Rape Crisis center to mark 40th year with symposium

By WILLIAM K. ALCORN

alcorn@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Youngstown’s Rape Crisis & Counseling Center’s upcoming Education, Awareness & Prevention Symposium will mark the organization’s 40th anniversary and kick off a campaign to raise awareness and emphasize prevention of rape.

The event will take place from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at Mill Creek MetroParks’ Fellows Riverside Gardens, 123 McKinley Ave.

For 40 years, the Rape Crisis & Counseling Center, a program of Compass Family & Community Services, has dedicated itself to healing the hearts and minds of survivors of sexual assault in Mahoning County.

“We have supported survivors, their loved ones and the community with the necessary programs and services designed to facilitate recovery and strengthen lives,” said Dawn Powell, the center’s program manager.

During the 2014-15 fiscal year, the center received more than 600 calls involving rape, most from Mahoning County residents and hospitals where victims went for treatment and examination.

Rape crisis counselors attempt to respond within an hour of receiving a call. They work with the sexual assault nurse examiner (S.A.N.E.) and help the victim through the examination and legal process.

“When their clothing is kept as evidence, we even provide the victim with clothing,” Powell said.

A Youngstown native who graduated from Cardinal Mooney High School in 1987, Powell came to the Rape Crisis Center on May 1 after 20 years working in Sharon Regional Health System’s Behavioral Health Services Psych Unit.

The Rape Crisis & Counseling Center plans to “have conversations” because people don’t talk enough about sexual assault; bring people in to “join the conversation,” such as community, spiritual and law-enforcement leaders, to effect change; and “change the conversation” because people don’t know the extent of the issue, Powell said.

A licensed social worker with an undergraduate degree from Ashland University in Ohio and a master’s degree in social work from Clark University in Atlanta, Powell said “we have to change the mindset.”

“Men commit 95 percent of sexual assault. We want them to understand that rape isn’t right no matter how short the skirt or how drunk the woman is,” she added.

Wednesday’s symposium, which provides a forum to bring together area social service agencies, clergy, law enforcement and prevention specialists to discuss issues related to the awareness and prevention of sexual violence in the community, will feature a panel discussion.

Panel members include Youngstown police Detective Sgt. David Lomax, who has served as a community organizer for A Call to Men, the national association of men and women committed to ending violence against women; and Lynn Hart Bilal, a Youngstown native who is prevention coordinator for the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence.

Lunch will be served, and continuing education units are pending.

For reservations, call 330-782-5664, ext. 1116. For information about the program, call 330-782-5664, ext. 1155.