The University of California at San Diego’s Sexual Assault and Violence Prevention Resource Center will expand its services to help more students.
Under their expanded services, the new center will provide crisis intervention and advocacy to faculty and staff as well as students. The center will also change its name to CARE: Advocacy Office for Sexual and Gender-Based Violence and Misconduct.
The expansion comes after a recent call-to-action by University of California President Janet Napolitano. Napolitano said the school system needed a consistent model for the response and prevention of sexual assault and violence.
The center will report to the Office of Ethics and Compliance, though it will continue to serve as an independent and confidential advocacy office.
Sexual assault reports at UC San Diego have been climbing in recent years, an annual security report released last October said. 20 assaults were reported in 2013, compared to six in 2011.
Last year was the first year universities were required to report the number of crimes related to domestic and dating violence as well as stalking by law.
The expanded program for UC schools has received about $1.3 million dollars in grants from the U.S. Department of Justice, according to a press release.
