A new, dedicated statewide sexual assault helpline officially went live on Monday.
The New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs launched the helpline to provide a place for individuals who have experienced sexual assault to talk. According to the coalition, 76.1 percent of individuals living in New Mexico affected by sexual assault are not receiving help.
Rachel Cox, deputy director of NMCSAP, said the first thing a caller will hear from the person on the other line is that they are there to listen.
Cox said that the loss of power and control over a survivor’s own body is the critical part of the trauma and that the path to healing is about providing choice in how they heal.
“When you call the helpline, you can even choose what music you listen to,” she said.
Alexandria Taylor, executive director of NMCSAP, told NM Political Report that there is a need for a stand-alone, statewide sexual assault helpline because so much of what underlies other problems, such as mental health concerns or substance abuse disorders, is that the individuals have a sexual assault trauma history but when they call other helplines, the caller doesn’t lead with the sexual assault story.
Cox estimates that 1.1 million individuals in New Mexico have experienced sexual assault. She acknowledged that, in a state of about 2 million, that is a shockingly high number but she said it feels shocking if one defines sexual assault as a “violent rape in an alleyway.” Cox said sexual assault can be anything a person experiences that they “said no to but it happened anyway.”
“Most have had an experience they’re uncomfortable with but had to tolerate. They didn’t want it to have happen,” Cox said when she defined sexual assault.
Taylor said having a 24/7 helpline dedicated for callers to talk anonymously about sexual assault is important because “for someone to get to the point to say they were sexually harmed, it is one of the most soul-wrenching, hardest things someone choses to share with another person.”
In a state with a significant shortage of behavioral health providers, Cox called the new helpline a “mental health release valve.” She said 70 to 80 percent of clients who visit community health centers have a history of sexual assault. She said that if the root cause of a person’s mental health issue is not addressed due to case worker overload, the person could still be spinning in anxiety, have relationship problems, work problems and it can have an intergenerational impact.
Cox said a study that looked at people utilizing the emergency room services chronically in Taos found that all of those patients had a history of sexual assault.
“It’s an issue behind so many of our overburdened systems,” Cox said.
Rural New Mexico
Despite a decrease in federal Victims of Crime Act funding, due to a decrease in fines and fees collected from white collar crimes, state funding has increased over the last few years, Taylor said. That has both helped to fill the gap left by the loss of VOCA funding and enabled the coalition to expand services so that, instead of 13 sexual assault providers, there are now 16 across the state.
Taylor said the new ones added are in Grants, Alamogordo and Carlsbad. She said the coalition is working with a provider in Española who is adding a sexual assault program to their existing structure, which will increase the number of sexual assault providers to 17 when complete. She said there were 10 sexual assault nurse examiners, who are specially trained to both provide clinical support to rape victims but also to collect evidence and testify in court when necessary. Now there are 13 with another about to start soon, Taylor said.
Related: Sexual assault nurse examiner shortage impacts victims and families
Cox said it’s “important for us to build a state-wide infrastructure to have access for anyone.” She said that in urban communities, a sexual assault survivor might seek help through a private practice provider but in many rural communities, a sexual assault provider is often the only helping service agency available.
“And we understand that isolation is a tool to perpetuate sexual violence against folks,” Cox said.
She said that 30 percent of the population lives in rural parts of the state but rural individuals make up 41 percent of the state’s sexual assault provider’s clients. Cox said the reason for that disproportionality could be because of the dearth of private practice providers in rural areas, which means the network of sexual assault providers, along with now the new helpline, are all rural individuals have to rely on for support.
Taylor said the state legislature allocated $500,000 in nonrecurring funding for the creation of the helpline over the past two years. She said U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-New Mexico, has allocated $1.6 million of congressionally directed spending to go to the coalition to also support the helpline but that money has yet to be approved by the U.S. Congress.
Taylor said the coalition will be asking for $1 million in recurring funding from the state in 2025 for the on-going operation of the helpline.
Taylor said that even with 16 sexual assault providers across the state, “that doesn’t reflect every New Mexico community.”
“If you don’t see a service provider in your community, you don’t know where to call,” Taylor said.
With the creation of the helpline, callers who can’t find any services in their communities will now have a place to call. Individuals can also chat or text if they prefer that method of communication. Callers can be connected to services if they want it through the helpline through either a three-way call or given the phone number if the caller wants to make those phone calls later. Or, they can just talk.
Cox said that if someone just wants to say the word, “sexual assault” and hang up, the caller is the one in control of the call and the level of support they receive.
Who will take the calls?
Cox said the individuals who will be receiving the calls receive 120 hours of training. She said all of the responders on the helpline have a professional background of working with people impacted by trauma. She said that the responders will also receive ongoing supervision in their role and are trained to understand that the isolation and dehumanization that individuals feel because of sexual assault is “best met with connection and dignity.” Cox said that everyone receiving calls on the helpline were either born in New Mexico or have lived in the state for decades and are “deeply connected to what works in New Mexico.”
The rates of sexual assault among Native women are particularly high across the nation. With 23 federally recognized tribes and pueblos in New Mexico, the helpline’s language access is, currently, a work in progress and the helpline will rely on interpretation services to help bridge language barriers.
“We offer humility,” Taylor said, acknowledging that the helpline is still an evolving process and that is an area where it may struggle to meet the need.
She said the coalition will strive for more universal language access. She said the coalition also wants the helpline to be accountable and if anyone who calls in feels they were harmed, even if unintentionally, the coalition wants to hear about it. She said, should that happen, a caller should reach out to the NMCSAP’s office directly.
Taylor said one way the helpline was designed to build trust for individuals who might feel distrust, is that no one on the helpline will ask self-identifying questions of the callers.
Cox said in tribal communities, sexual assault survivors often have to make decisions about sharing information within their communities that is not confidential or safe or they have to reach out to more mainstream systems of care that might lack cultural competency. Cox said that the coalition hopes the helpline will provide a way for Indigenous individuals a place to go who feel “stuck in the gaps in the system.”
Domestic Violence Awareness Month
Taylor pointed out that October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
She said domestic violence and sexual assault are two issues that have been “siloed” but the majority of people who experience sexual violence report that the perpetrator is a current or former intimate partner or an acquaintance. Taylor said that sexual violence that occurs in a relationship is “extremely dangerous.”
“It’s one of the indicators of the lethality of the situation,” she said.
Taylor said that it’s harder to quantify the rates of sexual assault during the early period of the COVID-19 pandemic, but rates of domestic violence increased.
“I can almost guarantee that sexual violence increased in those homes as well. It’s connected but we have a hard time acknowledging sexual violence exists in intimate partner relationships because of societal norms, culture and religions,” she said.
The idea for the helpline was born out of the first few weeks in the pandemic, Taylor said, when, for several weeks, everything except essential services shut down.
“We knew people were experiencing isolation and fear and whether they were recently harmed or have a previous history, those factors bring all that up for people,” she said.
*The New Mexico Sexual Assault Helpline is accessible 24/7 by phone, text, and online chat. Survivors can call or text 1-844-667-2457 or access the Helpline and online chat functions at nmsahelp.org.
Update: The deputy director of NMCSAP is Rachel Cox, not Rebecca. We regret the error.