Rachel Freeman On Supporting Sexual Assault Victims
Rachel Freeman is the President and CEO of Nashville’s Sexual Assault Center (SAC). She leads the SAC in creating a safe, compassionate environment for survivors to begin their healing journey. In this episode, Freeman discusses the SAC's role in the community, key sexual assault statistics, and preventive initiatives like the Safe Bar program and campus outreach efforts.
About Rachel Freeman
Rachel Freeman has served as the President and CEO of the Sexual Assault Center (SAC) since January 2018, following a year of succession training with former leader Tim Tohill. Rachel joined SAC in 2002 and has been pivotal in its expansion and evolution.
Founded in 1978 by Vanderbilt divinity students, SAC’s mission is to provide healing for survivors of sexual assault and to end sexual violence through counseling, education, and advocacy. Under Rachel's leadership, SAC has doubled its staff and budget, and introduced the Tohill SAFE Clinic in 2018, offering 24/7 medical-legal exams.
Rachel's leadership ensures SAC remains a vital resource for individuals and communities across Tennessee.
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Spencer 00:06
Rachel Freeman, President and CEO of sexual assault Center. Welcome to signature required.
Rachel Freeman 00:13
Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.
Spencer 00:15
This clearly is a heavy topic and can be a heavy topic. We've got some things today, though, that I think are going to make part of this story redemptive, a story that I think you uniquely bring to the table. So I'm really excited. I know it's probably jarring for some to be like, Wow, I just tuned in eight seconds into the podcast. But let me read about your bio, because I think it will already start to show the types of work that you're doing. You started at the sexual assault center in 2001 and became president and CEO of the organization in 2018 the essay sees mission is to provide support to survivors of assault and to work to end sexual violence. You have overseen the organization as it doubled in both staff size and budget since opening in the 1970s SAC has provided therapy to more than 30,000 children and adults and education to more than half a million individuals. As unbelievable,
Rachel Freeman 01:13
It is unbelievable. I wish. I wish we didn't have to do that. I wish we weren't needed. I feel like I say this almost every day. This is a it's an incredible organization that gets to do incredible things and help people when some the worst thing has happened to them, but we get to be a part of that hope and that healing. If we could figure out how to put ourselves out of business because we aren't needed anymore, that would be, that would be amazing.
Spencer 01:44
I think that message is exactly what I want people to take that are listening to this. I'm going to read five things that we kind of know a little bit about you and about the organization, and this is how we start off. Every podcast is. I'm going to read these five, and then you can start off with one of the five that you think are kind of most expressive about the organization or yourself to help the audience learn about what you do every day. Okay, ready for that? Yes, okay, that's fun. So number one, one in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually assaulted before their 18th birthday. Number two, 70% of assaults in Davidson County are reported versus 30% of them being reported nationally. So in other words, Davidson County is almost two and a half times more reporting. Number three, more than 50 establishments in Nashville have used the safe bar program established by sac number four. Prior to 2018 there was only one hospital in the city of Nashville providing medically legal rape kits and number five. More than half of the SAC funding comes through federal programs.
Rachel Freeman 03:03
Oh, I want to talk about all of them. It's hard to choose. I think I'm going to start with the second one, and it will bleed a little bit into the fourth one, if that's okay, if I remembered them correctly.
Spencer 03:12
Let's do it right. So the second one was, 70% of assaults in Davidson County are reported, versus 30% nationally.
Rachel Freeman 03:18
Yes, this is one of the things that we are extremely proud of, and it took us a long time to get to this place. Sexual assault is one of the most under reported crimes, one of the most under reported violent crimes. People will often attempt to disclose multiple times. They often have to wait until it feels safe enough, until they feel that they have the support they need around them. There's so much shame and so much stigma still in our society today connected to sexual assault, it's gotten better. In my 20 something years at the agency, it's it's gotten a lot better. I remember when I first started working at the center, it was very difficult to tell somebody where I worked, because I wasn't sure if it would be triggering to say I work at the sexual assault center, or if it just caused somebody to want to close their ears and turn around and walk away,
Spencer 04:08
Given those stats, like, I mean, one in four people that you talk to, it could be very triggering, exactly one in six boys.
Rachel Freeman 04:14
And even if it's not triggering, it's jarring. And it's not normal everyday dinner table conversation, but it has gotten a lot more natural to talk about it, and that's the hope. If we can take some of the shame and stigma and taboo out of this conversation and make it a more comfortable conversation, just like we talk to our children and families and friends and loved ones about other safety concerns, then the potential perpetrators are going to have less control and less power. So the reason we've been able to see such an increase in the number of reported assaults here is because we are working in partnership with law enforcement and the district attorney's office and medical professionals, and it it was a long road to get to a true collaborator. Of coordinated community response in Davidson County, but we opened the safe clinic in 2018 and the safe clinic is a sexual assault forensic exam clinic, and it's a non hospital setting where somebody can get a rape exam. And once we started actively partnering with law enforcement and the District Attorney's Office and the sexual assault nurse examiners to collectively provide support to victims and survivors. We started seeing people report the abuse, more report their rape or sexual assault more readily because they saw that there were multiple people in multiple professions who wanted to help and support them, and it's been tremendous to see that national numbers are about 35% of people report, and the people that we serve at the safe clinic, of the people we serve at the safe clinic, 70% of them report to law enforcement. And that's we're proud of that, and we want it to keep growing up. Because if that's one of the ways that we're going to stop this, we have to stop the people who do the bad thing.
