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| Haifa Rape Crisis Center |
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| HRCC Services |
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Call Us At 1202 You Are Not Alone.
Hotline Crisis Intervention
The HRCC provides around-the-clock crisis intervention and support to survivors of rape, assault, incest and sexual harassment, assistance to their families, and advice to the community professionals in contact with survivors. Trained volunteers provide telephone and face-to-face counseling, as well as accompaniment to the police, legal system and hospitals. The Haifa Rape Crisis Center also organizes support groups for survivors of sexual violence led by community professionals. In 2009, the Hotline received 3,299 calls, including 896 first-time calls from survivors, their families and friends, and community professionals in contact with survivors, and 2,018 calls of an ongoing nature. A total of 264 calls were requests for information about sexual violence and its prevention, and about the services the Haifa Rape Crisis Center provides to the community. Volunteers met with survivors in 99 face-to-face counseling sessions and 56 accompaniments to the hospital, police, the district attorney and the courts.
Community Outreach and Educational Programs
The Center’s resolute commitment to raising awareness about the issue of sexual violence is reflected in its extensive and productive community outreach and educational programs. The focus of the programs is intervention and prevention. In terms of intervention these projects reach out to program participants that are survivors of sexual abuse that have not told anyone of their trauma and do not know to whom to turn. The workshops help them to understand that they are not to be blamed and they do not have to keep the abuse a secret. They have the opportunity to approach the facilitators after the workshops and/or they are given the “1202” twenty-four hour a day hotline number that they can contact later privately. In terms of prevention these programs focus on developing mutual respect by promoting assertiveness in potential victims, and teaching potential abusers how not to abuse. Ninety percent of all sexual violence is perpetrated by those familiar to us (family, partners, friends, professionals, community members etc.). Potential victims need to know how to identify potential abusers and how to protect themselves from them. The idea behind these programs is that if you invest $1 in prevention you will save $10 in therapy and rehabilitation in the future.
In 2009, the HRCC facilitated:
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306 workshops (186 in 2008) with 3500 (1563 in 2008) school students (1563 in 2008) from 2nd to 12th grade
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217 workshops (117 in 2008) with 1426 youth at risk (765 youth at risk)
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19 workshops (6 in 2008) with 193 parents (59 in 2008)
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7 workshops with 115 university students
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35 workshops with 894 employees and employers
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15 workshops (7 in 2008) with 159 women (79 in 2008)
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14 workshops (2 in 2008) with 19 members of the military
Professional Training
The goal of this project is to train professionals in the identification, prevention and treatment of sexual violence. It trains teachers, school counselors, social workers, therapists and other professionals working with youth to be community based advocates, supporting survivors and preventing sexual abuse. In cases where children are being abused within the family (approximately 35% of all cases reported to the Haifa Rape Crisis Center), it is very important that they have someone in the community they can turn to and trust to help them.
This project also trains professionals in the criminal justice process (police, investigators, lawyers) to respond to sexual violence survivors and address sexual assault in a knowledgeable and sensitive manner. Training includes confronting many commonly held myths such as: women are raped because they dress provocatively and tease. Criminal justice professionals, who believe such myths, are unable to respond empathically and knowledgeably to survivors with whom they come in contact. Furthermore, professionals in the criminal justice system need to understand the short and long term effects of sexual violence victimization. For example, when a woman reports having been sexually abused and she expresses little to no emotion, or she doesn’t always remember all the details, it should not be taken as evidence that she is “making it up”. Rather, criminal justice professionals need to learn that it means that she has “cut” herself off from certain emotions and memories as a way of coping with the abuse. In addition, it is important that the Haifa Rape Crisis Center will build a mutually cooperative relationship with professionals at all levels of the criminal justice system so that we can effectively serve as liaison between the survivor and the criminal justice system and that members of the criminal justice system will refer survivors to our support services and will consult with us on an ongoing basis.
In 2009 the HRCC facilitated:
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9 workshops with 159 professionals in the criminal justice process
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16 workshops (10 in 2008) with 117 professionals working with youth (66 in 2008)
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32 workshops (25 in 2008) with 204 professionals working with youth at risk
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1 six and a half hour conference day on “The effects sexual assault on the statges of life: The experience of the first pregnancy, birth and parenthood among survivors of sexual violence” with 300 participants
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1 six-hour conference day on “Harassment in the workplace: The law, treatment and organizational significance” with 80 participants
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1 30-hour course with 14 “kibbutz sexual harassment specialists”
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1 49-hour training course with 11 HRCC new workshop facilitators
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27 hours of on-going training and supervision of veteran workshop facilitators
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33 training workshops and meetings with 195 professionals (medical personnel, staff working with the disabled, drug rehabilitation specialists, kibbutz sexual harassment specialists)
Call Us At 1202 You Are Not Alone
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