3 - (SYM 125) Outcomes and Process of a Community Needs Assessment of Sexual Assault Investigations and Services: A Community-based Participatory Research Project to Prepare to Launch a Start by Believing Campaign

Start by Believing (SBB) is a public awareness campaign that aims to educate community members and service agencies to respond in a supportive manner to sexual assault (SA) disclosure. It is essential to ensure professionals who respond to SA are prepared before launching an SBB campaign because other communities have observed increased SA reports following the launch. A community-based participatory research project was conducted to assess community readiness for an SBB campaign, identify strengths and weaknesses in community responses to SA, and address training needs of agencies prior to launching SBB. First, a community advisory board (CAB) comprised of key community agency members involved in SA response was created. A needs assessment was developed with the CAB to identify community strengths and challenges associated with help-seeking following recent SA. Agencies or services assessed included law enforcement (LE); victim advocacy; forensic nursing; mental health; college victim services; Title IX; legal, and military SA services. Questions included items on satisfaction with each agency rated from 0 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree) and open-ended questions where participants could expand upon their responses. Fifty-five professionals (50% LE, 20% victim advocates, 12% forensic nurses, 13% other professionals) participated. Descriptive statistics of survey responses were calculated. Thematic analysis was used to analyze open-ended responses. Professionals were highly satisfied with forensic nursing (Mean=3.57) and victim advocacy services (Mean=3.55) but reported ambivalence with LE investigations (Mean=2.83). Responses to open-ended items included themes of community agency strengths (Collaboration, Justice, Support/Care, and General Liking), challenges (Communication and Engagement, Prosecution Difficulties, Limited Resources, and Future Education) and biases (Survivor Characteristics, Reporting Motives, Explicit Blaming). Results were presented to the CAB, LE, and the SA Response Team (SART) to inform training needs and other community response improvements needed prior to campaign launch. SART action priorities to increase community readiness for the SBB campaign were identified. The presentation will provide descriptions of the process, barriers, and effective strategies for engaging communities in action-oriented research to promote social change. LE and victim advocates’ perceptions of uniting with academics will be highlighted.