SAFE-T System offers collaboration between multidisciplinary stakeholders, including health care professionals, law enforcement, advocacy centers, child welfare organizations, and community supporters. As communities across the commonwealth strive to protect their citizens, SAFE-T System provides access to specialized care to all survivors of sexual assault. The effort involves partners from all corners of the surrounding community.
Support for Nurses
As healthcare providers, we know you want the best possible outcomes for your patients. We also know the best outcomes begin at the point of care for sexual assault survivors. SAFE-T System was created to enhance expertise in local communities by leveraging telehealth technology to deliver trauma-informed care while safeguarding a survivor’s overall well-being, ability to seek justice, and community support.
SAFE-T System offers an evidence-based, comprehensive solution that includes training, telehealth, and program infrastructure support. Every hospital wants to provide excellent sexual assault care and yet access to expertise and quality training are real barriers. We have solutions that support hospitals with different sexual assault responses and resources. Whether a hospital has an established SANE program and is looking for a training and preceptorship solution, or a hospital is looking to start a program from the beginning, or the hospital struggles to maintain SANEs and needs external telehealth support to ensure care for victims exist within their community, SAFE-T can support a customized approach that builds upon the hospital’s strengths and needs.
Equitable Care for Survivors and Supporters
Sexual violence is a public health crisis. We know how to respond to trauma to help survivors on a path of healing and justice from day one. Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) care has been shown to improve physical and mental health outcomes, yet many across the country, especially marginalized groups and those living in rural communities, do not have access to expert care that promotes healing and justice.
The long-term implications of sexual violence are well-researched and understood. Trauma can rewire the brain, predisposing survivors to health complications later in life. Survivors can experience post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, and unhealthy coping mechanisms after an assault. Further, we know that individuals from marginalized groups or those living in rural communities experience sexual assault at disproportionally higher rates with less access to care options.
To minimize negative health ramifications, survivors must be met with compassionate care when they seek it. Research shows care delivered by SANEs leads to improved physical and mental health outcomes. Validation of survivors’r experiences and access to quality health care and community support are integral to holistic healing. SAFE-T System’s infrastructure engages community-based organizations local to each partner site, ensuring survivors access advocates, counselors, and legal assistance. Empowering survivors to continue their healing journey after they leave your care is the goal.
Support and Community Action
Providing compassionate care, empowering survivors and honoring their choices, and securely preserving critical evidence is at the core of the SAFE-T System response. However, an examination is only the first step in healing. SAFE-T System engages local law enforcement, elected officials, and other community organizations to educate and raise awareness of the importance of community support for survivors of sexual assault. The SAFE-T System team engages in policy development, educational briefings, hearings, and roundtables, and convenes like-minded stakeholders.
