Rape and sexual assault victims will get help within thirty minutes of their arrival at a local hospital, said Verna Griffin-Tabor, executive director of Center for Community Services in Mission Bay.
Griffin-Tabor was responding to complaints from a San Diego woman who said she got no help from a victim’s advocate in Las Vegas when she was allegedly raped last week by an off-duty Las Vegas Metro police officer.
The nonprofit Center for Community Services assisted 21,000 local victims last year. Services include victim advocacy, trauma counseling, legal advice and emergency shelter. Trained therapists and volunteer advocates help victims deal with feelings of blame or guilt that often follow a sexual assault.
“Those are not uncommon feelings for sexual assault survivors, so our job is to tell those survivors they did not commit this crime, and nothing they did brought this on,” said Griffin-Tabor.
She also said PTSD symptoms are common after a sexual assault.
“Struggling with thinking clearly or panic attacks or not being able to sleep are not uncommon,” said Griffin-Tabor. “But there really is relief for those kinds of symptoms, and help is available.”
Griffin-Tabor, who is a licensed clinical social worker and experienced therapist, said her staff is also trained to help survivors deal with “flashbacks.”
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“It’s very common for sexual assault survivors to have ‘triggers' (sights, smells, sounds) that take them back to the trauma,” she said. “[We] have tools they can [use] to relieve that, so they don’t stay in that anxious, hyper-vigilant, or depressed state.”
Griffin-Tabor said the San Diego victim, Vivian Solomon, should be applauded for telling her story, and publicly demanding that her alleged Las Vegas rapist be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
“The survivor who spoke yesterday is really helping, just like the “Me Too” and “Time’s Up” movements, by really shifting the lens from blaming survivors to holding perpetrators accountable.”
