Jacksonville State University has received a federal grant to establish a crisis hotline aimed at supporting sexual assault survivors in Calhoun, Cleburne, and Talladega counties. These areas, described as “sexual assault service deserts,” lost their response services in August 2023, leaving survivors without essential support.<\/p>\n
Tina Deshotels, the project director, emphasized the importance of the initiative, stating, “Without these resources then they are left to navigate complex systems without any help or support and what we do is different from what the police do and what the hospitals do even what counselors may do.”<\/p>\n
The program will offer trauma-informed, free, and confidential services, including a 24\/7 crisis hotline, counseling, advocacy, transportation, language access, and assistance with crime victim compensation. The university is collaborating with the JSU Foundation and local community organizations to provide coordinated care.<\/p>\n
Donna English, advocacy program coordinator, explained the hotline process: “The victim can call that number, and they will get an answering service and that answer service will be forwarded directly to me so whoever is on call because we do have some trained advocates now and we got others hopping on board completing the training modules. I will send that advocate out whoever is on call If they are not available I’m available 24\/7.”<\/p>\n
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Survivors can access immediate and confidential support by calling (888) 986-1262. The hotline is now operational and staffed around the clock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacksonville State University has received a federal grant to establish a crisis hotline aimed at supporting sexual assault…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-136326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}