By Jason Stuart
Ranger-Review Staff Writer
As Sexual Assault Awareness Month comes to a close with the end of April, the Dawson County Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) wants to let locals know that they are there to help anyone who has suffered the physical and emotional pain of being a victim of sexual violence.
The Dawson County SART team is composed of officials from local law enforcement agencies, healthcare professionals and victim advocates, including the Dawson County Attorney’s Office, the Glendive Police Department, the Dawson County Sheriff’s Office, Child Protective Services, Dawson County Domestic Violence (DCDV) and Glendive Medical Center.
“It’s basically a group of agencies and professionals who come together in the community to help victims of sexual assault,” said Teresea Olson, a sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE) at GMC and a SART member. “Different members can be dispatched for different victims in different situations as each case requires.”
The first stop for any victim of sexual assault would be the SANE room at GMC, where Olson or one of the other SANE nurses will examine the victim and begin the process of collecting evidence. Olson noted that each of GMC’s SANE nurses have received “very extensive training on collecting forensic medical evidence” from sexual assault victims.
Going through that process can be intimidating, embarrassing and even traumatizing in and of itself, Olson and other SART members noted, which is why as soon as a victim reports a sexual assault, authorities contact the person on-call with DCDV to respond.
“We just get a call anytime there is a sexual assault and we just report to the hospital, and we just kind of do whatever the victim’s comfortable with” said DCDV employee and SART member Lacy McCullough. “We’re able to provide that immediate support for them.”
Beyond their initial contact of just being there for the victim as they go through the examination process, DCDV provides a host of other services for victims of sexual assault, whether they choose to prosecute their attacker or not, something McCullough said she thinks a lot of victims don’t realize.
DCDV also provides short-term shelter services for sexual assault victims in a secure location, as well as longer term transitional housing, which can also include rental assistance. They also have a legal program which can help victims with protective or restraining orders and provide a bi-weekly support group for victims of sexual violence — one for women and another for children.
“Advocacy is our main service, and that’s one-on-one support for the victim,” McCullough said, adding that DCDV also provides “secondary support” for family members of sexual assault victims.
If a victim decides to prosecute their attacker, that’s when victim witness assistant Kendra Hubbard with the Dawson County Attorney’s Office becomes involved. The County Attorney’s Office is actually made aware of all cases of sexual assault, whether the victim intends to prosecute or not, as Hubbard noted that the first person local law enforcement officials notify in all such cases is Dawson County Attorney Olivia Norlin-Rieger so SART can begin working on the case.
Hubbard meets with each victim to “go through the whole process” and let them decide if they want to prosecute their attacker or not. Even if the victim chooses not to prosecute, Hubbard noted that SART does not just drop them, and that she, Norlin-Rieger and DCDV officials will continue to keep contact with them “to see that they’re OK” and provide them with whatever support they can, like referrals to mental health professionals or other counselors.
If the victim does decide to prosecute, Hubbard is there to offer them support throughout the entire court process. She attends hearings with the victim, keeps them informed of all court proceedings and the legal status of their attacker and works to set them up with the Crime Victim Compensation Fund.
Hubbard said she worked on five sexual assault cases last year that went through the court system. She said she believes there are likely more cases of sexual assault that never get reported and other cases where the victims chose not to prosecute.
Hubbard said that makes it hard to determine just how big of a problem sexual assault is in the local area because so many victims choose not to report being assaulted or choose not to prosecute. She said the reason for that is the simple fact that going through the process can be intimidating and traumatizing, as well as the fact that all too often when such cases become public, many in our society engage in “victim-blaming,” which only serves to further traumatize the victim.
“I think it’s a problem, I just don’t think we know about it. Sometimes, it’s easier to just not go through the process of the exam and reporting it,” Hubbard said. “It can be very traumatizing, almost as traumatizing as the incident itself.”
What SART members want all victims of sexual violence to know is that they are there for them to stand beside them along every step of the way, just as they say the community has been there to support them and help them grow their efforts to help victims.
Olson pointed out that almost all the materials in the SANE room at GMC — from the examination table to the new forensic evidence camera to the fresh clothes they keep to send victims home in to the very artwork on the walls — were provided by private donations through the GMC Foundation and other benefactors or grants through the DCDV.
She said just as the SART members support each other and the victims they work with, so too has the community support for the work they do allowed them to succeed. What it all adds up to is a passionate, dedicated group of people working to help assuage the anguish of those who have suffered a sexual assault in a way that Olson, Hubbard and McCullough all noted many communities lack.
“In order for any team to thrive, everybody needs to share in the responsibility to make it a success, and we have that,” Olson said.
Reach Jason Stuart at rrreporter@rangerreview.com.