University Advancement

Public Relations and Strategic Communications

MEDIA RELEASE

CSUN’s Valley Trauma Center Serves the Valley’s Children

(NORTHRIDGE, Calif., Nov. 19, 2007) — While Rita Baer was studying at California State University, Northridge to become a marriage and family therapist, she volunteered to answer the sexual assault hotlines dedicated to the San Fernando Valley and the Santa Clarita Valley that the Valley Trauma Center operates 24/7, including holidays.

In the middle of the night, during daylight hours or whenever she got that phone call, she also accompanied women and children—victims in the eyes of the law and survivors in her eyes—to medical exams, police interviews, even criminal court, and she arranged counseling.

"One out of four women is sexually assaulted before the age of 25. I know people who have been sexually assaulted. I have been personally involved. I believe by being there for a survivor, you are giving them something that is priceless at a time when they are overwhelmed. You try to help them make it through the examination and the interview with the least amount of trauma," Baer said. "We provide support, information, and referrals, and many people choose to come to us for subsequent psychotherapy."

No one is turned away.

Baer began as a volunteer in 2002. And, like many volunteers, she has stayed.

Today, she is executive director of the nonprofit Valley Trauma Center, which is affiliated with CSUN. The center is headquartered in a cramped warren of small offices and tiny counseling rooms in Northridge, and also operates out of two sites in Van Nuys and another in Valencia.

Serving sexual assault survivors, abused children, children at risk and their families, the center annually helps approximately 2,500 clients through the hotlines—(818) 886-0453 in the San Fernando Valley and (661) 253-0258 in the Santa Clarita Valley—and programs that include counseling for children, adolescents, adults, couples, mothers and daughters and groups; parent education; child abuse prevention, intervention and treatment services; family preservation and adoption promotion for foster children with support for their new parents. A new pilot program works with young men in high school. "My Strength (is not for hurting)" teaches them to be nonviolent, respectful and caring.

Another 10,000 individuals attend presentations that discourage domestic violence, date rape and bullying, and are held at schools and colleges, including Northridge. Many people also participate in special events that teach parents how to keep their children safe from sexual predators inside and outside of the home. During "The Men’s March: Walk a Mile in Her Shoes," supportive men wear ladies’ high heels as they parade near the Sherman Oaks Galleria to raise awareness about violence against women.

To provide these services, Baer and her small paid staff who, like her, are largely CSUN graduates, must depend on volunteers and unpaid student therapists. The center trains students, most of whom are pursuing master’s degrees in marriage and family therapy or social work at Cal State Northridge.

Currently, 55 graduate students work as unpaid interns putting in 15 hours a week, much of it supervised counseling. The 100 rape crisis advocates come from the university, including some undergraduates who volunteer because they are interested in service careers, and from the community. The advocates work a six-hour shift every week, alternating between answering the hotlines and doing accompaniments. All must undergo 60 hours of state-certified training.

"We never have enough students. We never have enough volunteers. We never have enough money," Baer said, describing $2.3 million in funding from the county and state, plus about $73,000 in donations. The university also supports the center, a chartered agency within the Michael D. Eisner College of Education under the auspices of the Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling.

"We actually train a small group of undergraduate students who then go out and speak in classrooms on rape, sexual assault, date rape and relationship violence," said educational psychology and counseling professor Charles Hanson, a licensed clinical psychologist. He got the university involved in what started out as a rape crisis center in Northridge in 1985. Since then, and as it has expanded, he has provided training, supervision of student therapists and oversight of the center.

Most of the center’s clients are children. For example, more than 60% of the calls to the sexual assault hotlines concern youngsters under 18, and half of those calls, which tend to come from the police, are about children younger than 12.

"We don’t receive any funding to support counseling services for children who have been sexually abused," Hanson said, yet no child is turned away.

Money to pay for that counseling is high on his wish list, which also includes the services of a psychiatrist, legal assistance, more therapists and counselors and more volunteers including some who speak Spanish.

Hanson’s former student, Baer, concurred, adding the Valley Trauma Center could also use a larger building, a van to transport clients who don’t have cars, someone to update the web site (www.csun.edu/vtc), funding to double the number of training periods from four to eight a year and the capacity of those sessions from 40 to 80 students and volunteers as well as an endowment to protect services and space if government funds are reduced.

She placed hope for a better future plans the generosity of other, including CSUN’s students. "We’re changing the next generation," Baer said.