Carly 05:59
How do you help whoever might be a victim? Know that your clinic exists. It's not a traditional marketing campaign that is going to work for you. So how when they're going through and processing all of the emotion of what happened in the immediate aftermath? Because you only have a short window to get a kit made. Tell me about that.
Rachel Freeman 06:23
Yeah, it's tricky. It's one of the most difficult things that we do, and we have to regularly balance, how much do you market these services, which it's not normal marketing, because we want to make sure people know we exist, but if we get the word out too much, are we going to be able to respond appropriately? Because the demand tends to pick up whenever we do big marketing pushes. But we don't need to be the best kept secret in town either. And if we can change the conversation and not just be a place that is available to people who have experienced this, but also a place to that provides resources and information for people who just want to be able to have more conversations about this to prevent it, then we are going to naturally spread awareness. We do it through events. We do it through education and the school system. It doesn't just have to be a reactive situation. It can be more proactive. So one of the things we do is partner with a variety of other agencies throughout the city to make sure if they encounter somebody who's been sexually abused that they know where to refer them to. We also just make sure that we have a website that is easily accessible. So if someone is visiting our city, or somebody is downtown on Broadway, and something unfortunate happens, something terrible happens, they can Google what to do if I've been raped or sexually assaulted in Nashville, and our safe clinic would pop up first. So that's that's how we see most of the people come through, and then that's just one program of the whole sexual assault center. We also provide our core service has always been providing therapy. So it could be somebody who just experienced a sexual assault who's coming through the safe clinic to get the exam that has to be done in that small window of seven days, or it could be somebody that has experienced this decades ago or years ago, and has been holding on to it and is now ready to talk about it, or it could be a child who just experienced it, or a parent, caregiver, or loved one of somebody who has experienced a sexual assault. So we provide that long term care, long term therapy, support and advocacy to people, regardless of when it happened,
Spencer 08:40
I think that's an incredibly important statistic to look at, the one in four girls and one in six boys. Really an overlooked part, right for boys as well, will be assaulted before their 18th birthday. But what also jumps out to me too is that there are a number in both categories that are assaulted after their 18th birthday, and so if you we don't have that data here, but if you combine that together, and you really look at the population in America, it means meaningfully, more than one in four girls and one in six boys will experience that trauma at some point in their lives, which just, I think, speaks more to the mission that you all speak to an audience that is literally all around the interactions that we have every day, right?
Rachel Freeman 09:35
It's, it's heartbreaking when you really look at the data and know just how prevalent this crime is sometimes we talk about it as a silent epidemic, because you can't see it. You can't see that somebody has experienced this. There's no There's no mark that somebody wears, and that's a good thing. You can't tell that this has happened, but it is so very prevalent the the national numbers of. Across the lifetime, it's one in six women will experience rape or attempted rape at some point in their lifetime, and somewhere between, and this is a big range, but somewhere between one in 17 and one in 33 men will experience sexual assault, and that's too many. That's too many, and it is a preventable crime. There's just a lot more work that we have to do to stop it. But I think the harsh reality is that everybody is impacted by sexual violence somehow, whether individually, whether somebody within our family or friends circle or we hear about it on the media every single day, in some fashion, it's it's it is there. It is a problem in our society, and the more we can talk about it, the more we will support those who have already experienced it, and hopefully prevent those future occurrences from happening too.
Spencer 10:51
Rachel, at the start, you kind of were going to start with number two, and then have it go into number four. And when I was preparing this, I just was really surprised to read this, so I need help understanding what's going on. It says, prior to 2018 there was only one hospital in the city of Nashville providing medically legal, legal rape kits. So how is that possible? I mean, what? What is, what's the what's the issue?
Rachel Freeman 11:18
Oh, gosh. So long story, I'm going to try and summarize it. I have three children. My oldest is 14, and I was pregnant with my first child when we first started having conversations about we need to improve what we're doing for rape survivors in Davidson County. So that's I can vividly remember starting sitting around a table with law enforcement, D A'S office and hospitals and community members, talking about, what can we do different? What can we do better? And it took a very long time to get to the place in 2018 where we have more options. I can't tell I wish I could tell you exactly why it was the way it was. But what I see now looking back is that it took relationship building with all the different partners and players who victim of sexual assault might encounter to determine how can we best work together to make sure that the person who's experienced the crime gets what they need. Sometimes there are barriers to treatment. But your things are difficult to access. And if you don't know, to your point earlier, Carly about marketing, if you don't know where to go, then you're not going to get the help you need. So not only was there only one place in Davidson County where you could go, but you had to know to go there. And depending on where you live in Nashville, you might pass five other hospitals on your way to Nashville general, and you could show up at your nearest hospital and say, I've just experienced a sexual assault, I'd like to get a rape exam. And seven, eight years ago, they would tell you, I'm sorry, we can't, we can't provide that here, but we can help you get where you need to go. And that's, that's what was happening with rape survivors. So as a city, we were doing about 160 exams a year. And to put that into perspective, that's how many exams Chattanooga was doing at the same time.
