Sexual Assault Awareness

In Tennessee, over 1 in 4 women and nearly 1 in 10 men report being sexually assaulted in their lifetime. Thousands of cases are reported each year—but many go unreported. Amy Carlton is the Manager of the Rape Crisis Center with Partnership for Families, Children and Adults organization in the Tennessee Valley. Help is available at any time. All services—including forensic exams, counseling, and court advocacy—are free and confidential. Call the 24/7 hotline [phone] or visit partnershipfca.com

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Episode Transcript

S1 (00:04):
You know, there are some things that are going on
in our culture that as you look at them on
the surface, nobody wants to really talk about. And it's hard. Uh,
but it is something that we need to within the
body of Christ, really understand. Uh, and today is the
last day, uh, for sexual Assault Awareness month. And we're
talking with Amy Carlton. She's the rape crisis center manager with, uh,

(00:27):
partnership for Children of America, I think is the name
of your organization. But I'm more concerned with what you
do than who you work for. Amy, first of all,
thank you for being here with us to talk about
this very important topic.

S2 (00:39):
Well, Tom, thank you so much for having us on
this morning. I am the Rape Crisis Center manager for
partnership Family and adults, and we have actually been in
the Chattanooga region for 30 years this year. Wow. So
we're very excited that you're bringing awareness.

S1 (00:55):
Well, thank you so much for what you do. I mean,
you're truly hands and feet here in the middle of
all of that. And so within that, if you could
just paint a picture of what your organization does, what
your group does specifically.

S2 (01:09):
Absolutely. So the Rape Crisis center, our goal is really
to come along survivors and just help care for them,
help them through this process. They can call our 24/7 hotline.
It's answered by our staff here. So you're not going
to get some random automated thing out of state. We're

(01:29):
going to talk to you. We're going to figure out
what's been going on and what options you have available
to you. So our Rape Crisis center has incredible sexual
assault and forensic nurse examiners that can actually do the
sexual assault forensic medical exam. We can take care of
that here at our rape crisis center. So you do

(01:50):
not have to go to the hospital. You don't have
to go through waiting rooms. You don't have to deal
with all that stress and pressure of doing it in
a more public setting. We can care for you at
our rape Crisis center if you are eligible for that exam,
and we can do that exam up to 120 hours
after a sexual assault. So you have time. Then we're

(02:11):
going to have you meet with an advocate who's going
to kind of just work with you through this process.
If you want to report to law enforcement, we can
have law enforcement interview with you here. We can go
ahead and attend with you and work with you and
law enforcement. My incredible advocates will follow up. They're going

(02:33):
to check with everyone. They're going to make sure you're
doing okay, ongoing if that's something that you'd like. We're
going to be here to support you. We'll go to
court with you if your case goes forward to court.
We're just really here to walk alongside of you and
care for you. But partnership also has amazing therapists and counselors.
We can go ahead. And anyone who's struggling with a

(02:56):
sexual assault or domestic violence, we can help take care
of you through our through our counselor, through our therapy program,
to help work through the trauma of what you've been through.

S1 (03:09):
Amy, thank you so much for just painting a picture, really,
of the different services that you have available. And, um,
as you're doing this, you truly do have a partnership
in the community, especially having been done this for 30 years.
And let me just ask this, is it a common, um, thing,

(03:31):
sexual assault here in Tennessee, or is it something that
other states are dealing with?

S2 (03:37):
No, unfortunately, it is incredibly common. So in Tennessee, over
1 in 4 women in nearly nearly 1 in 10
men report being sexually assaulted in their lifetime. 1 in
4 women and 1 in 10 men. If you think
of a group of people that you're sitting and talking to,
chances are someone has dealt with that in that group.

(03:57):
Thousands of cases are reported each year, but we know
it's so much more prevalent because so many go unreported.
So unfortunately, it is much more common than we would
all like to talk about.

