Categories
Sexual Assault

Providing Gender Inclusive Care To The LGBTQ Population After Sexual Assault

RTI’s Forensic Technology Center of Excellence is hosting a webinar, Providing Gender Inclusive Care To The LGBTQ Population After Sexual Assault. The session will be held August 30th at 1pm. From the website:

This webinar will discuss considerations to best serve sexual assault victims of the LGBTQ community, particularly transgender survivors, and present case studies to illustrate gender inclusive responses to sexual assault.

To ensure the care and safety of all sexual assault victims, it is imperative that sexual assault forensic examiners and investigators examine their practices to ensure all needs of the LGBTQ Community are met. This webinar will discuss and explore safe care of the sexual assault victims within the LGBTQ community and will focus on the transgender community to better understand the spectrum of gender. The presenter will discuss the difference between gender and sexuality and discuss ways to look at forensic practices to increase gender awareness and inclusion. The webinar will illustrate practical ways to incorporate education, awareness, and improve services provided currently to ensure victims from any culture may feel safer reporting sexual assault. Additionally, the presenter will discuss reasons why victims may not access care and look at the increased risk of sexual violence in the LGBTQ population. Further discussion will include the implications for investigators, forensic science examiners, and others working sexual assault cases involving gender minorities.

Detailed Learning Objectives:

1. Define the LGBTQ Community & explore the spectrum of gender

2. Explore the increased risk of sexual assault in the LGBTQ community

3. Discuss modifications to consider during a sexual assault examination, investigation, and processes

4. Deconstruct barriers to accessing care and reporting after a sexual assault

Register here.

 

Have you checked out the FHO store lately? You can find our newest research brief, Aging Bruises Based On Color, plus our original guide, Injury Following Consensual Sex. Both available now for electronic download.

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Uncategorized

Since Last We Spoke, 7-30-18

Greeting from Columbia, South Carolina, where I will be working at the National Advocacy Center for the week with some of my very favorite collaborators. I had plenty of airport time in the last 48 hours, and a significant amount of time sitting in an actual airplane during that time (about 11ish total hours), so aside from watching movies–lots of movies–I read plenty. Here’s what caught my eye since last we spoke:

This Ronan Farrow longread on sexual misconduct by Les Moonves at CBS (you can also listen to the story via the link)

The rage I feel about this story (and even more so at the President’s heartless tweet in response)

White fragility

SASCA getting some love in the press; proud to have supported that effort

Remember her name: Nia Wilson

It was the online version of road rage

The whole conspiracy behind the story is bonkers

Love this story–good job, Air Force

 

Have you checked out the FHO store lately? You can find our newest research brief, Aging Bruises Based On Color, plus our original guide, Injury Following Consensual Sex. Both available now for electronic download.

Categories
DV/IPV Sexual Assault

Campus Sexual and Dating Violence: The Role of Campus Health Centers

Futures Without Violence has an upcoming webinar, Campus Sexual and Dating Violence: The Role of Campus Health Centers. The session will be held August 8th at 1:30pm ET. CMEs are available for physicians, but sadly, it doesn’t look like nursing CEUs are available for this one. From the announcement:

Intimate partner and sexual violence (IPV/SV) is highly prevalent on college campuses, impacting student health and educational attainment.  Campus health centers are a vital component of campus-wide efforts to prevent and respond to IPV/SV.  Though survivors are often discouraged from reporting or discussing their experiences through traditional pathways, health care providers on campuses are in a unique position to be able to offer support, as well as to provide universal education to all patients about healthy relationships and how violence can affect health and academic performance. This session will provide tools and resources for campus health center staff to address (IPV/SV) in their clinical practice, as well as engage in a range of campus-wide efforts. Presenters will outline best practices for implementing a comprehensive IPV/SV protocol that includes staff training, routine assessment in clinical encounters, student outreach, and partnership with other campus departments and community-based victim services providers.

This webinar is co-hosted by Futures Without Violence Health Resource Center and the American College Health Association.

As a result of attending this webinar, participants will be better able to:

  • Discuss the impact of IPV/SV on health and educational attainment
  • Implement a universal safety card-based intervention to prevent and respond to IPV/SV within their campus health center
  • Utilize the ACHA Addressing Sexual and Relationship Violence: A Trauma-Informed Approach toolkit
  • Identify next steps in preparing their campus health center to address IPV/SV

Register for the webinar here.

