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2012 Sexual Violence Training Summit
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Turning the Tide: Partnering to End Sexual Violence. The 2012 conference theme is all about partnerships. We are looking to strengthen rape crisis center staff and allied professionals’ networking systems by providing this unique training opportunity. In all, we will be providing 24 workshop sessions, 3 keynote presentations, a 3 part clinical track series, a film series and special group meetings and networking events over a three day period. All this will be taking place in the beautiful setting of the Hyatt Regency Sarasota in Sarasota, Florida May 9-11, 2012.
Similar in format to the 2010 summit, the 2012 sessions will consist of 90 minute interactive workshops and presentations on a variety of issues related to sexual violence. This year, we are providing additional focus on special populations including persons with disabilities, LGBTQ survivors, human trafficking survivors and male populations. Additionally, we have added some film screening workshops that will include a facilitated discussion afterward.
The clinical track will focus on assisting survivors with disabilities and will be presented by Nancy Fitzsimons, Ph.D., MSW, Minnesota State University whose research focuses on developmental disabilities and social welfare policy. She will provide three successive workshops focusing on communication skills and strategies for working with individuals with cognitive disabilities.
Keynote addresses will be made by Roger Canaff, J.D. , Rev. Becca Stevens and Santa Molina, LICSW.
A widely known child protection and anti-violence against women advocate, legal expert, author and public speaker, Canaff’s keynote will address how offenders in non-stranger sexual assault situations identify and then entrap victims in common scenarios. He will examine barriers to investigation and prosecution such as delayed reporting, intoxication on the part of victims and self-doubt on the part of victims. Canaff’s keynote will offer inspirational but also practical strategies that individual communities can employ to raise awareness of and eventually reduce incidents of sexual violence, particularly in 'non-stranger' situations.
Rev. Stevens, Episcopal priest, author and founder of Magdalene, a residential community for women who have survived lives of prostitution and drug abuse, will share her views on how rape crisis centers can reach higher to assist survivors. “Love is my grounding,” she says. “It provides the axioms, those basic truths that inform the system and govern what I do. First is that love is the most powerful source for social change in the world. Second is that love heals. I’m not called to change the world. I am called to love it.”
Santa Molina has been employed as the Director of Counseling and Advocacy at the DC Rape Crisis Center since 2007. Her presentation is intended to further the awareness and sensitivity of those who work with trauma survivors, particularly of sexual violence. Understanding the neurobiology of trauma will help participants recognize how trauma affects the brain and the body and the importance of somatic therapies.
A reception, awards luncheon and Women of Color Caucus and White Allies Caucus meetings as well as a book club meeting in which a the group will be discussing Lucky by Alice Sebold will round out networking opportunities for interested participants. 
Film Series
Boys and Men Healing—Presented in person by Simon Weinberg, the distributor at Big Voice Pictures
Boys and Men Healing is a documentary about the impact the sexual abuse of boys has on both the individual and society, and the importance of healing and speaking out for male survivors to end the devastating effects. The film portrays stories of three courageous non-offending men whose arduous healing helped them reclaim their lives—while giving them a powerful voice to speak out, and take bold action toward prevention for other boys. The film includes a support group of men and is testimony to the importance of men finding safe places to share their stories together.
The Invisible War—Official screening event of this Sundance Film Festival Audience Award winning film.
A groundbreaking investigative documentary, The Invisible War is about one of our country's most shameful and best kept secrets: the epidemic of rape within our US military. Today, a female soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire with the number of assaults in the last decade alone in the hundreds of thousands. The Invisible War features hard-hitting interviews with high-ranking military officials and members of Congress that reveal the perfect storm conditions that exist for rape in the military, its history of cover-up, and what can be done to bring about much needed change.
After surviving a childhood of abuse and neglect, Tonier “Neen” Cain lived on the streets for two nightmarish decades, where she endured unrelenting violence, hunger and despair while racking up 66 criminal convictions related to her addiction. Incarcerated and pregnant in 2004, treatment for her lifetime of trauma offered her a way out... and up. Her story illustrates the consequences that untreated trauma has on individuals and society at-large, including mental health problems, addiction, homelessness and incarceration. Today, she is a prominent speaker and educator on the devastation of trauma and the hope of recovery.
A young woman is raped when a one-night stand far from home goes terribly wrong. In the aftermath, as she struggles to make sense of what happened, she decides to make a film about the relationship between her own experience and the tangle of political, legal, and cultural questions that surround issues of sex and consent. Using a hidden camera, filmmaker Nancy Schwartzman goes head-to-head with the man who assaulted her, recording their conversation in an attempt to move through the trauma of her experience. The Line is geared toward college students, structured to build their comfort around discussing sex, consent, legal rights, and the politics surrounding gender violence while examining issues too often deemed embarrassing, shameful, or taboo.