Carly 13:09
So sorry, go ahead. I'm listening to these stats. You said only 160 rape kits were produced annually on average.
Rachel Freeman 13:19
Yes, prior to 2018 Yes. So Nashville was we were not addressing the problem of sexual violence as we needed to be several years ago. So we went and looked at other cities comparable in size to Nashville to see what are some other models, what might we be able to bring back to Nashville, and again, we did this in partnership with the Office of Family Safety, with law enforcement, with the district attorney's office, with our kids that provides exams for children, and really work together to determine what is the best solution here. And what we landed on was a non hospital setting that is exclusively dedicated to working with sexual assault survivors. Most sexual assault survivors do not need the care of an emergency room. I think about 90% do not need the care of an emergency emergency room. Now, if there are additional injuries, if there's strangulation, if there's something else, a non hospital clinic cannot typically meet those needs. So that is when it's better to go to the hospital. But when we added the safe clinic onto the sexual assault Center's campus, and worked in partnership with the players that I just mentioned, we doubled the number of exams provided in Davidson County within the first year. So we provided 200 exams at the clinic, and the hospital was still doing over 100 and this year there were 100 at just under 200 exams provided at the safe clinic, and then another, I believe, close to 250 provided at national General Hospital in Vanderbilt. So now you can go to various locations and get an exam, and that's been the ultimate goal. That when somebody needs these services, they can walk in and get what they need.
Carly 15:05
And just for somebody who's listening here, who is with a loved one that has gone through assault, or, heaven forbid, is about to experience one, and doesn't know something that I would want to know is okay. You said you have a seven day window. What is the value of having a rape kit? Let's say they're so traumatized, the idea of letting anyone touch them for that first seven days is unheard of. Why would you encourage them to go
Rachel Freeman 15:35
For several reasons, and that's such a good question, it is. It is difficult to decide in that moment, or within the first few days of experiencing something so traumatic that you're going to go and have an invasive procedure done. But the reason we encourage it is one, to make sure everything's okay medically, to make sure physically, medically, you're okay. Two, it's to prevent any potential STDs or anything else that might have happened as a result of the assault. And three, we know that offenders offend multiple times. Very rarely does an offender only offend once. And the we want to gently encourage people, when they're ready, at their time, on their pace, to come forward for a variety of reasons, to take care of themselves, but to also help prevent it from happening again. And that's a big burden to put on somebody who's just experienced a crime. So that's not something that anybody should feel pressured or shamed, because sometimes you just can't, you can't seek the care in that time frame because you're too traumatized or you're too scared, or the offender has threatened to do it to somebody else or threatened you for your life. And every victim survivor has to do what they feel most comfortable to survive. That's that's the most important thing. And then once they feel comfortable with that, if they can seek this additional treatment and help, then it will decrease the long term negative impacts, and that's what we're really trying to promote.
Spencer 17:11
You know, across the 95 counties of Tennessee, it's one thing we've talked a bit about Nashville, but I would imagine this problem is just as pervasive if you're in East Tennessee or West Tennessee, in a place where there's not a Vanderbilt that is just down the road. Is there any recourse in counties that are more rural, or is this a Nashville unique problem? How do you speak to a audience that you know may have to also travel two hours into metro to get
Rachel Freeman 17:44
help, right? It's not always ideal, and we do have many rural counties and communities across our state that don't have the same resources that Nashville does. There are several sexual assault programs across the state that are combined with domestic violence shelters. They don't all have. Actually, there are only a couple sexual assault forensic exam clinics across the state. We are the only one in Middle Tennessee, Rutherford County has the ability to do them as well Memphis, and then East Tennessee, Knoxville, and then Chattanooga. So there are a few different places. We have a 24 hour crisis line that is statewide. And if anybody across the state needs, needs anything related to sexual violence, we can help connect them to the resources in their community. It's more difficult to to figure out how to tackle this problem in a rural community when you might not, like I said, have the resources, and that's one of the things the state is working on. There's a Tennessee Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence, and collectively, we've worked on passing more legislation that that helps tackle this problem from a community based perspective, so that it's not just, Well, this works in Nashville, but what do you do in all the other communities? However, we do have grant funding that can help somebody get to us if they needed us. So if they are an hour and a half outside of Nashville and they need help with gas or lodging because they need to come to the safe clinic, we have emergency client funds for that reason, because there can't be sexual assault forensic exam clinics in every single county at this point there aren't. Maybe one day there will be, but it's also an expertise that requires a sexual assault nurse examiner to perform the exam, and that is a certification that's a lot of additional training, and we have to figure out how to make sure the state has enough sexual assault nurse examiners in all of these different locations so that the exams can be provided in a way that when and if the case goes to court, the evidence has been collected in the most trauma informed way, following best practice standards.
