Victims Outreach Intervention Center urges state funding for rape centers
Tracy Veri, executive director of the Victim’s Outreach Intervention Center, said 90% of the clients the agency, also known as VOICe, serves are children and youth — a demographic that may need specialized counselors and therapists.
However, state funding for rape crisis centers has been stagnant at $11.9 million per year since 2020, which Veri said has hurt the agency’s chances of hiring an additional counselor to add to its three currently on staff. Working with the current amount VOICe receives from the state, Veri said clients may be referred to outside counselors for therapy services, which is not ideal for the victims of sexual assault and domestic violence.
“The very, very large majority of our counseling survivors are children of sexual assault,” Veri said. “We have parents and children come stay at our emergency crisis shelter, they live in our housing programs with our parents. If there’s a family situation, protection from abuse orders, any service we offer, it can apply to kids as well.”
VOICe and Pennsylvania Coalition to Advance Respect, which allocates state funding to rape crisis centers, are advocating for an increase in the line item funding the centers.
Veri said flatlined funding is basically a decrease, although as a comprehensive center, the agency also gets money funneled from the state through the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence. She said an $8 million increase in Pennsylvania Department of Human Services funding would allow VOICe, and the other 47 rape crisis centers across the state, to hire staff to be able to take on as many clients as possible in-house.
“That would be the first thing on our wish list, is to hire a therapist to work with survivors,” Veri said. “We don’t have the money to do that, so we have to refer that service out; and sometimes these folks are waiting weeks or months to see a therapist, which is not ideal when they are survivors of trauma.”
VOICe is a comprehensive shelter, because it provides resources for victims of rape and domestic violence, as well as assault victims. Some centers in the state only operate as rape crisis centers and some only operate as domestic violence shelters, according to Veri and Gabrielle Romeo, public policy director for Pennsylvania Coalition to Advance Respect.
The agency that oversees domestic violence centers in the state, the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence, did get a budget bump last year, Veri said.
Comprehensive centers have to use funding from its two state sources in distinct ways, Romeo said, so even though VOICe has two state sources, an increase to the rape crisis center side would be a boon to the agency.
“Domestic and sexual are linked but distinct. They can coexist, but can exist without the other one happening,” Romeo said. “Sexual harassment can happen in the workplace, but that’s not domestic violence. The line items get confused pretty frequently, but they are different and that funding can go to different places.”
VOICe is in the midst of moving its offices into a new location: an old school building in Butler on Eau Clair Street. By Tuesday, May 13, the children and youth services area in the building was ready for occupancy and was already stocked with some comfort items, like toys and pillows, to help accommodate child clients.
Bernadette Link, director of counseling for VOICe, said working with children is all about meeting them at their level, no matter their age or their situation. The materials at VOICe and its children’s space are designed to make children feel comfortable and safe, so they can open up at their own pace.
“Our counseling is empowerment-based,” Link said. “Play is how a child learns and expresses themselves, and we have activities here talking about safe boundaries and safe touch.”
Romeo also explained that some clients approach rape crisis centers for service long after they first become victims. The more staff members sexual assault agencies have, the more clients they will be able to serve.
“A person could be assaulted when they were a kid, and you have college rape and violence,” Romeo said. “People learn about our services, they might not even know they exist. We also provide services for loved ones and friends of survivors.”
The agency is also trying to spread awareness of its own services, because it has historically gotten clients mainly through referrals.
“We get a lot of referrals from community partners, the hospital calls and connects us with folks, the police contact us,” Veri said. “We’ve really been trying to get out in the community and share resources and eligibility.”
Charles Johns, executive director of Butler County Children & Youth Services, said the county agency refers people and youths to VOICe for situations involving domestic violence. Johns said VOICe is one part of a web of services in Butler County focused on helping children who are victimized by abuse or sexual assault, and Children & Youth Services works in tandem to provide those services.
“Over the years, I have worked with several of their advocates and I think we understand each other’s roles very well,” Johns said. “They provide a needed service to this community, and maybe it’s not known how much they do.”
The staff of about 25 people at VOICe all receive some funding from the Pennsylvania Coalition to Advance Respect side of the agency’s budget, as well as its Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence funding. All the employees are cross-trained, Veri said, which makes the funding gap that much harder for people to grasp.
“I don’t think people realize there are separate coalitions and they do different things,” Veri said. “I feel there is a blurred line there, and the coalition is trying to make it more clear.”
Pennsylvania Coalition to Advance Respect is the leadership for all rape crisis centers in Pennsylvania, and it provides standards and protocols to centers and their employees. Romeo said that in addition to its advocacy in the state legislature, the agency also focuses on prevention of sexual assault.
According to Romeo, Pennsylvania Coalition to Advance Respect allocates a certain amount of its budget toward prevention education initiatives and the programs that came out of these initiatives reached more than 100,000 people in the state last fiscal year.
“Our ultimate goal is to prevent sexual violence from happening. The best way to do that is to educate, let students know what a healthy relationship is,” Romeo said. “Last fiscal year, July 1 to June 30, our crisis centers reached 168,000 students.”
Veri also said VOICe raises awareness of what sexual assault is and what types of victims the agency is able to help.
“Any inappropriate touching at all is sexual assault. You see a very wide range of different types of assaulting behaviors,” Veri said. “We see every type of sexual assault, sadly, that you can imagine between our children and adults.
“We’re not just a women’s shelter, we accept men and children in our shelter, in our counseling services, legal services.”
Romeo said the Department of Human Services finally getting an increase to Pennsylvania Coalition to Advance Respect would ensure that rape crisis centers can keep their staff members and add more services to better suit the needs of their communities.
“The $8 million is just a rounding error for the state, but it would have a huge impact on our service,” Romeo said. “Our most requested service is therapy and counseling. Making sure our centers can have the funding for qualified therapists, and they receive competitive pay, and meet the demand for that service.”
