“How do people find their way if they’ve been sexually assaulted in Winkler, Morden, Carman? Where do you go, and how do you do this?”
These are pressing questions that Ang Braun, the executive director of Genesis House, began wondering about a while ago. For many people in the Pembina Valley, they are questions with a difficult answer or no answer at all.
For the past six months, Genesis House has made it its mission to change that.
The organization has taken up the project of providing a way for people who experience sexual assault to access resources.
Just in time for the end of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Genesis House has a significant update concerning its mission — a new role of sexual assault intervention coordinator designed to ease the burden.
Support for people inside and outside the organization
Braun says the addition of the role was a response to a trend that Genesis House, which provides emergency shelter and crisis services to individuals who experience gender-based violence, sees internally.
It also stretches beyond the walls of the shelter.
“So many of the women that we were seeing were describing experiences of sexual assault and describing experiences of sexual exploitation,” she says. “So we had been keeping our eyes and ears open for opportunities to find funding to support a [sexual assault intervention] program.”
Help from a foundation
Braun says that the new opportunity comes from the Aurora Foundation. The group’s mandate is to “invest in novel approaches which serve and support victims of crime and those who experience victimization.”
“[Aurora] came forward and said, ‘We're interested in supporting something for three years,’ and of course, part of the interest for us was the families that we were seeing and the women that we're working with already, but also recognizing that there's likely other people in the community that are also [wondering how they should handle sexual assault].”
Because Genesis House suspects that a lack of guidance and resources in the matter may result in underreported cases of sexual assault, there’s hope that the new role of intervention coordinator will address the gap.
A brand-new program with several components
A “brand new program” will accompany Taylor Goerz's new role with Genesis House.
"We've been funded by the Aurora Foundation for a three-year pilot project to really address what sexual assault and sexual exploitation look like in Southern Manitoba,” she says.
“I think this will be a fantastic way to really bridge some gaps in our community right now and really bring some awareness about what is actually going on and shed some light on the abuse that's happening.”
-Taylor Goerz, sexual assault intervention coordinator on Genesis House’s new sexual assault intervention programming.
Goerz says that there will be two primary components of the program.
“One of them is psychoeducation for community members as well as professionals in our community who are interested in learning a little bit about what sexual abuse looks like and how we can address it,” she says.
“The next component is that we are offering and launching a free 40-hour sexual assault advocate course for professionals and community members who are interested in assisting with sexual assaults and being able to assist the survivors in our community better.”
New counselling services
In addition to the community initiatives, Genesis House will also offer counselling services.
“[Women, men, and children] are able to access this program for short-term free counselling services. Those are both individual as well as group,” says Goerz.
“I think this will be a fantastic way to really bridge some gaps in our community right now and bring some awareness about what is actually going on and shed some light on the abuse happening.”
Coming together to tackle sexual assault
The community’s reaction to Genesis House’s new initiatives has been positive. Recently, the organization led its very first Southern Manitoba sexual assault response team — the event was well-attended.
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The meeting featured representation from the Winkler, Morden, Altona, and First Nations police services, Boundary Trails Hospital, C.W. Wiebe Clinic, and Victim Services.
“We got together ... to talk about what this looks like in our community, what the challenges are, and what the trends are that we're seeing so that we can work as a team to support our survivors best,” says Goerz.
Alleviating shame and guilt
With the support of the response team, Goerz says that the hope for the new programming at Genesis House is that people who experience sexual abuse feel they have a new avenue to take action.
“There is a lot of shame and guilt around reporting, talking about it, getting the kits done,” she says. “We're hoping that being able to offer this service to individuals in our community [will allow] more people to come forward and want to talk about it so that we can address the core issue.”
“We actually know that 86% of sexual abuse and assaults occur by somebody that the victim or survivor knows, whether that's family, friends or an acquaintance.”
-Taylor Goerz, sexual assault intervention coordinator.
When it comes to goals for the program, Goerz says she hopes it begins a conversation.
“I think that a lot of guilt and silence breed when we aren't talking about what's actually going on, so I'm hoping that this program will shine some light on the sexual abuse that is occurring in our community,” she says. “I hope it will empower survivors to come forward and talk about what's going on and also give them back their power, control, [and] voices.”
The progress that already exists
While Genesis House has identified and begun addressing a need in the community, behind the scenes, there have already been some updates and developments to how sexual assault is addressed in the Pembina Valley.
Currently, there are two sexual assault nurse examiners at Boundary Trails Health Centre, and Genesis House has eight staff members who are fully trained as sexual assault advocates who can accompany an individual to the hospital and the police (should a police report be the chosen course of action).
“One of the big things that I want people to understand with Genesis House as well as with counselling services is at the end of the day, the survivor is in charge of what we're going to do with them. I always like to use the analogy of being in a car with the survivor. She ultimately has the steering wheel, she's got the gas, and she's got the brakes.”
-Taylor Goerz, sexual assault intervention coordinator with Genesis House.
There are also plans for more measures to be implemented.
“We are thinking about piloting third-party reporting for Southern Manitoba,” says Goerz. “It gives women or men ... an opportunity to make their report without the police as a third party, so it gives them back some of their power.”
Dispelling some myths about sexual assault
Another part of advocating for sexual assault awareness for Goerz is addressing some of the myths that accompany it.
She says one of the biggest misconceptions is “stranger danger,” the concept that someone not known to an individual poses a higher risk of committing sexual assault than someone known to them.
“I don't necessarily think more individuals are being harmed, but what I think is happening is that as society, we're starting to condemn that type of behavior, so we're seeing a lot of increase of survivors coming forward.”
-Taylor Goerz, sexual assault intervention coordinator.
“We actually know that 86% of sexual abuse and assaults occur by somebody that the victim or survivor knows, whether that's family, friends or an acquaintance,” she says.
It’s not what you wore
Another myth that Goerz tackles is that survivors of sexual assault caused the crime by dressing “in provocative ways.”
To fight this way of thinking, Goerz says that this summer, Genesis House is piloting an exhibit that shows the outfits people were wearing when they were assaulted. She says the display includes a great deal of “modest clothing,” which strongly contradicts the myth.
The exhibit will also be a testament to battling victim blaming — the practice that finds fault with the survivor or victim instead of the perpetrator.
Recognizing that it happens
When it comes down to it, Genesis House’s new programming and initiatives strive to illuminate a problem that has some stigma surrounding it, but exists nonetheless.
“I don't necessarily think more individuals are being harmed, but what I think is happening is that as society, we're starting to condemn that type of behaviour, so we're seeing a lot of increase in survivors coming forward,” says Goerz.
“I'm hoping that with more conversation and more programming developing with collaboration, we will have a much stronger advocacy for our survivors and our communities.”
At its core, in all its actions, Genesis House is there to help people on their own terms.
Its services are what Goerz calls “survivor-driven.”
“At the end of the day, the survivor is in charge of what we're going to do with them. I always like to use the analogy of being in a car with the survivor. She ultimately has the steering wheel, she's got the gas, and she's got the brakes,” she says.
“She gets to decide where we go, how fast we go there, and which way we go. I get to sit beside her as the ultimate privilege in the passenger seat with a map to suggest some places that we could go and ways to get there. But at the end of the day, I'm a support, and she gets to make those choices.”
For more information about Genesis House, click here.