Carly 19:54
So I was going to ask if you had a complicated bond and you did want a clinic in. Every county in the state. Is it just the training of a nurse practitioner that is the barrier to entry, or is it something more? It
Rachel Freeman 20:08
doesn't even have to be a nurse practitioner. It can be a nurse without the advanced degree, but they have to go through the training, the it's called sane training, and they can get they can go through the training, and then they can go on to be certified. The exams do need to be done by sayings to follow best practice standards. However, if they, if there is no sane a medical professor, a doctor, can do them. And there are doctors who who do them fantastically. But it's it's similar to, if you have a heart issue, you're going to go see a cardiologist versus your PCP and and that's why the specialty is important and necessary. So funding, if I had a magic wand, more funding for sexual assault services, so that whatever a victim needs is available wherever they need it. And there is a shortage of Victim Service funding in our state, and that presents a real a real problem.
Spencer 21:13
You know, just hearing this from a practical and political lens, there are some causes where you can understand politically, they're going to be difficult to get behind and push and advocate for, and other things that are pretty cut and dry, right? This one seems to be much more in the camp of like, this is a pretty cut and dry thing that we should have some funding for, and it seems ripe for a politician to get behind and say, This is what at least my county is going to look like, and maybe they have a larger influence. So in the political circles, are you seeing people that view this as something pretty accessible to do and make a difference in their communities.
Rachel Freeman 22:01
We are seeing progress in that area, but there's a lot of room for growth and improvement. About three or four years ago, the sexual assault center started working with a contract lobbyist to deal with some legislative issues, and it's just amazing how how much sexual assault can impact a person's life, and how many things there are from just a one on one. What can we do to a statewide this law needs to be changed or created to better meet the needs of survivors, and we have fortunately been able to pass some really good legislation in these last couple of years, one of them being a rape kit backlog tracking system. And that allows for anybody who comes to get a rape exam, wherever they get it in our state, they are given a number, an identifier, and it's put into a system, and you can go track that number to figure out where in the process your kit is, because sometimes it would take 18 months or longer to test a kit, and you might not hear anything during that period of time. So now there is a tracking system, and you can know where it is at any point. How
Spencer 23:15
could that be 18 months? How could that be?
Rachel Freeman 23:19
Well, it goes back to resources, and it goes back to resources, because you need a certain number of trained scientists who test DNA, DNA kits. It's not just rape kits, but other DNA kits. There's a certain amount of training they have to go through that takes a long time. And then there's a they have to have enough of them. And our state and city didn't have enough of them. Fortunately, doctors, the testers, the scientists, yes, so fortunately, the Governor did put money into the budget last year to to add on more positions to test rape kits. There was an unfortunate, terrible, terrible situation in Memphis not too long ago, we're here, but go ahead and tell for the audience, well, there's a woman who was out jogging and was murdered in the early hours of the morning, and they found out shortly after that occurred that the person who who murdered her was had also been, had also been a rapist, and the rape kit of one of the victims came back shortly after the woman died. So if we had gotten that kit tested faster, there's a chance he wouldn't have been able to hurt anybody else. So there's a lot of reasons why we need more resources. And after that, I think our state started putting more resources into it, and there are some incredible legislators who've been very instrumental in raising this issue to the forefront, to this to within our state. And this past year, we passed a. Bill that increases the statute of limitations for adult survivors to be able to file a civil suit. It used to be that you had one year to file a civil suit. So if you want to file a civil suit after a sexual assault, you typically go the criminal route first, and that typically takes more than a year, and if the rape gets not back, it might take a lot longer. So by the time, if nothing happens with the criminal case, and by the time you're ready to file a civil suit, it could be that the statute of limitations has already expired. So we just passed legislation this year, with the help of some incredible legislators, that extends that time to three to five years. Three years if you report, if you don't report to law enforcement in five years, if you do report to law enforcement. So there have been big strides, and I think there are some incredible politicians who do see this as just a common sense issue. That is, that's not It's not political. But I think when there are limited resources, we're fighting for dollars that that are needed elsewhere too, and it just, it takes a lot of just, it's hard, it's a hard place, it's complicated, and it sounds very depressing, but there's also so much hope in this work. And I know I've mentioned some improvements in progress, but the the amount of hope and healing and resiliency that we get to see on a daily basis is truly inspiring, and I think that's why we're doing so much more, because we see the impact that it can have on people's lives once they get connected with the right resources. And if we aren't out there trying to raise this conversation to the forefront of people's minds, if we aren't out there trying to secure more resources, if we aren't out there trying to prevent it, then we're just responding to people after one of the most devastating things that's happened to them, and that doesn't make sense to me, but when people come into our building, they tell us the first step is usually the hardest, taking that first step to come in, but then you come in and it's an extremely warm and nurturing place, and they want to come back. And I think that says a lot. They come back because they're supported and they're cared for and they're loved, and the building is full of passionate, compassionate people who show up every day to help address trauma issues, and that motivates me. That's why I've been here so long, and because I don't want my children or your children, or anybody else's children, or anybody for that matter, to have to go through this. And if that means we get up every day and we try and figure out how to continue to respond in the best way possible, but to prevent it, then it feels like a good, good day's worth of work.
Spencer 28:01
What about some of the redemptive aspects for what your center is doing? You talk about therapy and that availability, that's whether it's recent or has happened decades ago. Talk about some of the things that you see that for someone listening that says, This is breaking my heart, and I'm not a sane licensed nurse. I don't know how to be able to make a change in the legislature, but I want to do something about this. Maybe it comes from a personal story. Maybe it's from someone that is near to them. So what are you doing redemptively that could speak life into people that hear this and are broken hearted?
