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Rape crisis services
uninterrupted
(December
2004 Issue)
By Jennifer Elise Chase
Sexual assault survivors in southeastern Massachusetts will not
suffer a lack of free care despite the closing of a long-time service
provider, thanks to a smooth transition between the old regime and
the new.
Fall River's Stanley Street Treatment and Resources center (SSTAR)
is a non-profit healthcare and social service agency that for 27
years has provided a range of services in southeastern Massachusetts
and Rhode Island. Through a five-year grant from the Department
of Public Health, SSTAR has also provided free services for the
Fall River area's sexual assault survivors through a rape crisis
program.
But a $68,000 budget to fund salaries of three counselors providing
intense services, 24 hours a day-daily and other cutbacks in the
last two years finally made the program impossible to run. After
careful consideration, SSTAR has voluntarily informed DPH its decision
not to exercise its option to renew its sexual assault survivor
services for FY 2005. "It was a long, difficult process," says Dale
Brown, director of SSTAR's Womens' Center.
"It was a five-year grant and we had two more years to go. We reflected
on the programming part, we reflected on the financial…. [But] we
did not lose the contract."
Brown says that SSTAR will continue to provide services focusing
on the more clinical aspects of trauma through its Womens' Center,
which provides care to clients with insurance, as well as some free
services to clients who wish not to use their insurance for fear
that someone will learn of their trauma.
SSTAR's Womens' Center will also continue to provide direct services
such as police, court and health advocacy, as well as group care.
But all of its clients who still require free, confidential services
will be absorbed by the Greater New Bedford Women's Center's program.
The transition began July 1 and it's been seamless, with GNBWC staffing
a satellite office in Fall River that means patients don't have
to travel outside of their town to receive the help they need.
"I don't think it really matters to patients where they're getting
their services," says Pamela MacLeod-Lima, who for three years has
helmed the agency. "[The Greater New Bedford Womens' Center] has
been a rape crisis center for many, many years. It's not new work
at all; we're very familiar with it, and we're very happy to take
on additional work so that victims can continue to have a place
to come, especially those who need free services. There are still
24-hour hotlines," and they can now be backed up with both court
and medical response teams.
GNBWC serves 14 towns and cities from New Bedford to Wareham and
now it can add Somerset, Swansea, Fall River and Westport to its
outreach area.
GNBWC has hired a bilingual counselor to help handle Fall River's
Portuguese population, which comprises about 85 percent of the area,
as well as a wealth of Spanish counselors.
MacLeod-Lima says GNBWC counselors are not psychologists or psychiatrists
and that the center must refer out for anyone with mental health
issues. The clinical director is an MSW/LICSW and all counselors
are required to go through intensive, specific certification training.
MacLeod-Lima credits SSTAR with really understanding how best to
help rape and sexual assault survivors and GNBWC will continue providing
free and confidential services.
"Sometimes, with managed care, [treatment] is not in the hands
of psychiatrists or psychologists, it's in the hands of the insurance
companies," she says. "[Sometimes] we have psychiatrists or psychologists
serving [patients] and insurance runs out and patients aren't better.
Everyone heals on his or her own time. They need to know they can
refer patients to us when benefits run out. We are there."
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