Naval District Washington hosted the first Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) Unit Victim Advocate (UVA) Training Summit at the General Jacob E. Smart Conference Center on Joint Base Andrews, April 21.

The one-day training summit provided a forum for NDW UVAs, Civilian Victim Advocates (CVAs), and Sexual Assault Response Coordinators (SARCS) to learn about emerging trends and topics within the sexual violence field.

April is National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month and this year's Department of Defense's theme is "Protecting Our People Protects Our Mission: The Difference Starts With You. Step Up and Step In to Stop Sexual Assault." This theme places emphasis on the critical role that everyone plays in preventing sexual assault.

"We held the SAPR UVA training summit this month since April is National Sexual Assault Awareness Month," said Neeley Hughey, NDW Regional Sexual Assault Response coordinator. "The summit proved to be an appropriate venue to gather our SAPR UVAs and SARCs in a constructive environment to learn from subject matter experts about current and emerging trends, innovative prevention strategies; and also have an open discussion about sexual assault and how we can all work to prevent this crime from occurring."

The goals of the SAPR program are to promote sensitive, coordinated, and effective management of sexual assault cases, to reduce the incidence of sexual assault through awareness and prevention education, and to standardize reporting of sexual assaults.

During the training summit, five guest speakers presented different topics that included Lesbian Gay Bi-Sexual Transgender survivors of sexual assault, the sexual assault medical forensic exam, understanding men who have been sexually assaulted, gendered fictions: the challenge to fostering culture change, and coping with the trauma of sexual assault.

"Our goal is to institutionalize a culture of prevention through education, training, response capability, victim support, and reporting procedures, while emphasizing accountability that enhances the safety and well-being of all," said Lt. Cmdr. William Corley, NDW Regional Sexual Assault Prevention and Response officer.

Additionally, the training summit furthered the professional development for the victim advocates and enabled them with to provided culturally aware, gender sensitive, victim centered services to the diverse population of NDW victims of sexual assaults.

The training summit also counted towards the fulfillment of the UVAs requirement for bi-annual training to maintain certification.

For more information on SAPR events and activities, please contact the NDW SAPRO at (202) 433-0031.

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For more news from Naval District Washington, visit www.navy.mil/.