Tech ASPIRES (Advocacy and SANE Practice In a Rural Educational Setting)

The purpose of this award is to establish or expand Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) programs that will offer medical forensic care, advocacy, and other victim services to sexual assault survivors on college campuses. The primary goals of this program are to: 1) establish or expand SANE programs that will improve the delivery of sexual assault medical forensic care, advocacy, and other victim services to sexual assault survivors on campuses using coordinated community response strategies and 2) build the campuses' capacity to train and retain SANEs.

Tennessee Technological University is a public university, located in the rural Upper Cumberland region of Middle Tennessee. In collaboration with Cookeville Regional Medical Center, the Office of the District Attorney for the 13th Judicial District of Tennessee, and the Upper Cumberland Family Justice Center, Tennessee Tech's nationally accredited Whitson-Hester School of Nursing is pursuing funding to establish Tech ASPIRES (Advocacy and SANE Practice In a Rural Educational Setting). Tech ASPIRES will establish SANE and victims' advocacy services on campus; develop a coordinated community response using the SART model; recruit, train, and retain SANEs; and increase campus awareness and outreach efforts surrounding SANE services for survivors while fostering coordinated community response strategies. The implementation of this program is the next logical step following a successful three-year Office of Violence Against Women grant-funded program, Project AWAKEN, which brought sexual violence education and prevention initiatives to campus. As Project AWAKEN changes the campus culture surrounding these issues, the next step is to provide victims' services to the campus community. CA/NCF