Talk About Sexual Violence: Resources From Other Organizations

/in , , , , , , , /by Pam Katz

Hotlines and Resources for Crime Victims

Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network: RAINN is the largest anti-sexual violence organization and leading authority on sexual violence, working together to provide services for survivors, inform and educate the nation about sexual violence, and improve the public policy and criminal justice response to sexual violence.

Victim Connect Resource Center: Referral helpline where crime victims can learn about their rights and options confidentially and compassionately | 1-855-4-VICTIM (1-855-484-2846)

National Domestic Violence Hotline: Provides tools and support that enable victims to find safety and live lives free of abuse. Hotline (1-800-799-7233) available in more than 20 languages.

California Victims of Crime Resource Center (VCRC): Located on the Pacific McGeorge School of Law campus in Sacramento, CA. VCRC provides a confidential hotline (1-800-VICTIMS) for information and referrals statewide to victims, their families, service providers, and advocates.

Crime Victim Compensation Program Initiative: Every state has a crime victim compensation program, with funds available to help crime victims recover from financial losses resulting from victimization. Factsheet available here.

Vera Institute of Justice: How Safe are Americans with Disabilities? Fact sheet and report about violent crimes and their implications.

Reporting to Police: A Guide for Victims of Sexual Abuse: Where and how a victim can report abuse.

Mandatory Reporting Laws

Most states have mandatory reporting laws for health care professionals which require reporting of specified injuries and suspected abuse that includes sexual assault or domestic violence. Laws vary from state to state.

RAINN: Mandatory Reporting Requirements for California: Information on reporting requirements.

California’s Domestic Violence & Mandatory Reporting Law: Requirements for health care practitioners, common questions, and answers on reporting requirements.

Reporting Elder and Dependent Adult Abuse: It is YOUR Duty: California’s Protection & Advocacy System Information on mandatory reporting.

Compendium of State Statutes and Policies on Domestic Violence and Health Care (2013): Provides a summary of state and U.S. territory laws, regulations, and other activities relevant to addressing domestic violence in health care settings.

Patient-Centered Communication

Patient-centered communication includes listening to, informing, and involving patients in their care.

Interviewing Victims of Sexual Assault as Part of Sex Offender Management: A guide for interviewing victims of crime.

U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs, Office for Victims of Crimes:. Techniques for interviewing victims with communication and/or cognitive disabilities.

Patient-Centered Communication Basic Skills: Communication skills needed by health care providers for patient-centered care.

Teach Back

The Teach Back method confirms whether a patient (or caretaker) understands what is explained to them.

Quick Guide to Health Literacy: Health Literacy Basics: Illustrates one of the pervasive problems in medicine: Americans’ low levels of health literacy (the ability to obtain, understand, and use health information).

The Teach-Back Method: Learn about Teach Back, a way to confirm that you have explained to the patient what they need to know in a way the patient understands.

Always Use Teach-Back: Toolkit to help health care providers learn to use Teach Back to support patients and families.

Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)

AAC includes all forms of communication (other than oral speech) used for expression. It includes our facial expressions or gestures, use of symbols or pictures, and writing. People with severe speech or language difficulties rely on AAC to supplement existing speech or replace it altogether.

Types of AAC Systems, Devices, and Aides: A quick introduction to what AAC is, as well as types of AAC that are commonly used.

AAC Institute: Resources enhancing communication of people who rely on AAC through service delivery, research, activity organization, information dissemination, and education.

International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication: Provides awareness about how AAC helps individuals without speech by sharing information and promoting approaches to research, technology and literacy.

Sexual Violence and Abuse Prevention

The Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) Library on Victims with Disabilities: Publications, forums, and other resources.

Disability & Abuse Project: National survey that focuses on incidents of, response to, and attitudes about crime victimization of children and adults with disabilities.

Crime Against Persons With Disabilities, 2009-2015: Infographic on crimes against people with disabilities.

Recognition of a Pattern, Call for a Response: The “Rule Out Abuse Campaign” calls for practitioners to pay closer attention to abuse as a possible cause when examining people with disabilities who have experienced significant changes in behavior.

