the grant that will fund a more structured advocacy effort for deaf victims, the Office on Violence Against Women awarded $1.3 million to the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault. This money will aid the state’s leadership in the National Sexual Assault Coalition Resource Sharing Project (RESHAP). While Iowa leads the overall program, the state partners with the North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault and the Washington Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs to divide the nation into three geographical service regions that each contain roughly 20 coalitions.
“[The grant] is for a continuation of the program that the Iowa Coalition has been doing since 2003,” said Cat Fribley, RESHAP coordinator. “It’s a national technical assistance project that provides training, support, on-site visits, skill-building conference calls and many other resources to the staff at all 54 state and territorial sexual assault coalitions. Which, in turn, hopefully means that there is a trickle down affect to the 1,350 rape crisis centers that are across the nation and serve all victims of sexual violence. It’s a way for us to provide up-to-date information, resource sharing and training to those coalition staff who then go back and share that information and those resources.”
Although not personally involved in the management of the new program targeting deaf survivors, Fribley said she’s pleased the group was given federal funds and that Iowa is spearheading the project.
“There has been an understanding and a shift in the last few years that services from within culturally and linguistically specific communities are more effective than an outreach model of a mainstream rape crisis center, providing services as an outreach effort to that community,” she said. “Services developed within that community are more apt to better meet the needs of survivors.”
“It’s hard to consider the magnitude of the impact an advocacy program like this would have had in my life,” Gambill said. “I don’t think it would have taken any of the direct pain away, nor do I think it would have smoothed everything over. I do think, however, that I would not have wasted so much of my time trying to figure out why this happened to me. I don’t think I would have blamed myself as much.”
Maggie Gambill’s hands move furiously, air currents swirling the smoke from her cigarette, as she describes what it was like for her — a deaf woman — to go through the process of medical exams and legal red-tape after she was sexually assaulted nearly 30 years ago.
“The only person the medical team could find who knew sign language was my brother,” Gambill, speaking through an interpreter, explained. “I didn’t want him to know. I really didn’t want anyone in my family to know. I was physically hurt, ashamed and embarrassed.”
At the time Gambill was assaulted by an extended family member there were few resources for the “normal” survivors of violent or sexual crimes, much less those survivors with a disability.
“It’s important that all people who are abused have someone to talk to — someone impartial and knowledgeable who can offer advice without judgment,” she said. “I would say that it is even more important for victims who have a disability to have that.” She paused long enough to extinguish the cigarette before smiling and adding, “I honestly didn’t expect to see such a thing in my lifetime.”
The Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault, which has led the National Sexual Assault Coalition Resource Sharing Project since 2003, was recently named the benefactor of a $400,000 federal grant from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women. The monies will be used to provide structure for the Justice for Deaf Victims National Coalition (JDVNC), an organization that has been in existence in an informal way since 2000.
Although the main goal of the program will be to enhance and further educate the already existing 18 JDVNC-related organizations throughout the nation, leadership is hopeful that the grant will also lead to expansion into additional geographical areas.
“One of the goals of the project will be to establish a national data collection process so we can get solid numbers to back up the need we know is there,” said Gretchen Waech, executive director of JDVNC. “What I can tell you is that, statistically, persons with disabilities are at least twice as likely to be victims of domestic or sexual assault; when you consider that the statistics for the general population are already incredibly high — one in three women is the accepted statistic, although it varies — this is a mind-boggling problem.”
In the grant proposal submitted to federal agencies, the deaf community was highlighted as “a widely overlooked cultural minority group.”
“Victim advocacy programs are not equipped to provide culturally appropriate and linguistically accessible services to deaf survivors,” Waech said. “At best, most programs will make a half-hearted effort to find an interpreter for support groups or make sure their shelters are physically accessible. This is not enough. Thus, deaf victims and survivors rarely get the services they need to help them heal and move on with their lives.”
Gambill knows firsthand about the system’s inability to work with her particular disability.
“Because my abuse was at the hands of a family member that had nearly constant access to me, I moved into a facility for battered and abused women,” she said. “It was nice enough — rather like living in a dormitory. But, no one there spoke my language and I had a very limited ability at that time to read lips. It was isolating. Although I logically understood that I was there to be helped and out of concern for my safety, the day-to-day reality is that I felt as if I was being punished for what happened.”
The 18 JDVNC programs were formed with the goal of providing direct services to deaf victims of domestic and sexual violence. However, only 10 currently provide direct service to victims using paid staff. Three provide advocacy with volunteer staff. Of the remaining programs, some provide a mix of community and mainstream provider education, and others are unable to provide services at all.
With the newly established federal funds, which have come into the state under the umbrella of the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault, the JDVNC hopes to standardize curriculum for advanced training of experienced deaf advocates, enhance training for new programs, standardize training for mainstream providers (victim service programs, law enforcement, medical personnel), establish a certification program for advocates at a national level, centralize resources and information for new and existing programs, and develop guidelines. Organizers had been planning a national conference in October, but, due to the timing of the grant, the event will not be held. Alternative dates for such an event are currently under consideration.
“The broad focus of this three-year process will be building a strong foundation for JDVNC at the federal level, focusing on sustainability,” Waech said. “All of us involved in the project have a goal of making sure this organization is around for the long haul; we have a lot of dreams to accomplish.”
In addition to the grant that will fund a more structured advocacy effort for deaf victims, the Office on Violence Against Women awarded $1.3 million to the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault. This money will aid the state’s leadership in the National Sexual Assault Coalition Resource Sharing Project (RESHAP). While Iowa leads the overall program, the state partners with the North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault and the Washington Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs to divide the nation into three geographical service regions that each contain roughly 20 coalitions.
“[The grant] is for a continuation of the program that the Iowa Coalition has been doing since 2003,” said Cat Fribley, RESHAP coordinator. “It’s a national technical assistance project that provides training, support, on-site visits, skill-building conference calls and many other resources to the staff at all 54 state and territorial sexual assault coalitions. Which, in turn, hopefully means that there is a trickle down affect to the 1,350 rape crisis centers that are across the nation and serve all victims of sexual violence. It’s a way for us to provide up-to-date information, resource sharing and training to those coalition staff who then go back and share that information and those resources.”
Although not personally involved in the management of the new program targeting deaf survivors, Fribley said she’s pleased the group was given federal funds and that Iowa is spearheading the project.
“There has been an understanding and a shift in the last few years that services from within culturally and linguistically specific communities are more effective than an outreach model of a mainstream rape crisis center, providing services as an outreach effort to that community,” she said. “Services developed within that community are more apt to better meet the needs of survivors.”
“It’s hard to consider the magnitude of the impact an advocacy program like this would have had in my life,” Gambill said. “I don’t think it would have taken any of the direct pain away, nor do I think it would have smoothed everything over. I do think, however, that I would not have wasted so much of my time trying to figure out why this happened to me. I don’t think I would have blamed myself as much.”