Rachel Freeman 28:47
Yeah, what a great question. We are always looking for more people who want to engage with with us, to to feel that they are a positive part of the solution. We have a lot of opportunities in regards to legislative volunteers. We always are looking for people to go with us up to the capitol and speak to legislators across the state. We have great relationships with the people in Nashville, but it's hard when we're a national based organization to connect with people, with politician Polish politicians, excuse me, in other areas of the state, so somebody who is interested in reaching out to their legislator and saying, Have you thought about this? Is this something that you would consider talking more about or or potentially funding people who who are outside of SAC but are willing to join us in that mission is goes a long way, because if I pick up the phone sometimes and say, Hey, this is Rachel CEO of the sexual assault center, it's often better if somebody calls and says, I'm your constituent and I'd like to have this conversation. So that's one way we are always looking for people to get involved with this. We also. Also have a medical accompaniment volunteer program. So if anybody is interested in truly connecting with and giving back to somebody who has just experienced a sexual assault, we provide an incredible training so that you feel very equipped to do this and have all the tools you need to respond. And we also help take care of you in that moment too. Because it can be tough. This is tough work, and we want to make sure that we keep having people coming back and showing up to do this, but we provide an extensive training so that you can sit with somebody, whether it's at our clinic or at the hospital, who's going to get an exam, and you're just a support person. Sometimes you don't have to say much of anything at all. It's just letting somebody know that you're here if they need to talk, if they have questions. Sometimes people bring their own support people, but an advocate is can be life changing for people, and that can be a really powerful, redemptive role for somebody to play if they want to give back in this way, we also have a really fun program called, and I know fun in this context sounds, sounds weird, but safe bar is a new program that we have. And I think you mentioned it a little bit ago, Spencer, and we are always looking for people to help us increase the number of bars that we're able to contact. And what's this program? What is it safe bar? It is a program that provides bystander intervention to bartenders, restaurant staff, people within alcohol serving venues. We know that there's a huge correlation between sexual assault and alcohol, and we don't think the solution is to say, don't drink. But rather, what can we do to make sure people feel as safe as possible when alcohol is involved, and that the people around can recognize signs and symptoms and help somebody who might be in an uncomfortable situation. So the bartenders, for example, go through the bystander adventure training, and then if there's information posted in the restrooms and there are coasters that have drug detecting strips on them. So if you were fearful that your drink had been tampered with, you could drop a drop of your drink on this testing strip that's on a coaster, and it would turn a certain color if it had been had been tampered with. And you can tell the bartender, they'll get help for you right away. Or you can order a certain drink, it's usually an angel shot. It's what it's called, and that when if you go up to the bartender and say, I'd like an angel shot, they know that you're saying, I'm in an uncomfortable situation, and they immediately get you help. Wow, and that has been wildly popular lately. I think it really helps people to have shared language around an issue like this, and to feel that, because it has always been such a taboo conversation in our society, we're now saying, Look, we can do this together, and if everybody I work with has this same language and is on the same page, then we're going to be able to address this in A much more powerful way. And it's just been tremendous. The responses that we've been able to get from this one of the first bars who went through the training. They called us a couple days after the training and said that because of what they had the safe bar training they had gone through, they were able to identify somebody who was not being inappropriate, not being appropriate, and they removed them from their venue, and they said they don't know that they would have done that had they not gone through safe bar. So it's, it's pretty amazing. And we started safe bar because of opening the clinic, the safe clinic, and hearing so many women and men, so many people were coming in and having experiences at alcohol at a bar. They were assaulted at a bar after leaving a bar, and we thought, we can't just hear this information and not do anything with it. So that's how safe bar came about, because it's not appropriate to just call the bar and say, Hey, did you know you have this terrible thing going on because that can interfere with an investigation. So safe bar was our proactive approach to trying to be part of the solution while also providing people the care they need.
Carly 34:13
I'm curious, because Nashville has so many college campuses just Davidson County alone. Do you do any education efforts? I mean, I think back to our time at Vanderbilt and sortie row and just the heartbreaking stories you would hear on, you know, multiple mornings a week of what girls were going through. And at that time, there wasn't a lot of dialog about this type of issue. So are you doing education for these women and young men in these prone areas?
Rachel Freeman 34:45
Yes and no, it's so that is part of our strategic plan, actually, to do more. We have done more in the past, which is why I say yes, and that's there's so much. We could do if we had unlimited resources, and sometimes it is capacity, and sometimes it's what, what's the greatest need right now, knowing that don't have a magic wand and can do all of it, Vanderbilt is a great example. There is a program at Vanderbilt called Project safe, and they do incredible work, working with victims and potential victims, and really getting out front of this conversation and doing prevention work. They do an incredible job. Not all colleges and universities in our communities have a project safe. So we do connect with colleges and universities and help them in any way that we can and try and meet there's not a one size fits all model to this, and that's what we want to be really true to, is that what what might be needed at Belmont or Lipscomb or Tsu is not going to always look the same. And what can we do to meet each of their unique needs while making sure survivors are are getting what they need? So part of our plan, our strategic plan, goals right now at the sexual assault center is to figure out a more comprehensive, long term, sustainable prevention plan, because prevention really can't just be safe bar. It can't just be let's talk to our young children about it, or let's talk to our teenagers right before they leave for college. It needs to be a lifelong conversation, and it needs to be conversations and educational programs in colleges and universities and schools for parents across the lifespan. And that takes time, resources and capacity. And what we're working on now is trying to put together a community wide committee that will help us determine what our city wants first. What can we tackle first? What of this big, big problem can we collectively start doing? That's how the safe clinic came about, because it was collaborative. And I think something similar can happen with increased prevention efforts if we work together.