Victimization of Persons with Traumatic Brain Injury or Other Disabilities: Fact sheet for professionals. 

Peer Advocacy

Abuse of People with Disabilities: A Silent Epidemic: A public service video to encourage people with disabilities to speak up about abuse.

Myths and Facts About Male Sexual Abuse and Assault: Cultural myths surrounding the sexual abuse and assault of boys and men can be serious obstacles to understanding and healing, so it’s important distinguish myth from fact.

Sexual Assault Against Men and Boys: Information from RAINN on basic facts around sexual assault of men and boys, as well as how to find help and support survivors.

Sexual Victimization of Men with Disabilities and Deaf Men: Men with disabilities experience victimization, including sexual violence, at rates higher than their counterparts without disabilities.

Peer-to-Peer: A written guide for a course to help self-advocates become peer supporters.

Real Talk: Improving Quality of Sexual Health Care for Patients with Disabilities. A guide for sexual and reproductive health providers about inclusion and accommodations when working with people with all types of disabilities.

A Letter for My Doctors: A fill-in the blanks tool to help self-advocates make their own health care decisions.

 

Talk About Sexual Violence: Phase Two Training Tools

/in , , , , , /by Pam Katz

These tools can be used in tandem with our videos “How to Have the Conversation with Male Survivors”, “James Goes to the Doctor”, and “Peer Advocates Talk” to discuss sexual violence and support men who have experienced it.


Guide for Health Care Providers

This Guide is a companion piece that accompanies the Talk About Sexual Violence videos. Health care professionals can use this Guide, along with the PowerPoint slides and online resources, to learn about ways to talk about sexual violence with men who have I/DD. It provides practical approaches health care professionals can use to create safe environments to openly talk about this topic.

English  |  Spanish

 

Guide for Self-Advocates

This guide explains how to talk to your health care provider about sexual violence.

English  |  Spanish

 

PowerPoint Slides

To be used in presentations.

English  |  Spanish

 

Referral Cards Template

Talk About Sexual Violence: Phase Two Final Report

/in , , , , , , /by Pam Katz

After the release of videos and other materials created for the Talk About Sexual Violence project in 2017—which focused on women with intellectual/developmental disabilities (I/DD) who experience sexual violence—the project team was approached by males with I/DD who are survivors of sexual assault about crimes perpetrated against them. People with I/DD report that many health care providers are uneducated about how to interact with patients with disabilities and don’t know about their high risk of sexual violence. The problem is exacerbated when society leads men to believe that rape and sexual assault only happen to women, when in fact men, and especially men with I/DD, are victimized at alarmingly high rates.

For this reason, in 2018 Talk About Sexual Violence turned its attention to specific challenges men with disabilities experience. It is critical that health care professionals and their patients talk openly about sexual violence prevention. Talk About Sexual Violence provides tools that help create a safe place to have these conversations.

Community for Permanent Supported Housing et al. v. Housing Authority of the City of Dallas

/in , , , , , /by Pam Katz

State: Texas

Filed: October 9, 2019

Court: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

Overview: The Arc filed an amicus brief in support of Plaintiffs’ appeal of the district court’s dismissal on ripeness grounds. The case, filed in federal district court in the Northern District of Texas in 2018, challenges the Housing Authority of the City of Dallas’s (DHA) refusal to use the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Project-Based Voucher (PBV) rent subsidy program to provide otherwise scarce affordable, independent housing opportunities for people with I/DD in the community. DHA was poised to offer such PBVs—each of which would permit a single-family house to be rented at subsidized rates to several people with I/DD who can live independently with appropriate supports—but then canceled its offering and has refused to offer any substitute, without any good reason. The lawsuit alleges that DHA’s actions violate the ADA, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, the Fair Housing Act, and state law. The district court dismissed the case in April 2019 and Plaintiffs appealed to the Fifth Circuit. The amicus brief supports Plaintiffs’ request to reverse the district court’s dismissal order and let the case move forward and explains that DHA’s ongoing failure to provide access to its program (including through reasonable accommodations where necessary) deprives adults with I/DD of a critical opportunity to live in the most integrated setting appropriate in the community and creates an acute risk of homelessness and institutionalization.

