A trip to the emergency room is daunting for anyone, but experts say it can be an especially traumatic and sometimes humiliating experience for domestic violence and sexual abuse survivors.
Just across from Columbia’s campus on 114th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, students and local volunteers at the Crime Victim Treatment Center (CVTC) are preparing to address this pressing concern.
The CVTC, a victim-assistance program affiliated with St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital, is designed to provide a network of on-call volunteers to offer immediate, free support and advocacy services for sexual abuse and domestic violence survivors who enter the emergency room, along with other support services for victims after they have been discharged from the hospital.
According to program directors, the center, which was established in 1976, is the largest victim assistance program with the most comprehensive and diverse free services in New York City.
Center director and founder Susan Xenarios said that the idea for volunteer support for St. Luke’s crime victims was born in response to a Columbia tragedy. After a series of rapes in Morningside Heights in the 1970s, Xenarios said that in 1976, one student was raped on campus in broad daylight—and bystanders did nothing to stop it.
Because there were no hospital procedures to support rape victims at the time, the traumatized young woman was admitted to the clinic’s psychiatric ward and was not screened for post-traumatic stress disorder, Xenarios said, adding that when the victim was discharged, she did not return to school.
In addition to the immediate need to address the neighborhood violence, Xenarios said that she was motivated by the hypocrisy of silent bystanders on a campus supposedly known for having a vocal student body.
Xenarios and her colleagues mobilized a group of volunteers to serve as emergency room rape crisis advocates at the hospital. “It came from the bottom up, from tragedy,” Xenarios said. “It was built off volunteers’ backs.”
Decades later, the center has expanded its scope, though the core volunteering mission to provide direct volunteer support remains intact, she said. Volunteers are on call for one or two 14-hour shifts a month and are paged if a sexual abuse or domestic violence case is reported at either St. Luke’s Morningside hospital or the midtown location.
Volunteers help survivors fill out reports, take photos of wounds, inform the victims of the center’s resources, and ensure that doctors properly perform the Sexual Assault Forensic Examiner exam. Most importantly, Xenarios explained, they offer a pair of open ears for the hospital patients.
Michael White, the organization’s outgoing volunteer coordinator, said that the center and the immediate support at the hospital also offer free individual and group counseling with social workers at the 114th Street office, helping survivors navigate shelter placement and the criminal justice system. This center is “more of a living room than a clinical psychologist practice,” White explained.
But it is at the hospital where some of the greatest challenges arise—for victims, families, and the volunteers themselves.
“The ER is a scary place,” said Christopher Bromson, a current volunteer advocate and incoming coordinator. “It’s overwhelming and easy to get lost in the system. Survivors need a voice, especially after experiencing domestic violence or an assault,” he said.
Bromson added, “When there is no advocate, there is no one to tell them that what happened is not their fault ... Many survivors blame themselves on one level or another for what happened.”
Ariela Heilman, GS ’78 and a local mother and volunteer advocate for 21 years, said she sees her role as “putting on a human face in a very crazy, chaotic time in someone’s life.”
Bronson said that the hardest part is seeing that some victims are attached to the abusers and may ultimately return to them. “My first instinct is to tell them to leave the abuser. Learn that it’s more complicated than that, ultimately the survivor knows the abuser the best,” he said.
Despite these challenges, some volunteers said that the work is often inspirational.
“Survivors are a lot stronger than I would have thought. I realize how brave people can be when facing adversity,” said Karen Huynh, CC ’11 and a center volunteer for the past year, adding, “I have come to understand the resilience of someone’s soul.”
Huynh said that the resources of the center could also be particularly useful for struggling students on the other side of Amsterdam, adding, “If you don’t want to talk to someone at your school, you can go to St. Luke’s and have an advocate come to you.”
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