S1 (04:08):
Well, Amy, thank you so much for just letting us
know the gravity of having the number of people that
have actually had this happen. And before we, um, go
on any any further, let me ask this. Is there
like a crisis hotline or somebody if somebody is dealing
with this right now, they're hearing you talk about this. Um,
is there a number that they can call?

S2 (04:28):
There absolutely is. Our phone number is [phone]. That's [phone].
And you will reach our incredible trained advocates 24 over seven.

S1 (04:43):
And we're speaking with Amy Carlton. She is the rape
crisis center manager with partnership for families, Children and adults.
And talking about sexual assault. Sexual Assault Awareness month today
is the last day of really shining the light on this. Very.
It's an ugly topic, but we got to talk about
that so that we can find our pathway towards healing.

(05:04):
And if you've experienced this, there's a crisis hotline. I
wanted to get into your hands right now. If you
wanted to talk to somebody for two, three, 3755 2700.
It's available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
It's completely confidential. That number again is 423755 2700. Amy,

(05:24):
as somebody is like, maybe coming to you and, uh,
they're scared. They don't know what to do. They don't
know what the pathway looking forward looks like. Um, can
you just share what it is like maybe for somebody
who's walked through that process? We'll keep them anonymous, of course, but.
But what what will somebody experience as they come to you?

S2 (05:44):
So people can experience all sorts of things when they
choose to come to us. They can have met a
stranger who took advantage of them, but more often than not,
it's someone that they know. It's someone in their inner circle.
It's someone that they've trusted. It may be an acquaintance,
but it's almost it's very, very likely that it's someone

(06:08):
that they know, someone that they trust. So they've not
only had that trust broken, but they've had literally everything
stripped from them at that moment. They have had their
power and their choices and everything taken away from them,
which can be incredibly difficult. And it's hard to know
how to process those and where to go and what
to do. So we recommend they call the hotline so

(06:31):
that we can just talk them out on what their
options are. But most importantly, the client we serve here
at the Rape Crisis Center, anyone 13 years and older,
of course, they do have to come with a parent
or legal guardian if they're under the age of 18.
But we've had a client, 17 year old, who came

(06:52):
to us and they had gotten a chance to talk
to their parents, yet they didn't know what to do.
They didn't know what step to do next. So we
were able to talk to them, bring their parents in,
have that conversation, allow the client to go get a
sexual assault forensic exam so that we could keep that evidence.

(07:14):
As advocates, we were then able to meet with the
parents and talk to them about how they could support
their child, who really needed it at that point. But
the parents had no clue of how to talk to
their child about this or what to do next. So
we were able to help provide the parents some of
that support. We followed up with the client on a

(07:34):
regular basis, and their parent to help figure out what
they needed, how to support them. They did choose to
report to law enforcement, so we had law enforcement come
in and meet with them and their parents here. And then,
of course, as that case went on, it actually did
go to court and we were able to support them
through the court process, which can be such a difficult

(07:56):
process to go through if you don't have anyone alongside
of you that kind of can walk you through those steps.
They did go ahead and seek counseling and they were
able to get that in. This is something that they're
going to be dealing with. I don't want to diminish anything,
but they are in a much better place now that
they've been able to walk through that process with someone

(08:18):
helping them, rather than trying to do it on their own.

S1 (08:23):
Amy, thank you so much for just walking us through
a story of what it's like, um, through if you
choose to come and, um, seek some help through the
Rape Crisis center. Again, that phone number is 423755 2700.
It's available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Completely confidential. And, Amy, as we're wrapping up our time

(08:45):
with you here, just a couple of seconds left. Somebody
listening to you right now that is going through this.
What message would you share with them right now?

S2 (08:54):
We believe you. We're here for you. We're here to
support you. We're here to help you get what you need.
All of our services are completely free and confidential, and
we're happy to talk to you. Even if it's someone
you know. Even if it's you, no matter who it
is in your life, if you have questions or you
want to talk about it, please give our hotline a call.

S1 (09:15):
That hotline number again 423755 2700.