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Safe & SANE

• Sexual assault victims in Southwest Georgia are treated with dignity and respect at Albany’s Lily Pad.

Carlton Fletcher

ALBANY — Karen Kemp shares some grim statistics: “One in four females will be sexually abused by the time they’re 18,” she says. “And while we usually equate sexual abuse with females, one in six males will be abused by the time they’re 18.”

While the horror of those words sinks in, Kemp offers an even more sobering comment.

“What we’re seeing, though, is only the tip of the iceberg,” she says. “I’d say there are three to four times as many rapes occur as there are reported. National statistics show that only three in 10 sexual assaults are reported to law enforcement officials.”

As executive director of the Lily Pad SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner) Center at 300 W. Third Ave. in Albany, Kemp knows these statistics all too well. The center is ground zero of a nonprofit organization that provides 24-hour services for sexual assault victims in Albany and Southwest Georgia.

Certified personnel at the Lily Pad serve the immediate primary needs of abuse victims through crisis intervention, safe and compassionate forensic medical evaluation and evidence collection. The center also collaborates with local, state and national organizations to provide a safe haven for victims and their families in the immediate aftermath of an assault.

“You use phrases like ‘incapacitated,’ ‘devastated’ and ‘ruined lives’ when dealing with criminal activity,” Assistant Dougherty County District Attorney Chris Cohilas, who is on the Lily Pad’s board of directors, said. “In sexual assault cases, those words are accurate. Some people, especially those who do not receive counseling, never put their lives back together.

“This crime is crippling. That’s why the Lily Pad is not ‘good for Albany,’ it is necessary. Sexual assault is a problem every community faces, so Albany is very fortunate to have a facility to help deal with it.”

Five SANE Nurses, along with Clinical Director Rinne Tetrault, who was instrumental in bringing the dream of the Lily Pad to life, are the heart and soul of the Lily Pad’s primary needs care. They conduct examinations and gather evidence that may be used in sexual assault trials.

Often, their victims are young children.

“Protecting the dignity of victims is of primary importance,” Terault, who has conducted examinations on more than 400 assault victims, said. “But one of the things (SANE Nurses) must guard against is keeping away from the secondary effects of what we do. Personally, if a child is involved I get particularly angry. As a mother of four, I can’t imagine how any person could do such things to a child.

“But I channel my anger into helping the victims and into providing information if there is a court case. I have to be careful not to bring this home to my family.”

SANE Nurses Candace Bell, Kathy Cooper, Susan Leggette, Rachel Eubanks and Suzanne Moree are part of the team that is on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week in the event of a sexual assault case.

“Having nurses available (to conduct examinations) at that facility means so much, particularly when a young child is involved,” Jamie Hurst, who is a victim advocate at Marine Corps Logistics Base-Albany and a Lily Pad board member, said. “When Rinne explained how (sexual assault) victims were required to go to that cold, sterile environment of a hospital emergency room for examinations and brought up the possibility of a freestanding facility that provided a much less hostile environment, I jumped on board.

“The Lily Pad is absolutely essential. We have to have a place like this, especially with the number of child abuse cases.”

Tetrault had worked as an emergency center nurse when she first heard of the SANE Nursing program. Fascinated by forensics through reading, she asked to attend training in the specialty. In 2002 the director of the local SANE program, which was being conducted through the District Attorney’s office, told Tetrault she was ready to relinquish those duties.

“While going through training in Gwinnett County, I saw a facility that had everything (involved in assault examinations) under one roof,” Tetrault said. “I’m not being critical of our program as it existed then, but I saw it could be better.

“It really hit home for me when I was accompanying a victim of sexual assault to the hospital emergency room. This person was told she had to have sex with the person who was abusing her for him to stop hitting her. When we walked through the waiting room at the hospital, she tried to cover her face. She told me later she’d seen a lot of people she knew.”

Tetrault used her considerable charm and determination in campaigning, and in July of 2007, the Lily Pad was born. The first exam there took place July 26 of that year.

“I think moving the SANE program was important for the dignity of the victims, but it also opened up the possibility of attaining a number of grants that were not available,” Dougherty District Attorney Ken Hodges said. “I’ve certainly been encouraged by the success of that program.

“They’re able to do things for victims that we simply could not do, and by utilizing grant money, they’re able to do more in the areas of education and outreach.”

With the recent addition of Licensed Clinical Social Worker Stephanie Davidson to the Lily Pad staff, the facility now provides victims with more counseling opportunities after an assault.

“We assess the needs of victims, make outside referrals, provide counseling here and help establish support groups,” she said. “For 18 to 24 months after the assault, we do everything we can to help ease the victim and his or her family’s re-entry back into their lives.

“And there is never a charge to the victim for our services.”

The Lily Pad Center includes an examination room with a shower — “That’s our pride and joy,” Tetrault says. — an interview room, complete with video camera and a sound system that allows law enforcement officials to listen in on a forensic interview, an observation room for law enforcement, a kitchen, offices and a lounge for family members.

“We were thinking about a name for the center, and the last thing I wanted the victim to hear was ‘We’re going to the rape crisis center’ or the ‘sexual assault center’,” Tetrault said. “If you have a young child who is a victim, you want something as non-threatening as possible.

“Kids know that when frogs are in trouble, they hop up on a lily pad. We wanted this to be a safe place — a lily pad — for young victims.”

Kemp, who said the center has been able to expand its services through local, state and national grant funds, noted that a facility like the Lily Pad is crucial for a number of reasons. But one that is perhaps most crucial is its efforts to stop the cycle of abuse.

“We have records that go seven to eight years back,” she said, “and we’re starting to see cases of children who were victims themselves who are perpetrating the abuse cycle. Through counseling, we hope to be able to break that cycle in some of these victims’ lives.”

To do that, Kemp says, the community must engage in meaningful dialogue about sexual assault.

“If someone goes to the Albany Mall and is mugged in the parking lot,” she said, “the first thing they’ll do afterward is call law enforcement. Then they’ll call everybody they know and tell them about it. With sexual assault, it’s difficult for many victims to even call law enforcement to report the crime. Talking about (the attack) is just too hard.

“We’ve got to generate a climate of acceptance; we’ve got to let victims know it’s OK to talk about what happened to them. Of primary importance ... we have to protect our children.”

(Persons interested in finding out more about the Lily Pad SANE Center may call (229) 435-0074. Prescheduled visits to the facility and donations of needed items or funding are welcome.)

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