The Tillamook Community-Wide SANE Expansion

The Tillamook Community-wide SANE Proposal will expand sexual assault (SA) response in order to provide trauma-informed services for all survivors of SA. This project will increase the capacity for sexual assault forensic exams (SAFEs) to be provided by sexual assault nurse examiners (SANEs) across Tillamook County through a collaborative community-based partnership.

The service area where this project will be implemented is Tillamook County, Oregon. Tillamook County is located on the North Oregon coat with a population of 27,748 residing in a land area of 1,133 miles of mostly mountainous timberland with a strip of beach that stretches more than 70 miles.

Key activities will be to review protocols and redevelop a formalized and sustainable community partnership model, which will support sustainable recruitment, training and retention of SANEs.  This grant will support a .5FTE Community Response Coordinator and .1FTE Executive Director, employed by our domestic and sexual violence agency, Tides of Change, who will provide leadership and coordination of the activities determined necessary to fully develop, implement and institutionalize SA response. This project will also fund FTE of a dedicated SANE with Adventist Health Tillamook. The expectation is that the amount of SA victims that access medical services for SAFEs will increase over the 3 years of this project and the dedicated SANE FTE will increase each year from .35FTE to .5FTE. Additional project partners are Tillamook County Community Health Center and the Rinehart Clinic, who will partner to increase SANEs. The on-call rotation hours will be funded by this project. Our goal by the end of this project is to expand and sustain SANE capacity from zero as of June 2022 to 4 as of June 2024. These activities will support stronger, more consistent involvement of advocates throughout the continuum of care as well as enhance collaborative post-sexual assault care such as medical services, wraparound support, and legal remedies.

The ultimate desired outcomes are to achieve a consistent, supportive, trauma-informed partnership response to survivors of SA that enhances the health and well-being of survivors, increases the level of accountability for sexual assault offenders, and increases the overall safety and well-being of the community as a whole. Those who will be directly impacted are victims of SA who access the healthcare system or others providers in the Sexual Assault Response Team. The capacity building, systemic coordination and greater knowledge that are produced through this project will benefit all of Tillamook County.