The trauma of sexual, domestic and physical violence doesn’t end when the physical wounds heal.
Emotional and mental wounds can fester for months and years if not addressed. The crimes impact not only the victim, but their families as well: parents, siblings, spouses, children.
People need counseling, advocacy and support to begin the healing process. With the help of a new federal grant, a Johnson County organization will be able to continue that work free of charge.
ASSIST, a team of social workers, victim advocates and medical professionals dealing with victims of trauma stemming from violence, has received a grant for $500,000 over the next two years to carry on its work.
Though the organization is less than two years old, it has already met with more than 550 people struggling with the aftereffects of sexual or family violence, said Jenny Lee, a nurse practitioner at Johnson Memorial Health who helped found the group.
“It’s definitely a need in the community. The federal government listened to the need, they see the statistics down here, the gaps in services. There just weren’t any providers that gave affordable, accessible, specialized and dependable care to our victims,” she said.
The counseling, advocacy and other services provided by ASSIST are vitally important to the community, said Jill Gonterman, lead clinical social worker for ASSIST.
“Seeing that need is what keeps me doing this,” she said. “When I get that time when I actually get to meet with our clients, get their feedback, see referrals from other people they know and how much they’re getting out of this, that’s what keeps me pushing forward to do this.”
The grant was provided through the Sexual Assault Victims Assistance Fund, administered through the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute.
Spread over two years, the $500,000 will help pay for operating costs such as utilities, rent and outfitting the office, as well as to continue paying the four full-time staff members.
The need for the grant is illustrated in the overwhelming response ASSIST had from the community, Lee said. When the organization applied for the funding last April, the team estimated that it would have 100 contacts with people — either victims, family members or others involved.
“We didn’t know what the response would be, so we thought we’d strive high and say 100. Now, in the past 12 months that we’ve been serving victims with indirect services, we have over 550 victims, all within Johnson County,” Lee said.
ASSIST officials are in the process of applying for additional state and federal grants, with the hopes that they can add more staff members.
“We’ve got a wait list, and there’s a just a lot of people to try to serve,” Gonterman said.
ASSIST was founded in 2016 as a support team housed at Johnson Memorial Health. The program was modeled on The Center for Hope, a similar extension of Eskenazi Health caring for victims of sexual assault and family violence.
The goal was to provide more wraparound services for people who have been directly or indirectly affected by sexual, domestic and physical violence.
ASSIST works with hospitals on forensic medical exams to gather evidence about the assault or violent act. Individual counseling and support groups are available to help process the emotional wounds from an attack.
If someone needs help filing a protective order against an attacker or crisis intervention, the ASSIST team will walk side-by-side with them.
Support groups, including those for children who have experienced violence or trauma, have been incredibly popular. One group focuses entirely on grandparents raising children who have been touched by violence, Gonterman said.
Counselors offer neurofeedback, a therapy method that looks at brain activity to process trauma and re-teaching the brain to operate in healthy ways. Other programs include eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, another way to help victims process their trauma, Lee said.
“Most of our clients that we see, it’s not even something that just happened. A lot of them are coming from past traumas: child molestation, child incest type of occurrences,” she said. “We service people of all ages. There’s no end-point.”
A main focus of ASSIST is treating the secondary victims of sexual, domestic or physical violence, Lee said. For example, a child whose mother was assaulted years ago may harbor serious emotional wounds that need treating.
Few places in Johnson County do that kind of work, Lee said.
“These people feel like they’re all alone, and that’s why we’re trying to take down the barriers to that care. We’re learning how to do that,” she said. “If you have trauma, if you’ve been a victim, you qualify for free.”
Last year, ASSIST moved its offices into downtown Franklin, and is applying to become a registered nonprofit organization separate from the hospital, Lee said.
“That allows us to open up funding opportunities, so that we can better serve all of our victims,” she said.
ASSIST staff know that many more victims are in the community; this isn’t a problem that’s decreasing or going away, Lee said. Their next challenge is ensuring that everyone knows that they’re available to help.
“I think we do a really good job of touching service providers who are interacting with people, but we need to get the word out to other people too,” Gonterman said.
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ASSIST
What is it? An effort to provide short- and long-range treatment to any person age 5 and up who has been directly or indirectly affected by sexual, domestic and physical violence.
What does it offer?
- Individual counseling
- Support groups
- Case management and victim advocacy
- Crisis intervention
- Assistance filing protective orders
- Resource coordination and referrals
- Forensic medical exams
Cost: All services are provided free, and are optional to those who contact ASSIST
Where is it? 72 E. Jefferson St., Franklin
How to get help? Contact the program at (317) 739-4456
How to help: ASSIST is in need of volunteers to help with various aspects of the program. Opportunities at all levels exist. People who would like to volunteer can contact Ashley Watkins, victim advocate, at 317-739-4456.
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