 

Have you checked out the FHO store lately? You can find our newest research brief, Aging Bruises Based On Color, plus our original guide, Injury Following Consensual Sex. Both available now for electronic download.

Categories
Sexual Assault

Medical Consent and Intoxicated Patients

Re-upping this post because there’s been some discussion on the IAFN listserv about intoxication and it’s worth reminding people there’s no BAC at which a patient must be before they are able to ask for emergency medical care (which is generally what a sexual assault medical forensic exam is considered). The same standard required to sign papers for a mortgage, or buy a car, or have elective surgery, or drive a car, is not the standard by which someone should be assessed for being able to consent to a medical-forensic exam. Please do not take my word for it (I do not provide legal advice–this is not legal advice). Please consult your hospital attorneys, risk managers and other smart professionals who get paid big money to help you make these decisions. However, if you need some supplemental materials to help them with the task, may I suggest, after you review the SAFEta website, some of the following:

A guide to decision-making capacity (Jones & Holden, 2004)

Assessment of Patients’ Competence to Consent to Treatment (Appelbaum, 2007; FULL-TEXT)

Mental capacity, legal competence and consent to treatment (Buchanan, 2004; FULL-TEXT)

Refusal of Emergency Medical Treatment: Case Studies and Ethical Foundations (Marco, et al., 2017)

Bonus for our readers in the UK, Consent to Treatment–adults who lack capacity (as part of BMA’s medical student ethics toolkit)

I hope people will consider moving away from strict quantitative determinations and employ a set of clinical assessment criteria that are more likely to be accurate across populations. I would also encourage you to consider what the existing standard is in your Emergency Department, including your Fast Track (or equivalent) and consider using those policies as a yardstick by which to measure the policy for your medical-forensic exam patients, depending on where those patients are also seen (so possibly different if outside your ED, maybe even more so if seen in a community-based clinic).

Again, not legal advice–simply food for thought based on my own clinical and professional experiences.

 

Have you checked out the FHO store lately? You can find our newest research brief, Aging Bruises Based On Color, plus our original guide, Injury Following Consensual Sex. Both available now for electronic download.

 

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Uncategorized

Since Last We Spoke, 7-23-18

I am working in Germany this week and didn’t think I’d have time to get a post up today. But then 2nd-night jet lag kicked in, which is usually the worst night for me, and all of the sudden I had plenty of time to read. So here’s what caught my eye in the middle of the night last night (since last we spoke):

Great reporting out of Minnesota on what’s not being done on sexual assault

The joy of missing out

President Obama’s excellent summer reading list

Sen. Booker at the border

This story is infuriating

The loveliest of essays on making a life from scratch

 

Have you checked out the FHO store lately? You can find our newest research brief, Aging Bruises Based On Color, plus our original guide, Injury Following Consensual Sex. Both available now for electronic download.

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Uncategorized

Better Presentations

I am regularly asked about tips for putting together better (read: engaging) presentations. IAFN is just around the corner, and many of you are undoubtedly thinking about the talks you will be giving, so I was especially happy to run across a great (and brief) post on the subject over at Seth’s Blog. He provides 5 actionable ways to create better presentations, and I endorse the whole thing, particularly #5:

Be here now. The reason you’re giving a presentation and not sending us a memo is that your personal presence, your energy and your humanity add value. Don’t hide them. Don’t use a prescribed format if that format doesn’t match the best version of you.

It’ll take you a minute to read, and you’ll be glad you did.

 

Have you checked out the FHO store lately? You can find our newest research brief, Aging Bruises Based On Color, plus our original guide, Injury Following Consensual Sex. Both available now for electronic download.

Categories
Articles of Note Child Abuse DV/IPV Elder Abuse/Neglect Sexual Assault

Articles of Note: July 2018 Edition

It’s time once again for Articles of Noite, our monthly romp through the new peer-reviewed literature. As usual, it’s not exhaustive–just the articles that have caught my attention and feel relevant to our practice. It feels like there’s a lot of good stuff to be found in this month’s roundup–I encourage you to spend some time wandering around the list. With the exception of a few noted citations, all links lead to PubMed abstracts.

