2021 COMBAT Mid-Year Funding: $49,763.00

In MOCSA's Own Words

The purpose of this project is to expand essential victim advocacy services for sexual assault survivors in Jackson County, and increase educational programming that informs the Jackson County community of services, resources and healthy relationship skills to stop sexual violence from happening.

MOCSA’s project will fulfill a crucial need for Jackson County by responding to increased demand for these services due to two new Missouri statutes. MOCSA is the only rape crisis center serving Jackson County, and though we have provided these services in the region for decades, we must increase our capacity in order to ensure Jackson County survivors have these critical services now required by law.

In 2020, the State of Missouri passed Senate Bill 569, which includes the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights.

The bill ensures that survivors have the right to consult with an employee or volunteer of a rape crisis center during any forensic examination and before participating in an interview with law enforcement or a prosecuting attorney. MOCSA has longstanding relationships with currently 19 hospitals in the six-county metropolitan area, which automatically dispatch MOCSA advocates to respond when a victim presents for a forensic examination. However, MOCSA advocates are sometimes only offered to support victims in law enforcement or prosecutor settings once a meeting or interview is already taking place. This law now requires that survivors be informed of their right to consult with an advocate of a rape crisis center prior to the interview.

Whether these requests occur at noon or midnight, MOCSA is available whenever there is a need with 24-hour Law Enforcement advocacy services. As the only resource for Jackson County survivors, MOCSA needs additional staff to continue our response to this increasing number of requests for advocacy in Jackson County.

We are already seeing the effects. In the first quarter of 2020 (pre-COVID-19 shutdown), MOCSA responded to 82 law enforcement advocacy services. In the first quarter of 2021, that number jumped up by more than 55%, to 128 unique law enforcement advocacy services. This law will remain an important aspect of Missouri’s legal landscape in the future, and onboarding a new Advocacy and Outreach Specialist position will help ensure this need is met in accordance with the state’s Sexual Assault Survivor’s Bill of Rights.

Also new in 2020, a different Missouri law (Section 170.045, RSMo) now requires that school districts annually provide trauma-informed, developmentally appropriate sexual abuse training for grades 6 through 12. Training must help students recognize sexual abuse, provide students with knowledge and tools to report an incident of sexual abuse, and provide resources and outline actions that students can take to obtain assistance.

In a non-COVID year, MOCSA sees more than 50,000 students throughout the six-county metropolitan area. Since the passage of this new law last year, MOCSA is now seeing an increase in requests for prevention and education programming across our Missouri service region, especially in the Kansas City Public School (KCPS) District and other Jackson County schools. Our demand for education and prevention in Missouri communities is now beyond our capacity. MOCSA has been a strong community partner of KCPS for many years and hiring an additional Education and Outreach Specialist will allow us to expand services, provide additional sexual violence education to students and staff throughout the district (over 15,000 students), and help schools in Jackson County comply with this new state-mandated requirement.

TARGET POPULATION

MOCSA’s target population includes the general population of Jackson County who are victims of sexual abuse, serving survivors across all ages, genders, and ethnicities throughout Jackson County, Missouri. Through this COMBAT project, MOCSA will also reach students ages 5-18 across elementary, middle, and high schools in Jackson County, primarily within the Kansas City Public School District.

ADVOCACY SERVICES

Victim advocates provide support, problem-solving, information and referrals to victims of sexual assault. A MOCSA advocate supports a victim as he or she undergoes a forensic medical exam at a hospital and provides information before and after the exam. Advocacy may also occur at a police station, while the victim provides a statement or identifies a perpetrator.

Advocates also attend court alongside the victim, while the victim undergoes legal proceedings.

Personal and long-term advocacy occurs at MOCSA’s offices, where the victim fills out Crime Victims’ Compensation paperwork. At our office, victims get help explaining an assault to the victim’s employer and receive assistance in safety planning, security repairs or other emergency services. Those receiving advocacy are victims of sexual assault at any age, or adult survivors of child sexual abuse—as well as the family, caregivers, loved ones and other secondary survivors in the victim’s life.

