'You’re not alone in this': Sex assault crisis program connects survivors with support

Winnipeg -

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and one Winnipeg-based social agency aims to make assault survivors aware that help and support can take different forms and all are just a phone call away.

Jerra Fraser is a counsellor with Klinic’s Sexual Assault Crisis Program. Fraser told CTV Morning Live that sexual assault is a type of interpersonal violence that is more prevalent than hoped, but that there is a multitude of supports available.

“At Klinic and in the Sexual Assault Crisis Program, we like to use a trauma-informed definition of sexual assault. We’re really focussing on what an experience of anything that was unwanted, or uninvited might have meant to an individual themselves more so than the details of the event”, said Fraser.

That approach translates to different types of support for community members affected by sexual assault. Fraser says those supports extend to survivors and ‘secondary survivors,’ meaning those who may be supporting loved ones who have survived assault.

“We are available 24-7 through the sexual assault program lines. We also have people in the community doing advocacy work and the ability to support survivors through both short- and long-term counselling,” Fraser said.

Fraser said the pandemic and the social isolation that accompanied it made support harder to access and in some ways less effective.

“This kind of healing works best when there’s lots of access to connections so we know that’s been really tough for individuals doing their work around sexual assault trauma.”

Fraser wants the public to understand that the healing process following sexual assault doesn’t follow a set progression, that the decision to seek help is an individual choice and that there’s never a time limit on it.

Underlying that is the program’s key philosophy.

“Instead of the message being, you didn’t do a good enough job of keeping yourself safe, we want to shift that over to the person who caused harm and say they did not do a good enough job of being a safe person around you.”

“We want to normalize that this can take time and that’s okay and this can be an experience that touches multiple life areas. So it’s not only the immediate impact, but does this impact someone’s ability to focus during their day, to parent, to be in other kinds of relationships, to go to work and even to feel safe in their own body.”

Klinic’s Sexual Assault Crisis Program can be reached around the clock at 204-786-8681 and toll-free at 1-888-292-7565. The program’s webpage is available here.

 

 - With files from CTV’S Rachel Lagacé