The NC State Women’s Center recently introduced a new hotline for survivors of sexual assault and interpersonal violence, hoping to provide faster and easier access to support through a time of crisis.
Rape Prevention Education Coordinator Sara Forcella said that the new line, as well as the distribution of stickers and mirror clings throughout campus, was created to address a variety of issues that led to the underuse of the old line, called the Relationship and Sexual Violence Phone (RSVP).
“We spent the summer revamping our marketing strategy, creating a new plan for the phone line that we’re really hoping will increase campus visibility of the line,” Forcella said.
The old line received less than one call per week, which indicated to staff that students did not recognize the old line as one of many resources on campus in the event of an assault, according to Forcella.
“One of the main things about this line that’s really going to be a shift from the old line is, first of all, its name, clearly, and second of all is the actual phone number itself,” Forcella said. “The old number was an off-campus line, and the new number is on-campus, and hopefully easier to remember — it’s 919-515-4444 — so hopefully for students it’s easier in a moment of crisis, similar to how a police number functions.”
Along with the new hotline, the Women’s Center is now partnering with the Counseling Center. The Counseling Center will provide answering services after the Women’s Center’s normal hours, as well as professional emotional support resources for survivors, including licensed counselors, psychiatrists and advocates who will be available to accompany a student to file a report to the NC State University Police Department.
Forcella noted that in addition to a resource for making reports of instances of sexual assault ranging anywhere from triggered memories of past assault and stalking to much more direct and immediate acts of interpersonal violence, the Women’s Center’s vision for the line is that it will provide “whatever [the survivor] needs.”
However, because the Women’s Center is a university office and funded through Title IX, staff is required to manage and report incidents of sexual violence on campus, including mandatory reports to the police department and the Office of Student Conduct, which may give rise to unwanted disclosures for survivors.
Although the hotline aims to provide emotional support and other resources to help survivors through the process of recovery from an assault, some survivors may not wish to disclose their identities in order to maintain their own privacy and protect themselves from the fear of retaliation from their attackers, as well as the traumatic re-victimization that can occur through unwanted disclosure.
The partnership with the Counseling Center, however, may mitigate some of this potentially unwanted transparency, as the Counseling Center “is a one hundred percent confidential resource,” according to Lisa LaBarbera-Mascote, director of the Women’s Center.
“And either way,” LaBarbera-Mascote said, “the Counseling Center is an option always for students, 24 hours a day, really.”
In addition to serving survivors of interpersonal violence through emotional support and advocacy resources, the Women’s Center aims to provide a “resource to campus leaders,” Forcella said, noting that the center will be distributing educational materials to resident advisers and others who are also encouraged to call the line for support.