24-Hour Crisis Line: The live-answer crisis line provides an anonymous, confidential, and immediate response to callers in both English and Spanish. The crisis line operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and has never stopped operating during the pandemic. Callers receive crisis intervention, information and referrals to services at MOCSA or in the community.

Those affected by sexual violence may call the crisis line hours, days, months or even years after the assault or abuse. Callers can be victims of rape, parents of child sexual abuse victims, significant others of sexual assault victims, adults molested as children, sexual harassment victims or any individual needing assistance with these difficult issues. MOCSA’s crisis line is also to go-to resource for area hospitals and law enforcement to request victim advocacy services.

Hospital Advocacy: MOCSA staff and volunteer advocates ensure that survivors who seek a forensic exam at area hospitals have an advocate available to them 24-hours a day, 7 days a week. MOCSA has formal collaborations with 19 metro hospitals, five in Jackson County, outlining both MOCSA’s response and the hospital’s response when a victim seeks a forensic medical exam.

When a victim presents at a hospital, the hospital contacts MOCSA to send a staff or volunteer advocate. The advocate provides support, advocacy, information, referrals and crisis intervention during the forensic medical exam. MOCSA provides survivors with an Assault Survivor Kit at the hospital. The kit includes toiletries, a change of clothes, a book about recovering from sexual assault, information about Crime Victims’ Compensation, and brochures explaining services available at MOCSA. The Advocate asks the victim if they would like a staff person to follow up with them in the coming days to provide support and additional advocacy. In many cases, the victim requests follow-up contact for criminal justice and personal advocacy from Advocacy and Outreach Specialists.

Criminal Justice and Legal Advocacy: MOCSA provides ongoing advocacy and support for victims of sexual violence and their loved ones. The Criminal Justice Advocacy victims receive from the advocacy team include law enforcement and criminal court advocacy, support through all stages of the investigation, court proceedings and victim impact statements. The advocate accompanies and supports the victim of crime in meetings with detectives at law enforcement offices and court hearings.

Advocates also provide crisis intervention, safety planning and logistical support, such as transportation assistance, as a part of this process. While the COMBAT-funded Advocate will provide all forms of advocacy for victims in Jackson County, a focus of this position is responding to activations from law enforcement according to the new Sexual Assault Survivor’s Bill of Rights in the State of Missouri.

Furthermore, in 2017 and again in 2020, MOCSA was also honored to be a recipient of the federal Office on Violence Against Women (OWV) Legal Assistance for Victims grant. This initial grant facilitated the hiring of a specialized Project Attorney, as well as a Paralegal. These two positions integrate with MOCSA’s current advocacy staffing pattern and allow MOCSA to provide additional legal assistance and representation for victims of crime. The Advocacy and Outreach Specialist and Coordinator of Advocacy positions work with MOCSA’s Legal Advocacy team to refer victims for additional legal support and collaborate with other staff to support victims during civil and criminal cases.

Personal Advocacy: Personal advocacy includes a range of supportive services to meet victims’ needs. Staff provide victims with emergency services, crisis intervention, assistance with any temporary housing, transportation assistance, and daycare assistance to attend court hearings. Advocates also help with needs that arise out of their victimization and are necessary to ensure their safety and alleviate the immediate effects of the criminal act or offense. They also aid victims in their recovery by facilitating psycho-educational groups for victims, in both in-person and virtual platforms. MOCSA’s Advocacy and Outreach Specialist and the Coordinator of Advocacy will assist survivors with completing and filing the Crime Victims’ Compensation forms, obtaining necessary documentation, notarization of forms, and checking on claim status.

EDUCATION SERVICES

MOCSA’s educators provide crucial information about victim services, teach the community on the dynamics of sexual violence, dispel harmful myths that allow violence to continue, and equip community members—especially youth—with the skills and knowledge to achieve healthy relationships. All Education and Outreach Specialists take shifts on MOCSA’s crisis line and are trained in crisis intervention. Educators respond to disclosures from students and adults who disclose being a victim during a presentation, and work with mandated reporters and provide resources to ensure care for the individual as they step forward to seek help. Educators also do community outreach through tabling events; presentations in churches or community centers; and providing training to adults in various organizations such as schools, businesses, and colleges. While the COMBAT-funded Educator and Outreach Specialist will provide services to people of all ages, the position will focus on providing education and information to youth ages 5-18 in the Kansas City Public Schools to comply with new Missouri statutes.