Spencer 37:08
Seems like a consistent theme of something that you and many other missions need help with, is money, right? I'm consistently hearing it's resources. It is a lot of things that we want to do, and we're trying to figure out how to so just from a pure business perspective, can you talk some about how you're funded to what degree, a next level of hey, if we received half A million dollars of extra support, it would unlock unlimited potential. Or is it like, you know, what? It's not really half a million, it's 50,000 or maybe it's not that saying really Spencer, it's 5 million, you know? So help me understand just the framework, because you could tell me that your annual budget was, you know, a million dollars or 10 million and I'd believe you either way. So help us understand just the dollars and cents of how to help with your center.
Rachel Freeman 38:06
Great question. So our budget is 5 million, and it would just, we just went, it was like 5.1 just under 5.1 and we just exceeded 5 million this year for the first time ever, and we have 50 congratulations.
Spencer 38:22
By the way, that's a huge accomplishment.
Rachel Freeman 38:24
It's, it is. Thank you. We have 55 people on staff, and we serve. This past year, we served over 1000 people through our clinical and advocacy programs, and we provided training to believe it was 3000 individuals. Have the numbers in my purse, and I forgot to memorize them. But I point this out to say that's what we've been able to do. We provided over 7000 therapy sessions this past year. So with 55 people and $5 million that is what we've been able to do. 150 rape exams in the clinic, 250 at the hospitals. We've been able to do a lot with that $5 million however, it costs. It cost a lot to do it. 54% of our budget comes from local, state and federal grants. 40% of it comes from direct public support, which is corporations, foundations, direct individual giving and our events. And then there's about 6% left. That is a small piece of fee for service contracts we might partner with another organization, and they pay us to have a therapist at their site, and we can also accept insurance for therapy that's kind of supplemental if grant funding goes up and down, and that's what makes up that additional 6% and reimbursement for the exams. There's a victims compensation fund that provides. Provides $1,000 for every exam that is provided. So a hospital would get reimbursed up to $1,000 our clinic would get reimbursed up to but it it cost about $1,500 on average, to provide each exam. So that kind of gives you a little bit of information about the we might get 900 to 1000 back for every exam, but we have to raise six, five to $600 for each one, and that's just the exams. That's not the therapy part of what we do, too. So we're constantly fundraising and constantly trying to do the most we can with the resources we have. If we had another $5 million I think we would be doing a lot of what we're doing now, but being able to reach more people, being able to get out more and to make sure people are aware of our services, we do as much of that as we can right now. We have several outreach teams, and we work really hard to make our services more available and accessible to underserved communities, particularly the Hispanic community, Black and African American community, LGBTQIA and the disabled community, because we know that they are disproportionately impacted by sexual violence, and we don't want our services to be inaccessible. And because sexual assault impacts everybody we have, we've got to not just know that we have a great service in our building. We have to get out and make sure people know when to find us, know where we are when they need when they need us. So additional money would help us do more of that. And I think a statewide coordinated effort of community awareness about sexual violence, how to talk about it, that it's that we as citizens of the state aren't going to tolerate it. If we could do a giant community awareness campaign and really work to to go more upstream. That's, that's what I would do with it, a lot more money.
Spencer 42:04
It seems like that would be so powerful. Rachel, like, if you had, you know, it sounds like Governor Lee has supported last year and being able to increase the budget, if you had somebody with a platform that was able to get out and address the state of Tennessee to say, here's a couple things that you need to know about what's happening in our state, and teach about the angel shot and create awareness and exposure. It seems as though, from a marketing side, that it could transform your advocacy. So you started off in the podcast and kind of quickly mentioned marketing is different for us, and I can imagine so. But can you speak just specifically into that of what your marketing budget actually consists of? Because I can't imagine from the business world how I might put myself in your shoes of dealing with something so unbelievably traumatic, and a lot of times too, probably the groups that you're trying to reach, those disproportionately impacted, are not consuming marketing channels in the same way that your average middle of the bell curve Tennessean might be, yeah,
Rachel Freeman 43:22
I hate to admit it, but our marketing budget is pretty non existent, okay? And I think that's true for a lot of nonprofits. However, we do a lot of community outreach, so there is, and that's similar language, maybe, but we don't, we don't. Often have fun set aside to to put an ad in the newspaper or to get on radio stations. We have some incredible partnerships, and they often allow us to do some of those things at no cost or minimal cost. We try and respond as many media requests as we can, because that's a free marketing tool, and usually that comes on the heels of something bad happened, and they want us to respond as the experts, and then we also make sure we talk about our crisis line and our services. So that's how we typically market, which is why it's so different from normal marketing?
