April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Part 8
Friday, April 10th, 2015 -- 11:23 AM
-April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month.I spoke with Melissa Geldernick, the Sexual Assault Advocate for the Personal Development Center.
Melissa explained the PDC's role in child sexual assault cases.
She said, "From my experience its mostly been teenagers. Which that gets to be a difficult piece when we're going to court because they are older and they should probably be a part of it and that can be really hard because they are still kids. But, the justice system thinks that because they're in high school, most of them, that they're capable of being there. It gets to be a really tricky piece. But we work with kids that go through that."
"As advocates we are protected under Wisconsin law with confidentiality and non disclosure laws. So, if anyone were to call me and ask if I'm working with someone, unless I have a signed release, I can't confirm or deny that I'm working with them at all. So, that's really nice because we get that extra comfort. Even if the judge called me, I can't give him anything. Because we need to protect those peoples stories and their rights."
"With child abuse, we are mandatory reporters in that aspect with child abuse or threats to self harm or harm to others. In a case of child abuse, if nothing has been reported we have to make a report to Social Services. And we haven't had any issues working with them on that. So, that's a nice connection that we have at least."
Coming up on Monday, Melissa offers advice to those that may have experienced an assault or abuse.
Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.