Intro: You are listening to a Resource Sharing Project podcast on strategies for enhancing sexual assault services in rural dual or multi-service advocacy agencies. This podcast was developed with support from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. Script: Advocates are powerful people. We do many things and fill many roles for survivors. We are the comforting presence in times of crisis, fierce guardians for people’s rights, guides through the aftermath of violence, and agents of transformation in our communities. Rural advocates do all this while navigating the complicated, layered relationships of rural communities. For those of us who are dual advocates, responsible for serving both domestic violence and sexual violence survivors, our work is further complicated and enriched by our dual responsibilities. We can gain a broader range of knowledge and expertise from the broader range of survivors we serve. But how do we find our balance? How do we provide the best sexual assault services we can? The Resource Sharing Project has identified Ten Essential Strengths of Sexual Violence Victim Advocates in Dual or Multi-Service Advocacy Agencies. This podcast will help you explore ways to develop your advocacy skills in working with sexual violence survivors. Advocacy is a partnership with survivors that restore the survivor’s voice, choice, and power. The core of our advocacy work is the partnership we forge and the trust we build with survivors. Let’s take a look at how advocates collaborate with survivors and work in partnership towards the survivor’s goals. Advocates act as a roadmap for survivors, rather than a GPS system. Each survivor knows what healing or justice means to them. We can’t tell survivors how to get there or offer the same path to every person, because it’s not our journey. We can help survivors navigate the aftermath of sexual violence by bringing our expertise about systems, options, reactions, and choices. And we can help by respecting survivors’ expertise on their lives, their desires, their fears, and their hopes. We slow down and deeply listen so we can understand the whole survivor. “I was raped.” That might be one of the hardest sentences to say aloud. The way people, including advocates, react when a survivor discloses sexual violence has significant influence on how the survivor moves forward in their healing process. Creating a safe and non-judgmental space for survivors sets the grounds for a trusting, successful advocacy relationship. Whenever a survivor is ready to talk, we need to be ready to fully listen and fully support them in their healing. As advocates in dual/multi-service agencies, we see many survivors who have experienced multiple forms of violence. Many domestic violence survivors, for instance, were raped by their abusive partners. Some survivors of recent sexual assault or domestic violence were also raped as children. But survivors often don’t know how to bring up past experiences of sexual violence with us. It’s our responsibility to create safe avenues for conversation, so survivors feel safe sharing their experiences with us. Opening up these conversations isn’t about following forms, interviewing, and fitting the survivor into neat little checkboxes. Rather, it’s having a set of questions held in your mind that you ask or bring up when it is appropriate. For example, when you are first getting to know the survivor and they are getting to know you, you could simply say, “Sometimes, the things that are going on right now can bring up memories or feelings about things that happened long ago. If you find that happens for you, please know that you can talk to me about anything.” We also create these safe avenues for conversation with written material and publicity in our agencies. Take a moment to look at the brochures, posters, and books in your office. What do they tell survivors about you and about your services? As we get to know the whole survivor, we also understand and account for in our work survivors’ experiences of oppression. Sexual violence happens in this context of real people’s lives. Nobody exists outside the context of their culture or life experiences. Every day, we each have different experiences and struggles with various forms of oppression such as racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, able-ism, and the like. These experiences of oppression shape our worldview, and the world’s view of us. They also shape our access to resources and systems. We can strengthen our culturally competent advocacy by having ongoing dialogue about sexual violence and oppression, developing culturally relevant policies, practices, and education programs, and helping survivors find vital services that are also culturally relevant. To our advocacy partnership with survivors, we bring our expertise on emergency medical and legal advocacy, long-term medical and legal advocacy, housing and employment advocacy, safety and security, emotional healing after rape, and the services available in our communities for survivors of sexual violence. Knowing the range of medical options, for example, helps us to respond appropriately to a range of survivors’ medical concerns. In collaboration with a survivor, we assess what medical care is most appropriate and comfortable for her or him. Medical options are going to differ for a survivor of a recent assault as opposed to an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse. And, as every survivor is a unique individual, every survivor will have unique health concerns and goals. After we understand what the survivor wants, we can give her or him some details on what each choice involves and how we can support them every step of the way. Then, we can respond by offering the best choices available in our communities. There are so many ways to grow our sexual assault advocacy practice, through training, building partnerships, and personal reflection. We hope this podcast has sparked some ideas about how you might deepen your sexual violence advocacy practice. For more information about Deepening Our Roots, a training and technical assistance project for OVW Rural Grantees, visit www.resourcesharingproject.org/rural-sexual-assault-services. There, you can also find the companion publication for this podcast, e-learning tools, and other publications and resources to help you develop your rural sexual assault services. Outro: This project was supported by Grant No. 2008-TA-AX-K043 awarded by the Office on Violence Against Women, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this podcast are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women.