Fernanda Figueroa | THE RIDER
The U.S. The Office of Justice Programs’ Office for Victims of Crime has awarded UTRGV nearly $500,000 to help support and empower assault survivors and victims.
Cynthia M. Jones, director of UTRGV’s Office for Victim Advocacy & Violence Prevention, said the grant shows “we are extremely underrepresented in terms of forensic nurses in the [Rio Grande] Valley, and we really need more.”
A total of $499,948 was awarded to UTRGV to help establish a program that will permit on-campus access to a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners program, which offers medical forensic care to faculty, students and staff, according to a UTRGV news release.
Jones said that forensic nurses are key to helping sexual assault victims and survivors.
“Forensic nurses conduct sexual assault exams,” she said. “They are trained in testifying in court and they can also do forensic for dating and domestic violence. They can collect evidence from suspected perpetrators because they are trained in evidence collection and maintaining the appropriate chain of possession for evidence.”
With the grant, UTRGV will be able to increase the number of certified sexual assault nurse examiners in the Valley, provide more advocacy for victims and survivors on campus and address their needs by challenging the harmful stereotypes of sexual violence.
“One of the biggest challenges in handling sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence cases has to do with people’s preconceived notions about what that looks like,” Jones said. “The justice program and the Department of Justice and the Office of Crime, they want to see increased prosecution for these crimes and the first step is to make sure that we are working with victims and survivors from the outside of when the incident occurs and forensics are a huge part of that.”
The grant will also allow Health Services, Undergraduate and Graduate Nursing and Sexual Assault Response Teams to expand their programs.
“The bulk of the funding goes to purchasing equipment for Student Health and hiring two forensic nurse consultants, one of whom is going to work with our current nursing faculty at the undergraduate and graduate level to develop components of forensic nursing and integrate them into the existing curriculum,” Jones said.
Anthropology senior Kathia Rodriguez said the grant is a big step in helping sexual assault victims and survivors.
“Rape culture has been pretty big in victim blaming and has been very harmful to victims of sexual assault,” Rodriguez said. “I think it’s a really good way to show victims that we are on their side.”
The seven other institutions that were awarded the grant are the University of South Alabama, the University of Arizona board of regents, Duquesne University, Pennsylvania State University, the Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System Foundation, Tennessee Technological University and the board of regents of the University of Wisconsin System, as per a news release from the Justice Department.
To learn more about UTRGV’s advocacy and counseling services, visit www.utrgv.edu/ovavp/. All services provided by the Office for Victim Advocacy & Violence Prevention are free and confidential.
