Bringing awareness to sexual abuse

For too long, survivors of sexual abuse and sexual assault have carried the shame of the crimes perpetrated against them. The Kingsbridge Heights Community Center (KHCC) is empowering survivors to speak out and take action.

In tandem with Sexual Assault Awareness Month, KHCC hosted their annual career fair last week with a mixer, followed by a Q & A with a panel of professionals working jobs that overlap with the sexual assault sector.

Speakers included Emily Miles, executive director of NYC Alliance Against Sexual Assault; Kathleen Collins Baer, director of the NYPD’s Special Victims Division, individuals in the medical field and employees from the center’s Changing Futures program – the only program in the Bronx to offer completely free, long-term treatment services for survivors of domestic violence, campus sexual assault and child sexual abuse.

“This is a career night, but it’s also a way to raise awareness around sexual assault and prevention and violence interruption and restorative justice concepts,” Raye Barbieritold The Press, the center’s CEO.

Two teenage moderators led the Q & A and the first question they asked speakers was, “What is the biggest misconception about your job?”

“As a prosecutor, one of the things we really have to dispel with a jury is that a lot of people think, ‘If that happened to me, I would tell right away,’” Collins Baer said. “But a lot of victims that come and report crimes to us, they’re coming in years later.”

Several studies revealed that most individuals delay reporting sexual assault because the abuser is familiar to them. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 80 to 90 percent of sexual assault crimes are perpetrated by friends, family members or intimate partners.

Then, when survivors get the gumption to speak up, they tend to be met with disbelief. Hence, the “Me Too” movement started in 2006 and popularized with the hashtag across social media in 2017.

“They essentially called me a liar,” said a survivor who has been attending the Changing Futures program at KHCC for almost four years and came out about her abuse when she was 12 years old. “I can understand not being believed in the sexual assault, sexual harassment sense, but also in the mental health aspect.”

Attending therapy helps her understand she’s not alone in her struggles and gives her the motivation to help others. The 18-year-old now works at KHCC as a youth mental health advocate with tweens.

“My biggest hope is that they feel a little bit happier coming to the center and having another person to talk to who can match their vibe,” she said.

The teenager is bubbly with a sweet disposition and a passion for art. She loves working with oil pastels and charcoal and has her sights on art school this year.

The Changing Futures program sees about 300 children and families each year with 60 percent of participants being between 3 and 12 years old using trauma-based cognitive behavioral therapy.

This approach helps survivors develop coping skills to deal with distress and anxiety associated with post-traumatic stress disorder and assists in recognizing triggers and how to manage them.

But unravelling the trauma can sometimes prove to be too intense for survivors and about 40 percent end up dropping out of the program, according to Yadirys Batista, one of the therapists at the center who is also a social worker and crisis coordinator.

The center also sees many women 40 to 70 years old who have experienced sexual assault in the process of migrating into the country. An especially vulnerable group who may fear law enforcement and resultingly, fail to report the crimes against them for fear of deportation, according to a 2023 sexual violence bench guide by Washington state courts.

The program travels to college campuses and community events to educate individuals on how to identify abuse and give them resources on how to seek help if they need it. It also partners with St. Barnabas Hospital near Little Italy.

“We do hospital based response and escorting to help victims who have been assaulted,” added Barbieri.

Last year, the center became the only state-certified rape crisis center in the Bronx.

In addition to this crucial resource, the community center has provided afterschool programming, a food pantry on Tuesdays and Thursdays, English classes and several other resources to the Kingsbridge community for the past 50 years.

KHCC offers a hotline for anyone seeking assistance in dealing with sexual violence at (718) 884-0700, ext. 193, available 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. For after hours, call (718) 884-0700, ext. 100.

At the career fair, the panel also included Diane Strom, assistant director of department of pediatrics and grants and community management for BronxCare Health System.

“All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing,” she told the room. “You see something, say something.”