On Jan. 23 at the Abbotsford campus, an informational session on the forensic nursing side of sexual violence was held. UFV hosted two certified sexual assault nurse examiners – adult/adolescent (SANE-A) registered nurses, Susan Short and Kirstin Simpson.
A SANE-A is a specialized nurse that gives full body examinations to patients and collects samples of any evidence of abuse or assault for court cases. Part of the job is also going to court and presenting any evidence they found. Short and Simpson gave a presentation about the process of their job, starting from the moment a victim comes in for an examination.
The first step when a victim comes in is for the SANE-A nurse to do a head-to-toe health examination. (Depending on the case, this may include genitals, but rarely does.) The victim is allowed to stop the examination at any point in time or ask to not be touched in specific areas. If a child comes in with a parent, the process changes slightly for each individual situation. Sometimes the parent will wait outside or stay for the whole process depending on what both the child and parent want.
After an examination has taken place the SANE-A nurse will explain all the options they can offer to the victim. The main options offered are a report to the police, storage of the collected samples (can be used as evidence in a trial), or if the victim wishes to not pursue any legal action, information on counselling will be offered. The victim is welcome to say no to any or all of the services. If a victim chooses to report the incident to the police and start a court case, then the SANE-A nurse will keep the evidence samples and data to present in a formal trial.
A SANE-A nurse works with all sorts of victims including, but not limited to, females (most often age 17-40), children (over two years old), elderly, and occasionally men. According to B.C. 2016 statistics there were 470 incidents of elder abuse, 1,399 incidents of child abuse, 2,384 adult sexual assaults, and 741 child sexual assaults reported to the police. The statistics did not include all unreported incidents, as there is no data on unreported ones.
Elderly or disabled victims are less likely to report abuse incidents because most of the time the assailant is also a care provider. Reporting their care provider often puts them in a situation where they will lose something crucial to their life, meaning loss of transportation or reporting the one person they spend time with.
The SANE-A nurses also work with strangulation victims. According to 2016 Canada police reports there were 1,921 reports of child abuse, with 1,822 reports including strangulation specifically, of which 71 incidents resulted in the death of the child. For adults there were 13,278 reports with 72 resulting in death. The reason children have a higher death ratio in these situations is due to how children are more fragile because their bodies are still developing and haven’t had the time to strengthen to that of an adult. Children’s assailants also tend to generally be larger and stronger adults.
The information session ended at 1 p.m. and attendees were invited to take the pamphlets for the forensic nurse program and the business cards of the forensic nursing services coordinator, Susan Short, as well as the contact card for “In this together UFV” services. Future sexualized violence lunch and learn events will be taking place on both the Abbotsford and Chilliwack campuses of UFV. The next event is on Monday, Feb. 5 at 12 p.m. in B101 on the Abbotsford campus and will feature a theme of intimacy direction for stage and screen from presenter Phay Moores.
Emmaline is working on her BA and ambitions to become an English teacher. They always say, those who cannot do, teach. She spends her free time buying, reading, and hoarding books with the hope that one day she will have no furniture and instead only have piles of books.
