Coordinated Community Response to Sexual Assault
What is a Coordinated Community Response (CCR)?
Since the early 1970's violence against women has emerged as an issue for public concern by communities nationwide. Beginning with the implementation of services for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence, communities have increased their awareness to the problems of these crimes as well as grappled with responding to the myriad of issues produced by victimization.
As a way to foster cooperation and coordination by the primary intervenors to these crimes, interagency coordination has been identified as a strategy known as Coordinated Community Response (CCR). The model for these coordi-nated community response groups was developed through a federal demonstration project conducted in Duluth, Minnesota and LaCrosse, Wisconsin during the late 1980's. The purpose of the project was to incite criminal justice reform efforts in their response to domestic violence. The domestic violence model was implement-ed in Dane County, Wisconsin in 1989 and since then, other sensitive crime areas, including sexual assault, have modified versions of the CCR model to reform many system and community responses.
The Dane County Coordinated Community Response to Sexual Assault identified its purpose as insuring coordination in the responding to sexual assault, securing consistent services for victims/survivors, and affirming that Dane County is effectively addressing the range of issues contributing to sexual violence. By bringing the various community systems that interact with sexual assault victims/survivors together for an ongoing dialogue, the aim is to develop and maintain a more coordinated and consistent community participation.
Who should be involved in CCR's
In thinking about sexual assault victims and their experience interacting in the community, the first step might be to identify who has contact with victims immediately after and assault. On one level, everyone in a given community could be identified as an "intervenor," since victims disclose their stories to friends, neighbors, and relatives as well as formal systems. However, it may be preferable to begin with community agencies and organization who are either actively working on these or who should be more involved in thinking about responding to this issue. Some issues to keep in mind during the early stages.
A. A CCR needs both the support and involvement of policy-makers (mayor, county government, etc.). It is also important to engage the front-line workers invested as well. The big-name politicians and department heads help, but they don't often carry the work load.
B. The main systems (you decide for your community) are critical to maintain the core working group. You may choose to appoint representatives or allow for people to come if they are interested. Either way, spending time with the main system and helping them buy into the importance of the CCR will help their investment level.
C. It is best to have a Chair and a Coordinator. Who ever is appointed or elected Chair will have a number of political as well as style affects on the CCR. The Chair usually acts as the facilitator and visionary for the CCR, much like that of an agency board president. In order to carry out any work the CCR identified, as staff person or coordinator, paid or volunteer, should be identified to do the leg work for the group.
Strategies
It is important to remember each CCR will be different because each will develop based upon the needs and players of the local communities. That is precisely the strength of this model. But here's some general advice:
A. Do the political leg work. When the Dane County Coordinated Community Response to Sexual Assault began, the Chair, who is the Executive Director of the local Rape Crisis Center, had personal conversations with every core system before the CCR actually began. Conversations about problem areas for each both the Rape Crisis Center and the system were discussed as well as other community system perceptions. Most of these systems had plenty to say about what could be better in our community from their point of view.
B. Find a "home", if possible. In Dane County this was the County's Commission on Sensitive Crimes. It gives the CCR some stability and legitimacy.
C. It is important that people understand that the CCR is a project which has equal parts of cooperation and accountability. Some attitudes about other systems' failings have to be let go while at the same time holding systems accountable. Also, no one gets to right be all the time. A good way to find that balance is to imagine how your system would react to criticisms/issues raised by other systems.
Once the CCR Has Begun
Identify needs and/or gaps. The CCR could engage in a planning process like that of an agency or organization where the community is focal point. Planning processes could use any brainstorming and prioritizing technique. The point is to get as many issues on the table and then sort and prioritize. All of the Dane County CCRSA projects to date have come from our initial brainstorming sessions, which include:
· the Sexual Assault Bill of Rights,
· the Web Site (http://danenet.wicip.org/dcccrsa/),
· the Sexual Assault Resource Directory--this is a sexual assault
services directory with accompanying information pages, and
· the Training Survey and Training Recommendations--after surveying
CCRSA participants we found that one of the weakest areas was Information
and Referral. That's why we did the directory.
Resources Which Support Coordinated Community Response Projects
A. Each state should have an office which subgrants federal Violence Against Women Act grants. For more information contact the Violence Against Women Grants Office at 810 7th Street, NW, Washington DC 20531 or call the Technical Assistance Office at 1-800-256-5883.
B. Local support. It doesn't take a lot of money once things are up and running. Dane County fund the CCRSA project for 5 hours/week in the initial stages. Local support often considered better because its another way to garner local ownership.
Final Thoughts
The most positive aspect of the CCR models is that it allows the community to engage in dialogues and begin to think about these issues in a different way. These coordinated community response projects allow the gaps between professions to be bridged and create a more unified effort in addressing the problems. The growth of local needs has had a dramatic effect on these professions, and responses are often done to immediately deal with a situation. The ebb and flow of the system's response creates a sort of chaos that makes it difficult to think beyond the precipitating problems. Ongoing community and planning groups systematically allow for the scheduling of time in which more thoughtful approaches can be explored and applied.
Frequently Asked Questions
1) We want to have a CCR but we can't get any local support.
There is lots of training around this model in Domestic Violence. Sending some local key people to these trainings can go along way in getting it off the ground. If there is still no support, perhaps the time may not be right.
2) Everyone is too busy to add something new.
Initial special project funding can help get you started without creating an enormous burden on anyone. However, coordination is always more work than less. You have to decide if this model will help in local problem solving or not.
3) We tried this before and nothing came of it.
Any effort to organize in a community may fail. Really analyze what failure means. Not having an established CCR doesn't mean that you failed. Getting systems together and raising the level of agreement is a huge success. Also, if you came together to deal with a specific set of problems and those problems are resolved, disband.
4) Too much bad blood between the main players.
Unfortunately, those players will probably never go away. However, the more engaged a wider segment of the community is in dealing with sexual assault, the less power those individuals have. CCR's also create a better sense of "we" instead of "them/us".