Mackenzie Aranda
7:11:17
Good afternoon and thank you for your time and for the opportunity to testify today.
7:11:21
My name is Mackenzie Aranda SheHer, and I'm here on behalf New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault.
7:11:26
The alliance is a member of the Sexual Assault Initiative, a coalition of five sexual violence intervention programs that has built a citywide network of advocates, counselors, and providers serving thousands of survivors from under resources under resourced communities in New York City.
7:11:41
Over the last two years, the Alliance completed a mapping project mapping the gaps in New York City's sexual violence response systems revealing significant gaps in services and prevention programming for communities experiencing the highest rates of sexual violence.
7:11:54
I'm here today to highlight those gaps and urge you to enhance the sexual assault initiative at $5,000,000 Our mapping project informed us that more than fifty percent of survivors in New York City emergency rooms are not seen by a trained sexual assault forensic examiner otherwise known as a SAFE.
7:12:11
And this becomes increasingly true the further one goes from Manhattan.
7:12:15
Many survivors are turned away from hospitals due to lack of trained examiners and rape crisis programs struggle to maintain 20 fourseven advocate response services due to high staff turnover and insufficient funding.
7:12:26
We also have reports from rape crisis programs with month long wait lists for short term counseling services especially for survivors seeking services in languages other than English.
7:12:36
The New York State Sexual Assault Survivors Bill of Rights mandates these services, yet gaps persist.
7:12:41
We have survivor stories of high wait times up to six hours for safe examiners, survivors being transferred to multiple hospitals, and insufficient hospital staff training resulting in survivors dropping out of services altogether or rape crisis advocates having to guide medical practitioners.
7:12:56
With pediatric survivors being among the most impacted, these gaps have deeply traumatizing and far reaching effects on survivors.
7:13:04
The presence of safe examiners and advocates during medical and legal proceedings significantly improves outcomes for sexual assault survivors, reducing secondary trauma, psychological distress, and self blame while increasing access to essential distress To build on these efforts and further strengthen survivor centered responses, targeted investments in training, program expansion, and community based interventions are essential.
7:13:27
The SAI is currently funded at $2,200,000.075000 dollars and we ask for an enhancement to $5,000,000 to ensure every survivor in New York City has access to comprehensive trauma informed care.
7:13:39
Thank you for your time and for your commitment to this issue.
