Girl Connection

The Girl Connection, a publication provided as a service of the Iowa Gender Specific Services Task Force, offers these tips to professionals to help victims of abuse.

• Be sincere. Do not respond emotionally or with shock, no matter what you are told. (Develop mechanisms for processing upsetting information with peers or outside professionals.)
• Believe the girl if she tells you someone has hurt her.
• Do not blame the girls for the abuse they have suffered. Perpetrators are responsible for abuse, whether or not the girls made bad choices before, during, or after.
• Empower girls by telling them they are not alone and many victims have overcome the abuse they suffered and are survivors.
• Inform girls early on of your mandatory child abuse reporting obligations and give them information and referrals for hotlines or agencies where they can speak confidently or anonymously.
• Thank girls for trusting you when they tell you what happened to them. Do not betray that trust by telling others who do not need to know, or whose knowledge may endanger them. If you must make a mandatory child abuse report, inform the girl of what will take place and help her make a "safety plan" if necessary.

Other ideas from The Girl Connection

• Hang posters about dating violence and sexual abuse in your office.
• Find ways of making abuse visible, such as a "ribbon tree" where girls can tie different colored ribbons representing the different types of abuse experienced in their lives and the lives of their friends and family.
• Keep a library of brochures, books, and articles to hand out.
• Organize art projects to give girls a non-verbal way of expressing feelings, especially anger, about abuse.
  Hold events for Sexual Assault Awareness Month (April) and Domestic Violence Awareness Month (October).