Sexual Assault Counseling & Information (SACIS)

Disadvantaged families Project LINK

            I volunteered at the Sexual Assault Counseling & Information Services (SACIS) that is located on campus.  This organization provides the appropriate resources to those individuals who have been victims of sexual assault, sexual abuse, and sexual harassment.  These services are not only available to victims but also their parents/guardians, spouses, siblings, and anyone else close to the victim who feels the need to talk to someone about the situation.  Some of the services that they offer are individual and group counseling, medical and criminal justice advocacy, information and referral, institutional advocacy, public education and professional training. This organization is very adamant in promoting their services in attempt to inform the general population on sexual assault.  Also promoting the fact that they are there to talk to everyone and anyone who feels they need to be herd.

The time that I spent working with Jana Davis in the SACIS office revolved around two main projects.  The first was helping mail out fliers to local business informing them about April being Sexual Assault Awareness month.  The flier contained information about the fact that it is Sexual Assault Awareness month, and that they are asking local businesses to participate in “Denim Days”.  If the business wanted to participate in denim days it would require that employees donate a minimum of $1 donation.  With the donation the employees would then be allowed to wear jeans on the two given Monday’s in April.  By doing this SACIS is hoping to raise money in order to further support the organization.  The other project that I worked on was the SACIS bulletin board.  The board is a place where people can look for information and statistics that may be beneficial to students and their understanding of the situation.  I helped in the decorating of the board and also making sure that the statistics that were posted were accurate and up to date.

This organization deals with many different people.  Sexual assault can happen to anybody no matter the race, ethnicity or gender.  I feel that this service activity showed another aspect of FCS that we as future professionals might have to deal with.  No one ever should feel like sexual assault is his or her fault while many people do, and I feel as professionals we would have to remember that.  I now understand the importance of just simply having someone on your side.  This organization allows people to have a place to go to talk to someone who is not going to judge them.  Not only is it for the victims but it is also open to the victims support systems.  A lot of the time when someone is sexual assaulted the support system that they have are unaware of how to help the victim.  This program allows the support system to come in and talk and also learn a bit about what is going on with the person they care about.

Working with Jana was very fun.  They were very lenient but made sure to keep me busy enough that I did not feel like I never had anything to do.  While working with her she made sure to ask if I had any questions, and was ready and willing to answer any of the questions that I did have.  I found that she was able to convey the information that she had for me in a way that was very understandable.  Everyone in the office was very nice and seemed to be very invested in their job.  They were always busy with something that had to do with promoting SACIS.  From this I found that if you truly love and are interested in what you do then you will better be able to convey information. 

This organization keeps everyone in the community aware that sexual assault is a real thing and that no matter what it is not the victims fault.  They also promote themselves well so that people know that they are available to be sought out.  I think this organization is great and what they do is amazing, I hope to keep working there as a volunteer for the rest of my time at Eastern.  I think not only will I be able to help people even if it is just helping get information out there but I also think I will learn something.  I think that by working with this organization I will be able to better understand some of the stuff that I may face some day being a psychology major.  I know that sexual assault victims will be some of the people I will have to deal with and by volunteering here I will hopefully be able to better understand where there are coming from.  Not only that but hopefully be able to help them better by having already volunteered at such a great organization.  I truly had a good time volunteering and learned a lot about sexual assault that I never new before.  But the most important lesson I learned from this experience is that:

It is never the victims fault!

-Kori Daniel