Understanding the factors that make people more vulnerable to interpersonal violence can also help us identify protective factors that can keep them safe. This is how we begin to understand violence prevention in a more holistic way. It’s not just about addressing restrictive gender roles and educating people about healthy relationships. We also need to look at how various forms of oppression make people more vulnerable to violence, and understand that the struggle to end interpersonal violence is tied to other struggles for justice. Poverty is one such form of…
Party Smart started out as a public awareness campaign to provide basic safety tips to local and visiting party goers on the Strip. Over time, as new research and best practices for violence prevention became available, Party Smart shifted to educating the public about active bystander intervention. A few years ago, that public education turned into structured training in bystander intervention for staff at bars and nightclubs. Today, Party Smart encompasses both the Stay SAFE (Sex Assault Free Environments) and SAint (Sexual Assault Intervention) trainings. In partnership with LVMPD Crime…
In addition to one-on-one counseling and group support, Signs of Hope provides a variety of therapeutic modalities that can support the healing process. These include yoga, the holistic healing workshop series, and art therapy. Art therapy is used for survivors of all kinds of trauma, but why is it helpful? Art therapy provides survivors with a way to express themselves, process their emotions, and examine their experience of abuse or assault. Creating art allows survivors to express things that they’re not able to put into words. It can also create…
When abuse happens at a very young age, it can have a profound affect on a child’s development and behavior. As one of our colleagues at the Children’s Advocacy Center put it “these children have had a switch flipped on through no fault of their own, but it is very difficult to flip that switch back”. In the short term, parents and caregivers may see a variety of behavioral changes related to the trauma of sexual abuse. According to The National Child Traumatic Stress Network, “Very young children might engage…
Over the years, Signs of Hope has made it a priority to expand our counseling services. In less than a decade the Signs of Hope Counseling Center has grown from 2 counselors to 10. Appointments for individual counseling are available 6 days a week and we have 6 active support groups, with more in the works. One of the most important parts of this expansion has been ensuring that access to services is being increased for everyone. The varied experience and expertise of our counseling staff means that support is…
The Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) was passed in 2003 to “provide for the analysis of the incidence and effects of prison rape in Federal, State, and local institutions and to provide information, resources, recommendations and funding to protect individuals from prison rape.” (Prison Rape Elimination Act, 2003) In short, PREA is intended to conduct research to better understand the issue of prison sexual abuse and then take steps to protect people from abuse. Those steps included the creation of the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission, tasked with setting national…
We are proud of how the Signs of Hope Counseling Center continues to grow. We’ve added 25 weekly counseling hours, allowing us to serve more survivors of sexual violence than ever before. We are now able to offer counseling appointments 5 days a week, for people of all ages, in three languages (English, Spanish, and Farsi). We’re also able to provide support groups for adults, teens, parents of survivors, and survivors of trafficking, as well as specialized therapeutic services like weekly yoga and art therapy for survivors. You can learn…