Job progress

So I've just returned from Washington, D.C. where I attended a three-day training at the Sofitel, around the corner from the White House, with supreme accomodations courtesy of the Fed. Directors from every state sexual assault program were there, and I got to meet a lot of my role models like Tillie Black Bear (Google her) and Wizipan Garriott (Google him). I may be asked to go to San Diego, CA in February for another training, too.   On amazing thing I learnedat the workshop is that rape crisis programs in other states are doing EXACTLY what Oklahoma bureaucrats forbade: organizing purely social support systems between social workers/advocates, and survivors (when did the word "social" become contraband to "social workers?"). The program directors explained that what victims voice as their primary needs are opportunities to encounter other survivors socially, and that support groups should not always be  formal hashing-out of trauma (which victims won't return to after the first week). So the programs are listening, and urging their workers to implement activities like having dinners with groups of survivors, coffee, hikes, bowling, and other outings as their ways of more robustly meeting survivor's needs...and they're doing it with Federal funding. Oklahoma, clearly, is simply anti-progressive on such issues.  These days, we're busily organizing trainings to help create new sexual assault programs throughout Oklahoma. My assistant is preparing to attend a nursing conference to recruit future Sexual Assault Forensic Examiners, and we're planning to train many, many nurses in rural areas. I have lunch tomorrow with a SAFE trainer who might volunteer to do some of these trainings for us. Normally, a nurse has to pay $500 for this training, plus time off work, plus travel. We're paying for the whole training, and compensating for travel and lodging! I'm also trying to track down funds to upgrade rape exam equipmentfor small rural hospitals, so that victims in small towns will get care that can stand up in court. Funds are rare these days, but we're looking. A colposcope can cost $10,000. Tomorrow I'm going to lunch to meet with a forensic nurse to discuss the possibility of her helping us train nurses in other regions of the state. If this happens, we'll succeed in improving medical care for victims exponentially! And our next project is to do targeted trainings for law enforcement about working with rape victims.  The one area where we are lacking improvement is in counseling. We have no more mentors for up-and-coming therapists who want to specialize in rape work, and no university courses that specifically address therapy pertaining to violence against women. One of our best rape crisis programs just shut down its counseling program completely this month for lack of funds. If you are a rape victim in Oklahoma, your option would be to go to an insurance-plan therapist and hope for one who's decent; the last time there was training for therapists on rape work was April 2009, and it was the first training in years.