Excerpt: “Title II of the ADA requires public entities to administer programs in the ‘most integrated setting appropriate to the needs of qualified individuals with disabilities,’ and Olmstead is noteworthy for its broad recognition of the rights of people with disabilities to live and receive needed services and supports in the community—as opposed to institutional settings—which has become known as the ‘integration mandate’ of the ADA. But this mandate—which also protects those who are “at risk” of institutionalization—cannot be fully realized without affordable housing opportunities in the community that are accessible to people with I/DD and enable them to live outside their family homes. For many adults with I/DD currently living in their family homes, opportunities that allow them to live in the community separate from their families are often preferable because these opportunities provide greater independence and autonomy. Additionally, living in the community separate from their families can be critical for adults with I/DD to avoid homelessness or institutionalization when a supporting family member inevitably ages and reaches a point where she or he can no longer provide shelter or support.”

Case Documents

Amicus Brief: Community for Permanent Supported Housing et al. v. Housing Authority of the City of Dallas

Related Media

Press Release: “The Arc and Partners File Amicus Brief Challenging Discriminatory Actions of Dallas Housing Authority”
Relman Colfax: “Settlement Results in More Community-Based Housing for People with Disabilities in North Texas“

Jenkins v. Alabama

/in , , , , , , /by Pam Katz

State: Alabama

Filed: September 27, 2019

Court: Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals

Overview: The brief argued that Marc Jenkins, an individual with evidence indicating possible intellectual disability on death row in Alabama, should have the opportunity to present full evidence to prove his intellectual disability claim in an Atkins hearing.

Excerpt: “A death row inmate who claims that he has intellectual disability and therefore is exempt from execution under the Eighth Amendment, pursuant to the Supreme Court’s decision in Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), should have the opportunity to develop an appropriate record in support of that claim when there is evidence of impairment that could be attributable to intellectual disability. That common-sense rule is grounded in principles of due process and fundamental fairness, taking into account the way Atkins fundamentally changed the legal context of intellectual disability evidence in capital cases. It also is grounded in clinical standards regarding the diagnosis of intellectual disability, which emphasize the importance of thorough evidence-gathering and clinical judgment.”

Case Documents

Amicus Brief: Jenkins v. Alabama

Undisclosed Podcast: State v. Rocky Myers – Episode 4: Of Mice and Men

/in , , , , , , , , /by Pam Katz

Through a review of Rocky Myers’ case in Alabama and a discussion with The Arc’s legal director, this episode explores the Supreme Court’s opinion in Atkins and later decisions holding that executing people with intellectual disability violates the constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Prisons as Institutions: An Overview of Challenges Facing Prisoners with I/DD and Proposed Solutions Under the ADA and Other Disability Rights Laws (University of Minnesota Impact Magazine, 2017)

/in , , , , , , , , , /by Pam Katz

Individuals with I/DD are dramatically over-represented in prisons and jails and face unique barriers. Powerful laws exist to protect them, but prisoners need accessible resources to assist them in advocating for their rights. This article explores recommendations to ensure equity for prisoners with I/DD.

Using the ADA’s ‘Integration Mandate’ to Disrupt Mass Incarceration (Denver Law Review, 2019)

/in , , , , , , , , , , /by Pam Katz

This document explores how advocates have used, and are beginning to use in new ways, the “integration mandate” of the Americans with Disabilities Act to advocate for the rights of individuals with disabilities to avoid unnecessary entanglement with the criminal justice system.

Talk About Sexual Violence: Charts

/in , , , /by The Arc

These charts can be used in tandem with our training videos and training tools (for women and for men).


Body Parts Chart: Female

English |  Spanish


Body Parts Chart: Male

English |  Spanish


Word Chart: Female

English  |  Spanish


Word Chart: Male

English  |  Spanish


Expressions Chart

English  |  Spanish


Crimes Against People with Disabilities Chart

English  |  Spanish


Offender Relationship Chart

English  |  Spanish

Abuse of Children with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

/in , , , , , , , /by The Arc

This brief report provides information on the abuse of children with I/DD, including statistics on the risk of abuse, how to identify abuse, and recommendations on preventing and reporting abuse.