Strengthening Sexual Assault Services on the University of Wisconsin Campus

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.

Through this project, the University of Wisconsin (UW) seeks to 1) understand the needs and experiences of UW students, particularly those who are disproportionately impacted by sexual assault (e.g., women, transgender, and gender-diverse students, sexual minority students; students with disabilities); 2) expand campus advocacy capacity and create a panel of key stakeholders to lay the foundation for the development of a Sexual Assault Response Team (SART); 3) build and strengthen relationships between the campus and key community resources including forensic nurse examiner services; and 4) implement a multi-pronged multimedia campaign to improve awareness of resources and dispel misconceptions about eligibility for resources. Following the campaign, UW will conduct a randomized survey to measure exposure to the campaign and resulting changes in knowledge about resources. UW campus currently lacks an infrastructure for hiring a campus sexual assault nurse examiner; however, the current proposal could advance the campus' mission to augment resources for survivors and shift the campus culture. CA/NCF