Statewide SART Advisory Committee to Release Recommendations

The statewide Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) Advisory Committee will release recommendations to improve the response to sexual assault survivors in Florida in February 2010.  The Advisory Committee has asked partner agencies the Florida Sheriffs Association, Florida Police Chiefs Association, Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association and Florida Hospital Association to issue letters to their members highlighting the most significant recommendations.  Among these is the recommendation that their constituencies establish and participate in SARTs in their communities.  The associations are also encouraged to advise their members to work with their SARTs in developing multidisciplinary protocols to respond to both reporting and non-reporting victims if they have not already.

The SART Advisory Committee developed recommendations in five different areas: improving sexual assault forensic exam kit paperwork; supporting local SARTs, serving non-reporting victims; enhancing law enforcement, prosecutor and medical personnel training; and addressing ambiguities in victim consent for medical treatment and the forensic exam.

One subcommittee made up of representatives from FDLE, nurses, an independent crime lab scientist, and a rape crisis center program director developed a comprehensive set of paperwork and instructions for sexual assault forensic exam kits.  The members hope the enhanced paperwork will result in forensic exams being conducted more thoroughly and consistently, especially in facilities where they are not performed by specially trained nurses or physicians.  The committee will work on making the documents available to hospitals, medical personnel and crime labs to use in their forensic exam kits.

Another of the SART Advisory Committee’s recommendations is to establish a 120 hour post assault policy for performing forensic exams for both reporting and non-reporting victims.  Several Florida communities use the old standard of 72 hours post assault, but with the advances in DNA analysis, forensic scientists can find biological evidence on a victim’s body collected 120 hours after a sexual assault. Currently, there is no statewide recommended timeframe for conducting the forensic exam, with the intent being to allow communities to set their own policies.  The SART Advisory Committee hopes that by specifically naming the 120 hour timeframe as a best practice, communities will extend the amount of time after an assault they will provide victims with a forensic exam.

Advisory Committee members also researched the present state of SART development in Florida to examine how best to support local coordinated response to rape victims.  They found that 45 Florida counties participate in a SART that meets at least quarterly to, among other activities, “promote consistency and coordination by and between community agencies” and “provide a comprehensive set of recommended practice responses to sexual violence.” Still, one third of Florida’s counties lack an interagency sexual assault-specific committee.  The SART Advisory Committee strategized ways to connect these counties with communities that have strong SARTs to help them establish teams.  The Advisory Committee produced a SART directory and charged FCASV to distribute its SART Toolkit, circulate SART-related resources and provide communities with regional training and networking opportunities.