The Division of Student Life fosters student success by creating and promoting inclusive, educationally purposeful services and activities within and beyond the classroom. The departmental program review process empowers departments within the Division of Student Life to critically evaluate their work and its effect on the UI student experience through a lens of continuous improvement. As a unit of the Division of Student Life, the Rape Victim Advocacy Program (RVAP) engaged in a program review process in spring 2022. RVAP completed a comprehensive self-study and hosted three external reviewers and one internal reviewer for a multi-day visit. The external reviewers were Tana Fedewa, Sue Prochazka, Rosa Beltre, and Erin Stresow. This action plan is intended to be a living document based on the current campus environment. Action items and outcomes may change.

Table of contents

Recommendations


Policies, Procedures, & Services Provided

Recommendation: Create more equitable and sustainable plans for consistent support groups across all 8 counties. 

Year 1 Plan

  • Establish a Group Planning Committee led by an Assistant Director who is responsible for Direct Services. Determine the group’s charge, methods for advertising the groups, plans for offering accessible groups in all service areas. A clearly defined decision-making process and financial resources to support the program will need to be crafted.            
  • Plan groups that adhere to Standard #7: “Group meetings with a planned beginning and ending date and an outcome-based, structured agenda with a primary focus on sexual abuse/assault issues.”              
  • Leadership shall develop and share criteria for prioritizing and approving group proposals.

Success Measures and Updates

  • For every support group in Johnson County, there should be a match in a rural county or offer an online/hybrid version.

Recommendation: Assess and improve advocacy response throughout the service area.

Year 1 Plan

  • Leadership shall develop a sustainable plan for resuming the 24-hour crisis line and crisis intervention response services. This plan should include a timeline and should address how 24-hour response will be staffed in all service areas. 
  • Assistant Directors who supervise the advocacy teams shall be responsible for reviewing documentation and response times on a regular basis. Ongoing collaboration with the Iowa Victim Service Call Center is essential. The leadership team should review call documentation for the past year to assess for themes.

Success Measures and Updates

  • Sustainable plan for resuming 24-hour crisis line complete.
  • Expanded volunteer program. 

Recommendation: Evaluate existing prevention programming and work to improve and expand current prevention offerings.  

Year 1 Plan

  • Develop a Prevention and Community Outreach committee comprised of an assistant director, two prevention specialists, prevention volunteers, and interns. This team shall review current prevention programming and research options for updating the curriculum.

Success Measures and Updates

  • Evaluation of prevention programming complete.
  • Improvement to prevention programming implemented.

Recommendation: Establish a clearly defined internship program at RVAP that includes job descriptions, roles and expectations, and required training based on areas assigned.

Year 1 Plan

  • Begin conversations with University Counseling Service to explore options for placing interns in rural communities.
  • Create an overview of schools/programs that have provided interns/practicum students in the last five years.

Success Measures and Updates

  • Well-structured, clearly defined internship program.
  • Interns are regularly hired for the following areas: therapy, K-12 health, sex education, school guidance counselors, and support groups.

Recommendation: Develop a plan for establishing Sexual Assault Response Teams in all counties in RVAP’s service area, and build capacity for medical advocacy response in rural areas.

Year 1 Plan

  • Have 5 of the 7 rural SART protocols created, with all 7 counties having SARTs meeting at least once a quarter.

Success Measures and Updates

  • All 7 counties have OVW-approved protocol and regular SART meetings

Recommendation: Create a data dashboard to assist in quarterly and annual reports to reflect service statistics broken down by a multitude of factors and use this information to inform funding requests.

Year 1 Plan

  • Begin gathering data in conjunction with the assessment plan.

Success Measures and Updates

  • Dashboard complete.
  • Up-to-date client information for all service regions.

Recommendation: Develop a service map for each county in the service area as to what, how, and who provides services, and clearly define core services that must be offered and provided to all survivors in all service areas. 

Year 1 Plan

  • Once roles have been designated, create specialized county maps.
  • Allow for JC advocates and leadership to assist in rural counties

Success Measures and Updates

  • Service maps developed.

Community Engagement and Relationships

Recommendation: Research client feedback/engagement strategies and perform critical self-analysis pertaining to the risks/harms of burdening clients with the responsibility of providing feedback with the goal of learning equitably about client experiences (1) accessing services, (2) engaging in services, and (3) their suggestions for improving services and service access.

Year 1 Plan

  • Create a committee to lead these efforts, attending to the diverse needs of the communities we serve.

Success Measures and Updates

  • 100% data entry practices and implementation of new client experience feedback.

Recommendation: Engage in a process mapping exercise to reveal the survivor experience of calling the hotline and trying to access resources.

Year 1 Plan

  • Establish a process to map client experiences. 

Success Measures and Updates

  • Process mapping exercise complete.

Recommendation: Develop a comprehensive database including relationships with community partners.

Year 1 Plan

  • Engage Sexual Assault Response Teams in all eight counties to establish an initial collaboration list.
  • Establish county-specific lists within Airtable and provide log-in information to SART members.

Success Measures and Updates

  • Have established SARTs in these communities to build trust, rapport, and equitable relationships throughout the service area.

Recommendation: Create a consistent feedback tool throughout RVAP to increase transparency, and review feedback on a regular basis to reach out to those clients and/or partners that have provided feedback.

Success Measures and Updates

  • Feedback tool created/implemented.
  • Staff is able to clearly show community partners and clients where to provide feedback on a regular basis.

Recommendation: Improve consistent branding, program content, and advertising to educate all counties about RVAP services and programs. 

Year 1 Plan

  • Provide training to staff and volunteers regarding branding and marketing
  • Engage staff, volunteers, and community in reviewing current mission/vision/values.
  • Integrate updated mission, vision, and values into marketing and outreach materials.

Success Measures and Updates

  • Be well known in the rural communities.

Recommendation: Clearly communicate RVAP’s scope of services with community partners with marketing materials on social media and on the website.

Year 1 Plan

  • Begin gathering data around services provided in conjunction with the assessment plan.

Success Measures and Updates

  • Dashboard complete.
  • Up-to-date client information for all service regions.

Recommendation: Explore the agency name/acronym and consider renaming/rebranding

Year 1 Plan

  • Engage CommUnity and other social service agencies to learn what their process of renaming/rebranding was

Success Measures and Updates

  • Discussions with stakeholders complete.
  • Potential rebrand complete.

Culture, Staff, and Volunteer Support

Recommendation: Update Employee Handbook for organization structure, roles and responsibilities, supervisory paths, conflict resolution, staff resources through UI, professional development, data entry, onboarding, and other policies.

Year 1 Plan

  • Create a team within RVAP staff responsible for updating the employee handbook.

Success Measures and Updates

  • Have an updated employee handbook by the end of year two. Have a team who will be responsible to review and update each year the employee handbook.

Recommendation: Build relationships, trust, and a sense of belonging among all staff.

Year 1 Plan

  • Create a team to organize the staff retreat, birthday, anniversary, and acknowledgment celebrations. Term of membership of the team is a year, ensuring that all staff have an opportunity to lead this work (60%).

Success Measures and Updates

  • Have an all-staff retreat centering in healing.
  • Team building trainings are conducted each year.

Recommendation: Yearly employee training in leadership, supervision, decision-making process, budget, funding restrictions/ opportunities, UI/community resources, operations, and overall position expectations.

Success Measures and Updates

  • Yearly employee training implemented.

Recommendation: Implement staff focus groups to determine growth and continued areas of need for work place culture.

Success Measures and Updates

  • Focus groups with staff.