As April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, representatives from the Youth Advocacy Center of Lewis County, Hope Alliance and Thurston County Family Education & Support Services (FESS) spoke at Tuesday night’s Centralia City Council meeting to promote awareness and share ongoing challenges they face as they try to help both child and adult survivors of sexual assault.
Samantha Mitchell, Youth Advocacy Center child forensic interviewer, was the first to present. Mitchell interviews children who have been victims of any kind of abuse, neglect, trafficking and other crimes, and provides law enforcement with recordings of those interviews for evidence throughout all of Lewis County.
“It minimizes the time the child needs to be interviewed as a part of (law enforcement’s) investigation,” Mitchell said.
The Youth Advocacy Center also offers on-site sexual assault exams utilizing doctors from Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia, access to mental health care and victim advocacy resources along with therapy-oriented rooms.
Mitchell explained throughout 2022 and going into 2023 she’s seen an increase in the number of families needing the Youth Advocacy Center’s resources, especially from remote parts of Lewis County.
“We’re seeing a lot more families on the outskirts (of the county) starting to be able to come to the center,” said Mitchell.
In 2022, a total of 162 children were interviewed. Of them, 23% were between the ages of 3 and 6, 46% were between the ages of 7 and 12, and 28% were between the ages of 13 and 18.
During the interviews, Mitchell said 344 types of abuse were identified. She said she’s also observed a rise of generational abuse within families.
“A lot of the kids coming in are experiencing more than one type of abuse aside from what they were being brought in for,” Mitchell added.
Many of the children also had disabilities. The Youth Advocacy Center also took in three vulnerable adults.
“Our disabled population is our most vulnerable and our most victimized,” Mitchell said.
She has been working on interviewing techniques utilizing “yes” or “no” answers for both disabled and non-verbal individuals.
Additionally, the Youth Advocacy Center is training to identify trafficking in partnership with the Centralia Police Department and Lewis County Sheriff’s Office. She promoted the Darkness to Light program, which aims to increase community awareness about the signs of possible abuse to aid with prevention. Community education, she said, is vital to reversing the increase in sexual assaults of children.
Hope Alliance Executive Director Kris Camenzind then spoke to the council about trends she sees around totals of domestic violence victims current Hope Alliance staffing levels can’t sustain. The Hope Alliance advocates for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault through career, housing, legal and other resources.
“I’ve been doing this for close to 25 years and I’ve never seen the high level of needs that our clients are coming in with,” Camenzind said.
In the first three months of 2023, 67 people have come to Hope Alliance seeking aid.
“That doesn’t count the kids,” Camenzind said.
Twenty-four people came in because of sexual assault this year. Six of those were just in the weekend leading up to Tuesday night’s meeting.
“We do not have an office space that’s conducive to what we need. We have people in the parking lot to receive our services, because we don’t have the capacity to have confidentiality with all of our clients, so we’re struggling a little bit,” Camenzind said.
The Hope Alliance is looking to hire another therapist trained to help survivors of sexual assault to cope with this influx. Camenzind also said there are currently several families seeking services right now who are victims of trafficking.
Additionally, Camenzind said the Hope Alliance has expanded resources for minority groups, including bilingual staff and LGBTQ+ advocates.
“They don’t really get a lot of support, especially in Lewis County,” Camenzind said.
FESS Executive Director Shelly Willis then spoke and thanked the council for recognizing Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
FESS focuses on preventing abuse and assault from occurring by providing families educational resources on how to prevent those crimes from occuring in the first place as well as how to identify warning signs they may be occurring.
The nonprofit also offers other gas vouchers, parenting classes, support groups and other basic needs for families.
For more information on the Youth Advocacy Center and to donate, visit https://caclmt.org/donations/youth-advocacy-center-of-lewis-county/.
For more information on the Hope Alliance and to donate, visit https://hopealliancelc.org/.
For more information on FESS and to donate, visit https://familyess.org/.
