Thanks to a $2 million grant from The W.W. Caruth Jr. Foundation and the Communities Foundation of Texas, the city of Dallas will soon have a sexual assault treatment program.
Until now, Dallas had been the largest city in the U.S. without a sexual assault nurse examiner program and an independent rape crisis center.
The gift creates Dallas County's first Sexual Assault Forensic Exam (SAFE) suites as well as the first Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) program. The program will be housed in a 2,900-square foot space in the emergency room of Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas.
The W.W. Caruth, Jr. Center for SAFE Healing, will be specially designed to allow comprehensive treatment to sexual assault victims in a quiet, private environment. Sexual assault victims who arrive at Texas Health Dallas will be immediately ushered to the Caruth Center without having to wait in the main ER lobby.
Nurses working in the Caruth Center will be trained to collect forensic evidence to be used in court. Texas Health Dallas will also become a training center for nurses from across North Texas - and throughout the state - to earn their SANE certification.
Finally, the gift will also be used to support programming needs of the Dallas Area Rape Crisis Center (DARCC - pronounced as Darcy), ensuring that DARCC can continue to provide free, unlimited crisis and long-term counseling to anyone affected by sexual abuse.
Additionally, DARCC advocates meet victims at the hospital, provide court room accompaniment and are available to accompany the victim through the process of reporting the assualt and the prosecution of their attacker.
