Using Social Network Analysis to Identify Successful Relationship Patterns Within Sexual Assault Response Teams (SARTs)

The current study used social network analysis (SNA) to examine relationships within three effective Sexual Assault Response Teams (SARTs) that coordinate the response of legal, medical, and advocacy organizations to sexual assault. Within each SART, organizations reported on each other member organization valuing their role, serving as a resource to their work, and communication outside of official meetings. Across the SARTs, there was high connectedness and reciprocity and low to moderate dependence on one organization to drive relationships. However, there was dependence on a subgroup of organizations to drive additional communication relationships. Implications for managing relationships in SARTs are discussed.

The Influence of Community Sociocultural Context on Creating an Effective, Coordinated Response to Sexual Assault

Members of Sexual Assault Response Teams (SARTs) coordinate and improve the community response to sexual assault. A SART’s effectiveness is likely influenced by its sociocultural context, or the norms, values, and beliefs of the local community. However, this has yet to be empirically examined. We conducted a qualitative study to explore how sociocultural context may influence effectiveness within a sample of 169 leaders of 169 U.S. SARTs. SART leaders believed that specific norms and beliefs held by the general public in their community (rape myths and victim blame, denial of sexual assault happening locally, taboos against discussing sexual assault, and a male-dominated environment) delegitimized sexual assault as a problem that deserved public intervention. Leaders believed these led community members to resist the team’s efforts, by decreasing the community’s support and buy-in to the SART, interfering with efforts to make services accessible to survivors, and obstructing the SART’s ability to effectively respond to cases. And some leaders believed highly interconnected communities compromised the accessibility and objectivity of systems that respond to sexual assault. SARTs need to carefully tailor their efforts to improve accessibility of systems, and the response to sexual assault cases, to their unique local sociocultural context.

What can Campuses Learn From Community Sexual Assault Response Teams? Literature Review of Teams’ Purpose, Activities, Membership, and Challenges

Sexual assault is a public health issue, with college-age students reporting high levels of victimization. Following an increase in national attention and federal initiatives, college and universities’ sexual assault response efforts are being examined. The practice of community sexual assault response teams (SARTs) may provide campuses with a model strategy to coordinate campus and community service delivery and planning, still underdeveloped or missing at many institutions. This literature review summarizes in side-by-side fashion the most current empirical literature about community SARTs and campus team approaches (CTAs) in four domains: (1) defined purpose, (2) activities to achieve purpose, (3) membership, and (4) challenges to functioning. Two searches were conducted. The community SART inclusion criteria were (a) an empirical study focusing on community SARTs as the level of analysis, (b) located in the United States, (c) published between 2010 and 2017, and (d) written in English. The inclusion criteria for the CTA were (a) an empirical study on CTAs to sexual assault and/or intimate partner violence as the level of analysis and (b) written in English. Eight articles met the criteria for community SARTs, and six articles met the criteria for CTAs. Differences between community SARTs and CTAs included community SARTs shared and more discretely defined purpose and subsequent activities. Further directions offered for the conceptual and practical development of a CTA to address sexual assault include the need for clearer definition of a team’s purpose leading to response-focused coordination of activities.

Contested Discourses in Multidisciplinary Sexual Assault Response Teams (SARTs)

This qualitative study explored how law enforcement officers, forensic nurses, and rape crisis advocates who are members of coordinated service delivery models such as Sexual Assault Response Teams (SARTs) describe their process of engaging with one another and managing their differences in professional orientation, statutory obligations, and power. Using semi-structured interviews with 24 SART responders including rape crisis center advocates, law enforcement, and medical personnel, we examined the ways that SART members discursively construct one another’s role in the team and how this process points to unresolved tensions that can manifest in conflict. The findings in this study indicate that interdisciplinary power was negotiated through discursive processes of establishing and questioning the relative authority of team members to dictate the work of the team, expertise in terms of knowledge and experience working in the field of rape response, and the credibility of one another as qualified experts who reliably act in victims’ and society’s best interests. Implications of these findings for understanding and preventing the emergence of conflict in SARTs are discussed.

Experiences of women who reported sexual assault at a provincial hospital, South Africa

Background: Sexual assault poses a serious health problem to both the survivor and the health system. Experiencing sexual assault requires women to seek medical and psychological assistance as part of their journey towards recovery. This study examined the experiences of women who received post-sexual assault services from a specialised care centre within a provincial hospital.Methods: A qualitative, exploratory and contextual design was used to explore and describe experiences of women. Data were obtained through individual in-depth interviews from a total of 18 women aged between 18 and 55 years. Interviews were supplemented by the researcher’s field notes and audiotape recordings.Results: Findings yielded two main themes: Women expressed their lived experiences of sexual assault characterised by different forms of trauma. The second theme was an expression of a need for safety and support.Conclusion: Women who experience sexual assault are left with devastating effects such as physical and psychological harm and social victimisation. There is also a need for safety and support towards the recovery of these women. This study recommends that professional practitioners involved in the management of sexual assault be sensitised regarding the ordeal experienced by women and stop perceiving survivors as crime scene ‘clients’ from whom only medico-legal evidence has to be collected. Professional practitioners and family members must be supportive, non-judgemental and considerate of the dignity of survivors. The establishment of sexual assault response teams (SART) is also recommended. There should also be inter-professional education for better coordination of services rendered to sexually assaulted women.

Structural, Organizational, and Interpersonal Factors Influencing Interprofessional Collaboration on Sexual Assault Response Teams

Sexual Assault Response Teams (SARTs) are multidisciplinary teams that coordinate multiple systems (e.g., medical, law enforcement, prosecutors, and rape crisis center advocates) to provide comprehensive care to victims and to collect high-quality forensic evidence to facilitate investigation and prosecution. Relatively little guidance is provided about effective teamwork strategies in resources on forming SARTs. Using in-depth surveys with the SART coordinators and telephone surveys (including close-ended and open-ended questions) with 79 professionals involved in three active, formal SARTs in one state, this study examined structural, organizational, and interpersonal factors that influence interprofessional collaboration on SART. Study findings indicate that perceived structural factors and interpersonal factors were significantly associated with SART members’/responders’ perceptions of the quality of interprofessional collaboration on their SART. Findings suggest that individuals’ perceptions of professionalization and power disparities between professions pose challenges to perceived interprofessional collaboration on SART. Compared with criminal justice and medical professionals, victim advocacy rated the level of collaboration on their SART significantly lower. The overall picture from the data was that SART professionals perceived mutual respect, trust, and commitment to collaboration to be pervasive on their SARTs, even though recognition of professional conflicts was also prevalent, suggesting that professionals understood that interpersonal conflict was distinct from professional conflict. Initial SART trainings should address the benefits of the team response, professional roles, and communication and conflict resolution skills, and ongoing training should provide professionals the opportunity to raise positive and negative examples of their collaborative efforts to explore existing tensions and constraints on the team for conflict resolution.