Carly 44:22
Well, since you've taken over, you're you've doubled this organization, and by many metrics. I mean, you just said your budget is over 5 million for the first time. So maybe for us, in a traditional business background, we're thinking that comes with marketing and a product. How do you How have you done that so successfully?
Rachel Freeman 44:42
Well, some of it was just timing.
Carly 44:47
We don't be modest. Some of it was also being a girl boss. So thank you. Thank you.
Rachel Freeman 44:52
The Me Too Movement happened around the same time we saw. The growth. And when I look back over my time at SAC, every time we saw a significant growth, there was a big, a big media situation, for example, around 2010 I think it was the Penn State football child sexual abuse case or situation happened. We got so many more phone calls during that period of time, and it increased our call volume and the demand for our services, and it never went back down after that, it remained kind of steady. And then 2014 around that time frame was when there was the Vanderbilt rape case happen, I believe I've got the dates right. And we saw another rise. And then when we built the clinic in 2018 that's when we saw the and that was somewhat close to the ME TOO movement, the resurgence of the metoo movement, and that's where we started seeing a demand that we weren't able to keep up with, and at one point in time, we had 100 people on our therapy waiting list, and that is just terrible. We should. Nobody should have to wait. Nobody should. Nobody deserves to have anything like this happen to them and to have to wait for those services was was pretty heartbreaking. Now we've always had crisis services available. There is no wait for those. Our advocacy services, the safe clinic, no wait for those. But to to meet individually with a therapist week after week, we only have so many therapists, so that's when we started fundraising more. And I think people responded to the there's a demonstrated need, and I think we started talking about this in a way that is less taboo, because we're really trying to prevent it from happening. And I said it earlier, but none of us want this to happen to anybody we love. And if there are things, if you can be a part of something that prevents this bad thing from happening, you're gonna, you're gonna jump in and be a part of it in whatever way you think you can. And that can simply be having a conversation and telling somebody I heard about this center, did you know this existed? And let's make sure we bookmark the phone number or the website, in case anybody we know needs it. Or let's reach out to our college age niece who might not know that this exists in her community. It's a trickle effect, a ripple effect, sorry, ripple effect that the more we talk about this, the more people want to be involved, and the more people who've experienced it come forward, and that's part of how we saw all of this growth and this change. But we have to get out and talk about it, and that has been my passion. My predecessor's vision was the clinic. The CEO before me was here for 25 years, and he worked really long and hard to get the clinic to build the clinic, and he left before the construction finished, and that was the first nine months of my job in this role.
Spencer 48:15
What a time to depart after 25 years.
Rachel Freeman 48:18
I know I told my husband, I never want to renovate a house after going through that, that's not where my skill set is, but we he was able to see this vision and tackled it, and I've been on the receiving end of knowing that it was so needed. I've been on the receiving end meaning I wasn't sure that our community would be able to would people come? Would people need the clinic? What if? What if we're duplicating a service that's already provided at a hospital, but to double the number of exams in Nashville in just a short period of time, and to see the demand that has shifted my vision to I can't keep showing up to work every day, knowing that this is happening in our community right now, and there is more we should be doing. And that's, it's it's heartbreaking, and I've been doing this for a long time, it makes me want to cry when we open the clinic we we converted to away from just a normal business operating hours to a 24/7 facility. So when we started having advocates staffing the clinic, 24/7 second shift, third shift, I would, in those early days, make sure that I would go in at Sunday, at 10 o'clock to look and see what am I asking somebody else to do? Does it feel safe? Is it comfortable? Inevitably, every off hour I went, there was somebody getting an exam in the clinic, there was a car, there was law enforcement officer. And I realized then in a new way that I'd never realized before. Or that, I guess not that I didn't know, but just this is, this is so prevalent, very real. It made it real and raw in a way that when people come into the front door of our office, the sexual assault might have happened a few weeks ago or months ago or years ago, but when they're coming into the clinic, it just happened. It just happened in a bar or in a parking garage or in a home or at a party right around the corner from us, and we need to stop that. We need to figure out how to have fewer people need us. And that's motivating to me.
Carly 50:42
I have a question, kind of woman to woman here, you're a wife and a mom, yeah, and so I imagine those roles really inform your work, and your work probably really informs your motherhood and your I'm a mom of three girls. What would you tell every mom listening to this podcast and dad every parent, what can we start doing to educate our children to help prevent this from happening to them?