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Have you checked out the FHO store lately? You can find our newest research brief, Aging Bruises Based On Color, plus our original guide, Injury Following Consensual Sex. Both available now for electronic download.

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Uncategorized

Since Last We Spoke, 7-16-18

I’m headed to Houston for a few days and then off to Germany for the better part of a week, so I will keep this brief. Lots going on in the world, honestly, it’s hard to keep track of it all. I have a significant amount of social media fatigue, so I have been spending less time scrolling through my feeds and more time catching up on meaningful reading (see tomorrow’s Articles of Note for example). A few things have caught my eye, though since last we spoke:

I loved this piece on setting limits with your time, something to which I aspire

Why I try to surround myself with positive people

No surprise, this

Just what we’ve all been waiting for: a new STD

Mandatory reporting policies protect universities–not survivors

France’s World Cup victory is a victory for immigrants everywhere

 

Have you checked out the FHO store lately? You can find our newest research brief, Aging Bruises Based On Color, plus our original guide, Injury Following Consensual Sex. Both available now for electronic download

Categories
Sexual Assault

Case File Review

The folks over at SVJI‘s Rural Realities project have a new blog post on case file review that has a good chart differentiating review models that SARTs might find helpful. For those of you looking for more in-depth info, SVJI also has a series of archived webinars that will be useful:

Looking for something more tangible? Download their Case File Review Guidebook (PDF).

 

Have you checked out the FHO store lately? You can find our newest research brief, Aging Bruises Based On Color, plus our original guide, Injury Following Consensual Sex. Both available now for electronic download.

Categories
Uncategorized

What’s Your Agenda? How to Craft Meaningful Agendas

I’m pretty sure everyone knows meetings are the worst. I am not a fan–I find them more often than not to be a colossal waste of time. Most meeting items could be accomplished in a few well-crafted emails or phone calls; they’re rarely efficient or focused. One of the reasons I have structured my professional life in the way that I have is precisely so I don’t have to spend a lot of time sitting in meetings. Clearly, this is not an isolated viewpoint. Futures Without Violence is hosting a webinar to help you make your meetings better: What’s Your Agenda? How to Craft Meaningful Agendas will be held July 30th at 2pm ET. From the website:

This webinar will explore the process for developing agendas that reflect your goals, meet your needs, and help you to achieve your objectives. Similar to instructional design, the creation of meeting agendas is much simpler when you follow a step-by-step process that facilitates a critical analysis of what you need to accomplish and how you should accomplish it. Together, we will use a simple tool that will help guide you through the creation of meaningful agendas.

Register for the session here.

 

Have you checked out the FHO store lately? You can find our newest research brief, Aging Bruises Based On Color, plus our original guide, Injury Following Consensual Sex. Both available now for electronic download.

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Uncategorized

Since Last We Spoke, 7-9-18

No surprise, my work in AZ originally scheduled for this week will now be taking place in September, so I find myself suddenly at home. Not complaining. I was solo all weekend, which gave me plenty of time to do absolutely anything I pleased, which included plenty of surfing, so here’s what caught my eye since last we spoke:

Stop raising awareness

This is so clearly very bad (and very familiar)

Pretty much all of these

Civility, amiright?

40, single, childless and happy. Really.

An outstanding piece on student loan debt

The Tour de France is men-only, so women are biking it a day early

Of course

A short video about the homeless shelter where we have our clinic (we’re in a Macy’s!)

 

 

Have you checked out the FHO store lately? You can find our newest research brief, Aging Bruises Based On Color, plus our original guide, Injury Following Consensual Sex. Both available now for electronic download.

Categories
DV/IPV Sexual Assault

Community Informed Risk Assessment: Intimate Partner Violence, Including Sexual Assault

EVAW has a webinar coming up that should be of interest to many of you–Community Informed Risk Assessment: Intimate Partner Violence, Including Sexual Assault.  The session will be held July 25th at 12pm ET. From the announcement:

Course Description

This webinar will address the origins, development, and science of the Arizona intimate Partner Risk Assessment Instrument System (APRAIS) as an example of community informed risk assessment. Presenters will explore the deployment of the tool and its accompanying protocols in the fields of law enforcement, victim advocacy, and the courts. Of paramount importance are respect for the autonomy, dignity, informed consent, and liberty rights of victims, the due process rights of suspects, and the need to be candid and transparent about the limited predictive capabilities of all risk assessment tools that screen for future threats of intimate partner violence (IPV). 

