VISTA on-call

Although we usually keep regular business hours, VISTAs are on-call, so to speak, 24/7. Accordingly, VISTAs are not to work additional jobs or attend school so as to be available at all times. However, we are encouraged to volunteer in our communities in other capacities. Beyond my position as a VISTA with the OBB and Shared Harvest, I also volunteer as a victim advocate with the Butler County Rape Crisis Program.

This May, I completed an extensive 30-hour training process to learn how to respond to sexual assault victims at the 5 hospitals in the county and over the phone. Now I serve an average of five, 12-hour shifts on-call with the program each month. I schedule my shifts on the weekends, and this weekend, I was on-call from 6pm Saturday to 6am Sunday. It was one of the most eventful shifts I've seen since beginning as an advocate, and I'd like to share a little about what I saw. I should point out that the nature of this work is highly confidential, so I can't go into much detail. I'll only discuss some of the common threads I recently found between my experience as a VISTA and a volunteer advocate.

On Saturday, I got my first call just 45 minutes into my shift while Taylor was making dinner. I grabbed a nutri-grain bar and a handful of chocolate chips to keep my blood-sugar up until I could come back for a late dinner. I arrived at the hospital with my partner advocate (we're always on-call in pairs) and we ended up staying with her until 1:45am. She was confused, scared, and alone, with no support system in place after we left her.

By the time I got home, it was too late to eat anything of substance, so I quickly changed into pajamas and got into bed. But sure enough, our next call came at 3am, and I was on the road again to a different hospital. The second case was just getting started with the sexual assault nurse examiner when, at 4:30am, we received a call for a third victim who had just arrived at a different hospital in the county. This has to be some kind of record in hospital calls per shift. My partner left to attend to that call, and I remained with the second woman until she was discharged around 7:15am.

My shift was over at this point, so I drove home, called in the cases to our court liaison, and fell asleep. By the time my head hit the pillow, I had been awake for 24 hours straight, and my last meal had come about 19 hours earlier. You do what you have to do.

Working as an advocate is much like working as a VISTA: you see some pretty tragic stories that are nearly impossible to forget at the end of the day. Both fields are difficult to work in, but I am proud of my efforts, no matter how small. I am proud that I could help these women through this crisis in their lives, but unfortunately I won't be there tomorrow or the next day or the one after that to help. And that's discouraging. Like every other social services professional, sometimes I just want to wave a magic wand and make everything better for them.
As I mentioned, I have observed some overlap with people in poverty and people who have experienced sexual assault. Strangely, most of society ends up blaming both groups of people for their circumstances. When it comes to poverty, it is very common for people in middle and upper economic classes to believe that if you just work hard enough, you can rise above your condition. By this logic, if someone is living in poverty, then it's there fault for not working harder or making better choices. The fault lies with the person, not society or policymakers or employers or circumstance, which is where some of the blame really lies.

The same idea is often true when it comes to sexual assault. Unlike any other crime, much of society believes that sexual assault can be prevented if the victim (usually a woman) behaves differently, by wearing different clothes, avoiding dark alleys, staying at home at night, etc. The truth is that the only person who can prevent an attack is the attacker himself. Yet, many people still blame the victim for something that has happened to them and isn't their fault. With both issues, the blame is misplaced. I guess it is easier for many members of society to "deal with" such complex, difficult problems by distancing themselves and placing the blame on the victim.

I've also found an interlocking relationship between poverty and sexual assault. Before I go too much further, I should point out that rape does not discriminate based on race, age, or social class. Statistics show that rape occurs in all populations, regardless of socio-economic status. However, I believe that rape tends to have a more long-term, damaging effect on people in poverty than those with more financial resources. Let me explain.

On Saturday night, I noticed that in addition to being victims of sexual assault, both women were also from low-income backgrounds. Being poor didn't cause them to be raped. But being poor will probably make their recovery much more difficult. Of course, people with a lot of money may have a long road to recovery, please don't misunderstand me. But people with higher incomes usually have more resources (aka money) to work through their recovery. They can pay for therapists, for attorneys, for help. They tend to have a stronger support system in place; the finest that money can buy. It isn't easy, but they have an advantage in working through these difficulties. Without money, the women I met this weekend are not likely to reach out for counseling and follow-up medical care in the future. It just isn't feasible with their incomes unless they have access to free clinics, which isn't always a guarantee, especially in rural areas of the county.

Poverty and rape are complex problems with complex solutions, and I don't expect anyone to be able to fix them overnight. But I do think that the first step in solving these problems is acknowledging their actual source and working from there. The more we buy into myths of poverty and rape and any other social problem out there, the longer we delay finding a solution.