Rachel Freeman 51:15
Talk to them. Make sure you have open lines of communication with your children. Obviously, I can give suggestions and opinions and tell you what's worked for me and not worked for me, but I'm living it right now. As far as trying to figure out how to best protect my children, I wish that there was a magic wand to this, but I do think the biggest key is we have got to start the conversation as early as possible. If you haven't started it, start it now, and it's not a one time conversation. I think we used to think about, did your parents have that sex talk with you? It's not a talk, and it's not just about sex, because sexual abuse is very different from a consensual sexual relationship, and if we can get used to that language and saying that just as easily as we can say elbow or your ear or something, if we can use those words and private body parts more comfortably than our children if something were to ever happen to them, or if something has happened to them, if we can give them the language they need to less shamefully tell us what happened, we're taking some of the stigma away. If we can't say the names of private body parts, if we can't have this conversation with them, then if they experienced a sexual assault or a rape or something sexual harassing, they're going to be more afraid to come talk to us, because they may not trust that we can handle it, and if we can show them that we we can handle this, we can have this conversation, and it is never your fault. If anything ever happens, it is never your fault. I believe you and I support you. Those are some of the biggest messages for anybody, and that's something that I think all listeners can just a very small thing to walk away from this conversation and know that if I can do anything, I can believe somebody who tells me their story, I can believe them, I can support them, and I can help them get connected to the resources that they need. Most people who disclose a sexual assault say that the greatest thing they need is to be believed and supported, and research shows that the prognosis for healing is so much greater if you are believed and supported, so creating those open lines of communication with our kids and believing and supporting people, those are some sounds so simple, and it kind of is. But talk, talk to our kids, talk about online safety, safety social media. There's so much I mean, that could take us on another, down a long rabbit hole, but there are so many unsafe situations that our kids are exposed to now that we just have to keep having conversations. I can talk about this every day in my professional life, but when I go home to my two teenage girls and my young son, it's hard, it is hard to have these conversations. So I get it, but if we can be brave and lean into the hard, we are going to decrease the potential for something even harder happening.
Spencer 54:29
I think that perfectly captures the conversation as a whole. Is that there's really heavy stuff here, but there's redemption in each of the story your front lines for both parts, and you can handle the heavy, but you're also there to meet the redemption and to be able to be mindful of your staff too. I think the fact that you mentioned that our staff are having to sit there and counsel heartbreaking, unimaginable stories, things that you. That just are unspeakable, and to be mindful to say there's a larger mission in play here, and celebrating the wins along the way. And that's what I see, just in reading through the very intro, is that things are not where we want them to be in Nashville or in Tennessee, but in comparison to national standards, there's things that we can celebrate, yes, and I think that's so important for missions that are as heavy as the one the Lord has assigned you with for your whole life, and a real testament to the blessing that that you've seen over that time. So in the spirit of being able to come out of a heavy conversation and still be able to smile for a moment. For those watching on video, there is a Lego set that is incredibly intimidating to me. In the middle of us, we ask every guest to bring something whimsical, something that reveals something about themselves. So I've got to hear what this is in the middle, what did you bring us?
Rachel Freeman 56:01
Well, I, strangely am not a huge LEGO fan. That's too detailed and time consuming for me, but my kids and my husband love Legos, and I love friends. So this is the set of friends. Friends brings me so much joy. It probably tells you my age, but I can put friends on in the background if I'm working from home or if I'm doing laundry, and it just it lightens my mood, and it's been a coping mechanism of mine over the years with the heavy to balance the heavy. But the other reason this my kids gave it to me because I love friends, and they know it, but it came in four bags. I don't know how familiar you are with Legos, but they come in those we have a Lego girl in our house, okay, so you get it. So my husband and all three of my children each claimed a bag, and they collectively put it together. So I love friends, but I love that my family did this for me because they know I would love it, because it brings me joy, and I keep it on my bookshelf in my office, one because it's interesting, and people ask about it and like to see it, and it's something non intimidating that you can connect on, but it brings my why for doing this work to my office on a daily basis, and I can have their pictures and their drawings and their artwork and all kinds of family stuff in my office. But there's something about this that wraps it all up into like you said, Spencer, the heavy meets the heavy meets the joy and the hope. And that's what this means to me.
Spencer 57:38
It's a phenomenal answer, Rachel, and for everything that Carly and I can do to give you the megaphone and the platform to raise awareness, that's really what this story is all about, is that you will impact hearts and minds of Tennesseans all across many of which those listening and across The state will have personal experience with this, but regardless of whether you do or you don't, this is something that breaks everybody's heart, and I think quickly people realize I've got to get behind this. And so we're excited to help give you a little bit of a wider audience, and know that some of the people listening will have been benefited by exactly what we've talked about here today.
Rachel Freeman 58:23
Thank you. We have an incredible event coming up in less than a month that is a great way to engage in a very fun way with our center. And one of your former podcast guests is chairing the this event, and she has that's one of the ways we do community awareness and marketing through incredible people who use their megaphones too to help us spread the word. So we're excited about Mad Hatter in a couple of weeks.
Spencer 58:50
That's good. Can you give us a website too to make sure that people can find out information? We'll link it to the bottom of the show notes. But
Rachel Freeman 58:56
wonderful. Sa center.org, sa center, sexual assault center.org. Is our main website, and you can get all of our event information there, but there's also, if you want to go directly to the Mad Hatter information, Nashville Mad hatter.org is that website, and we are excited about being able to do something fun, to bring the community together, to celebrate and to raise needed funds for these services, and I'm so grateful for you all for giving me this opportunity to talk about this.
Carly 59:26
Is so beautiful, just seeing your passion in your eyes as you're talking about what you do. Thank you. It's really powerful. So thank you for being brave.
Rachel Freeman 59:35
That means a lot. Thank you. It's humbling, and I feel really grateful that I get to work in a place with 54 other people who want to show up every day to do this, and I feel that in my position, the least I can do is try and help make their lives a little bit easier so they keep coming back to do the hard work. So thank you.