This includes an assessment of sexual assault committed within the context of IPV, often referred to as intimate partner sexual assault (IPSA).  While the obstacles victims face in reporting IPV are significant, there are additional risks of disclosing IPSA.  This disclosure can be particularly humiliating to the victim, as well as the abuser, and it can be confusing to victims when consensual sex is mixed with the threat of sexual violence.  When law enforcement identifies IPSA as a risk factor for possible future re-assault or severe re-assault, it may help victims make the decision to access services and begin the road to recovery from the abuse

Objectives

At the conclusion of this webinar, participants will be better able to:

  1. Develop a coordinated community response to IPV risk assessment, including an assessment for IPSA, and incorporate in the justice system response.  
  2. Explore how a risk assessment tool like APRAIS can help law enforcement to work with victims of IPV / IPSA, increasing both victim cooperation and access. 
  3. Design and implement training on IPV / IPSA risk assessment, including uses, risks, and benefits.  
  4. Explain how the use of a validated risk assessment can increase victim access to services, improve decision-making throughout the system, and enhances safety for victims of IPV / IPSA.

The speakers are Dr. Neil Websdale and Greg Giangobbe. Register here.

 

Have you checked out the FHO store lately? You can find our newest research brief, Aging Bruises Based On Color, plus our original guide, Injury Following Consensual Sex. Both available now for electronic download.

Categories
Child Abuse

Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting Clinical Guide Update

Summer can be kind of slow in the webinar department, so I am trying to take advantage of the lull and get the clinical guides updated. As that happens, I will date them so it’s easy to tell. First up: Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting.

 

Have you checked out the FHO store lately? You can find our newest research brief, Aging Bruises Based On Color, plus our original guide, Injury Following Consensual Sex. Both available now for electronic download.

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Uncategorized

Since Last We Spoke, 7/2/18

Hard to believe it’s July, and yet here we are. I am sad to tell you my summer basically ends this week, with my girlchild heading back to the 216 for work and school obligations (and just generally being a teenager with a social life), and my wife and I resuming our lives of traveling (separately) non-stop. If you’d like to keep up at home, between Saturday and Labor Day weekend I will be headed to: Ft. Huachuca, AZ-Houston, TX-Kaiserslautern, Germany-Columbia, SC-Vicenza, Italy, Camp Pendleton, CA-Ft. Drum, NY-Cleveland, OH. Not complaining–work is a blessing, I will take it. However, posting may be inconsistent, please bear with me (long time FHO readers know the drill). Especially the weeks out of the country, I will try to respond to your inquiries in a timely manner, keep postings going, all of the things. Just know I am bouncing around time zones. Your patience, as always, is much appreciated. BTW, continued thanks to everyone supporting the new research brief on aging bruises based on color. The response has been really lovely.

I spent most of the weekend working, since the kiddo has been off at Georgetown this past week, and Sasha had Army duty. I tried to get down to the protest, but my timing was a bit off, and I missed the tail end of the rally, which was disappointing. Still amazing to see so many protesters in white, with their creative signs, persevering in the heat. When I wasn’t working, I caught up on the (mostly dismal) news of the week. Here’s what caught my eye since last we spoke:

This is legitimately the best thing I’ve read recently–spot on

Yes, let’s.

The July issue of Topic is out, called Trigger Warnings–it’s all about gun culture. There’s a lot there if you have the time.

Some of the best from the protests this weekend (and here)

If you haven’t seen Nanette yet, it’s just, wow…

The executives who’ve been taken down by #MeToo

Related: why it’s harder for black women to come forward

PTSD and the Pulse first responders

Hard to believe it’s not a hate crime already

The very definition of not patient-centered

I wasn’t able to attend this hearing last week, but I caught Terry Crews’ testimony online. You should, too:

 

Have you checked out the FHO store lately? You can find our newest research brief, Aging Bruises Based On Color, plus our original guide, Injury Following Consensual Sex. Both available now for electronic download.