Project Aware: Project Aware is MOCSA’s sexual abuse education program for children in pre-k through 5th grade. Project Aware sessions are conducted in classroom settings lasting approximately 45 minutes. Age-appropriate videos and coloring books are utilized along with discussion and role-play activities to achieve the program’s learning goals, which include information about body safety, boundaries, and identifying trusted adults to approach if they have been abused or feel unsafe. Students also learn three safety rules to follow if they are in situations that make them feel unsafe: Say No, Get Away, and Tell Someone. The most important message children receive is that sexual abuse is never the fault of the victim and that everyone has the right to feel safe and disclose abuse. An adult component of Project Aware provides basic information on child sexual abuse, adults' responsibility in keeping children safe, tools for intervention in unsafe situations, and support resources. This component ensures that the lessons of the program are implemented beyond school environments, in the home.

Youth Education: MOCSA provides sexual violence education sessions for middle and high school youth. This includes presentations on various topics addressing sexual violence, including sexual assault, healthy relationships, consent, and sexual harassment. Presentations are typically provided in a classroom setting such as a health class. Typically, multi-session programming is provided and covers three subjects over the course of three separate presentations with students so that lessons can build on information learned in previous presentations. MOCSA customizes the presentation to students' age, geographic location, and current events happening with that specific population.   The purpose of these sessions is to help students identify sexual violence, know what to do if sexual violence happens to them or someone they know, and address the social and cultural norms that allow harassment, dating violence, and sexual assault to perpetuate.   

Adult Education and Outreach: MOCSA engages adults in presentations, outreach campaigns, and tabling activities that discuss sexual assault, child sexual abuse, trauma-informed response, bystander engagement, and victim assistance. These occur at health fairs, churches, and community events—to increase knowledge of the dynamics of sexual violence, ways to prevent it, and supportive services to help victims. MOCSA also offers Stewards of Children, an evidence-informed program that teaches adults about the dynamics of child sexual abuse and the responsibility of adults to keep children safe.

In response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, MOCSA will continue to innovate our services to ensure crucial programming and resources both virtually and in-person, when and where it is deemed safe. This “dual-method” service delivery platform increases access and helps both our community partners and MOCSA comply with public health guidance and recommendations from the Center for Disease Control. Regardless of the challenges of the pandemic, we will continue to adapt and provide our programming to ensure victims have the services they need and youth have the education to lead healthy, thriving lives in Jackson County.

OUTCOMES

MOCSA has two goals for this project.

First, we will expand essential victim advocacy services for sexual assault survivors in Jackson County. This will be achieved by onboarding and training a new Advocacy and Outreach Specialist, which will result in serving 100 advocacy clients in Jackson County. Our program outcome for advocacy is that at least 95% of advocacy clients report the service they receive is helpful, as assessed on our Client Contact Logs for crisis-line and advocacy services.

Second, MOCSA will increase educational programming that informs Jackson County community members of services, resources, and healthy relationship skills to stop sexual violence from happening. We will do this by onboarding and training a new Education and Outreach Specialist to serve at least 6,000 individuals in Jackson County with educational programming. The outcome of this work is that at least 90% of the education participants will report an increase in knowledge as a result of the program. This measure is assessed through post-tests surveys (in written or verbal form, depending on the reading level and grade of participants) that are distributed after each presentation.

Data is collected for advocacy clients in MOCSA’s secure client database. Data for education presentations are collected using MOCSA’s new Community Check Box Evaluation System. This web-based system allows MOCSA to document our project activities, show how our actions are resulting in positive change, and analyze the effectiveness of our work. These processes help support meaningful evaluations, promote accountability, and encourage continual improvements to our work for victims and youth in our community.