STAR: Funding the Wall Against Assault
Alaska is filled with beauty – vast acres of pristine wilderness, abundant wildlife, and vibrant Native cultures. Yet that beauty can’t hide the sobering fact that Alaska consistently has some of the highest rates of sexual assault in the country. The most recent data places Alaska first in the nation, with 154.8 rapes per 100,000 residents; for comparison, New Jersey, which ranked last, had only 14.4 per 100,000.
Since 1978, Standing Together Against Rape (STAR) has been responding to the needs of sexual assault survivors and working to reduce sexual violence across the state. Staff and trained volunteers provide free, confidential crisis response and intervention in the form of a 24-hour crisis line, advocacy, safety planning, individual and group support, emergency assistance, and trauma counseling.
In addition to direct support services, STAR works to reduce those staggeringly high rates through its prevention and education program. Presentations to Anchorage students offer age-appropriate lessons focused on sexual assault, consent, and personal body safety, explains Suki Miller, STAR’s director of programs. They also provide training and resources to educators and other child-focused community groups that explain their duties as mandated reporters and teach them how to support a child who has disclosed sexual assault or abuse.
Funding the Future
Funds from the Anchorage alcohol tax program enabled STAR to complete much-needed updates to its school-based curricula and materials, as well as modify some of its direct services to align with COVID mitigation efforts.
“It has allowed us to be innovative in how we reach our clients, both in terms of direct services and primary prevention with kids,” Miller says of the alcohol tax funds. “We’re constantly evaluating our services to make sure we are meeting our clients’ needs, and this new stream of funding has allowed us to go back to the drawing board to see where we might have gaps in services and better address those.”
And the money couldn’t have come at a better time.
“We were looking at 30% cuts [in federal funding] – that’s like cutting an entire program – so the timing of the alcohol tax could not have been better,” Miller says. “It really was this pressure relief valve that we would have the necessary resources to continue to provide services to our clients and not have to turn anyone away.”
STAR was in the process of updating its “No-Go-Tell” personal body safety video before it received the alcohol tax funds, Miller says. Geared toward kindergarten through 6th-grade students, the five-minute video teaches children the difference between three different types of touch – safe and healthy, ouch, and secret touches. It also empowers them to say “no” to any type of touch and encourages them to tell a trusted adult if somebody touches them inappropriately, she adds.
“It has allowed us to be innovative in how we reach our clients, both in terms of direct services and primary prevention with kids.”
“The tax money got [the video] through the finish line and helped us be able to do it in a way that we can share it with the public much more easily,” Miller says. STAR plans to share the video on social media and post it on its website, which will give parents the opportunity to watch it and get a better understanding of what their children are learning. They’ll also provide teachers with a copy so they can rewatch it with their students.
STAR also updated their junior high and high school materials to make them more relatable to teens. Their video presentation is a condensed version of their sexual assault and consent presentation and gives students and teachers a chance to go back and review the information.
“We’ve kind of been in this process to try and create materials that are relevant to Alaskans,” Miller says. “The video is very Alaskan now, made with local voices, geography, and is culturally relevant.”
Alcohol tax funds also enabled STAR to purchase new material to leave behind in the classroom. In addition to items like frisbees and pencils emblazoned with STAR’s logo and crisis line number, “this year with the alcohol tax funding we added ‘No-Go-Tell’ stickers that line up with both the school presentations and the posts from the video, so it’s consistent,” Miller says. At the request of teachers, STAR also created 5x5 magnets “that go over how to respond [to a child who discloses], reporting requirements, and tips on how to talk to kids,” she adds.
Though the “swag” may seem like a small thing, Miller says it’s not unusual to hear from someone years later who said they reached out because of that seemingly random pencil or frisbee. Recently, a mom shared that her son came home from school after a STAR presentation feeling “super empowered” with personal body safety information and a number to call if he ever needed help.
“We always have those kinds of stories that we hear from people out in the community, so we always try to order extra for kids because we know that it works,” she says.
COVID nixed STAR’s ability to offer in-house therapy, so they used alcohol tax funds to contract with two community therapists, something that would not have otherwise been possible.
Miller says the alcohol tax funds had more than just a direct impact on STAR’s ability to provide services to survivors and community education – they acted as a morale boost as well.
“The community supporting our mission and our efforts to help respond to and prevent sexual assault have been a great shot in the arm,” Miller says. “For our community to recognize and want their tax dollars to go to preventing and responding to sexual assault has just helped our agency really know that this is something that our community is committed to.”
To learn more about STAR visit https://www.staralaska.com.