CVS Vera Institute of Justice 

A Rural Perspective: ServingSurvivors of DV/SA with 
Disabilities in Rural Communities 

July 16, 2019 

2:00 p.m. EDT 
Captioning/CART Provided By:
ALTERNATIVE COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES, LLC 
P.O. BOX 278 
LOMBARD, ILLINOIS 60148 

* * * * * * 

This transcript is being provided in a rough-draft format.
Captioning or Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may 
not be a totally verbatim records of the proceedings. 

* * * * * * 

>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: Good afternoon, everyone. 

This is Ashley Brompton with the Vera Institute of Justice. 

The webinar will begin in five minutes. 

If you have a question or need any assistance, please send us a 
message in the Q&A pod to the right of the PowerPoint. 

Also, if you would like to download a copy of the PowerPoint, you can 
do so by clicking on the file you wish to download in the webinar downloads 
box and then clicking "download file." Again, we'll be getting started in just 
a few minutes. 

>> Good afternoon, everyone. 

Thank you for joining our webinar today. 

I'm Ashley Brompton with the Center for Victimization and Safety at 
the Vera Institute of Justice. 

I would like to welcome you to today's webinar. 


We are pleased to bring you this as part of our 2019 End Abuse of 
People with Disabilities webinar series. 

We have just a few quick logistical items to go over before we begin 
today. 

There are two ways to communicate with myself and my Vera 
colleagues, presenters and other webinar participants today. 

First, the chat pod. 

The chat pod is used to communicate with the presenter and other 
attendees. 

You may also use the chat box to introduce yourself and answer any 
questions the presenter may pose to the audience. 

In addition to the chat box, there is a Q&A pod, which is used to 
communicate directly and privately with myself and my Vera colleagues. 

If you have any technical difficulties or a question for the presenter, 
please post in the Q&A pod. 

If you post about a technical issue in the chat pod, my Vera 
colleagues providing technical support may not see your post. 

You may also post questions about the presentation in the Q&A pod. 

Next, we'd like your assistance in testing the features of this webinar. 

First, let's test the captioning pod. The captioning pod is located in 
the bottom left-hand corner of your screen directly below the PowerPoint 
presentation. 

The words I am speaking should appear in the captioning pod. 

Please note that if you are using the mobile app on your smartphone 
or tablet, you will be unable to see the captioning pod. 

Instead, you will see a message that says "unsupported content." 

If you are on a computer and cannot see the captioning, please send 
us a message in the Q&A pod so that myself and my Vera colleagues can 
assist you. 

Next, in the pod to the right of the presentation you should see our 
American Sign Language interpreter. 

How is the light? 

Can you clearly see the interpreter? 

If you cannot clearly see the interpreter and the lighting is good, 
please let us know in the chat pod. 

If you can't clearly see them or the lighting is too dim to see, please 
use the Q&A pod to contact us. 

I will now pause for a moment to see if anyone needs assistance and 
to allow time for our interpreters to make those adjustments. 

If at any time you have difficulty seeing the interpreter, please contact 


us in the Q&A pod. 

Please note that we value complete access during our webinars. 

This means that we will ensure the complete functionality of our 
captioning pod and interpreters before moving forward. Due to the nature 
of technology, we may experience technical difficulties. 

If we do experience a technical challenge, you will see a message on 
your screen which reads "we are experiencing technical difficulties, please 
stand by." We will work to resolve these issues as quickly as possible. 

If the issue cannot be resolved, we may have to cancel the webinar. 

If this happens, we will send a follow-up email providing additional 
information to all attendees. 

Participants are in listen-only mode, which means we are not able to 
hear you, but you should be able to hear us. 

If you cannot hear the presenters speaking, if you are having any 
difficulties with the captioning, or any other technical difficulties during the 
presentation, please enter a message in --it sounds like we are having 
technical issues. I'm just going to pause for one moment to let our 
technical person make any adjustments that might be necessary. 

Okay. It seems like we are okay now. If at any time there is any 
technical issues, please let us know in the Q&A pod. 

This is the best way to communicate with me or my Vera colleagues 
who are providing technical support throughout the webinar today. 

We plan to have time after the presentation for questions and 
comments. 

If you don't want to lose a question or comment during the 
presentation, please feel free to go ahead and enter it in the Q&A pod and 
we will hold onto your question until the end. 

If you would like to download a copy of today's presentation, you can 
do so by going to the pod in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. 
Select the document and click the download file button. 

We will be recording today's webinar. 

A link to the recording, as well as the PowerPoint, transcript, and 
ending survey will be emailed to all participants following the webinar. The 
webinar recording will also be posted on the End Abuse of People with 
Disabilities website within one week. 

A record of attendance will be available for download at the end of 
the webinar. 

Sounds like we are having some technical difficulties with the audio. I 
want to make sure everything is clear before we get started because I'm 
hearing some feedback. If you have called in to today's webinar, please 


mute your line. Okay. 

A record of attendance will be available for download at the end of 
the webinar. 

Our presenter today is Kimberly Sparks Kimberly Sparks is a grant 
manager of the Healing Program in Prestonburg, Kentucky. 

She is a former Project Director of Bridging Safe Access to Big 
Sandy, an OVW Disability Grant Program grantee. 

Kimberly began her work with people with intellectual or 
developmental disability, I/DD, five years ago as a day training instructor. 

She loved working in this field and shortly thereafter became the 
Project Director of Bridging Safe Access to Big Sandy. 

While in this position, she became a certified trainer for mental health 
first aid. She currently sits on a state board, "Cheer Advisory Council" for 
I/DD to encourage and improve their health and nutrition habits. Kimberly 
also sits as a board member for Kentucky association of sexual assault 
programs, in the state Sexual Assault Coalition. 

Kimberly is an advocate for I/DD individuals and is co-chair for big 
sandy dream team ballpark for children, youth and adults with disabilities. 

Thanks, Kimberly, and I will now turn the presentation over to you. 

>> KIMBERLY SPARKS: Thank you, Ashley, for that warm welcome. 
And thank you all much your time for taking time out of your very busy 
schedules to join us today. I am hoping that we have some rich 
conversation around serving survivors at the intersection of domestic 
violence and sexual assault who live in or seek services in rural 
communities. 

We have some learning objectives for today. Following this webinar, 
participants will be able to describe barriers that survivors with disabilities in 
rural communities face when seeking services, identify at least one 
potential solution for each barrier, discuss strategies for implementing 
solutions within your own rural service agencies to better serve survivors 
with disabilities. As we were watching everyone say hello, I notice there's a 
couple people from Kentucky. About our rural service area, if you look at 
the map of Kentucky that I have provided for you, my service area is 
located in the very southern east corner of Kentucky, and I have highlighted 
that in blue. Bridging Safe Access to Big Sandy is in the Big Sandy region. 
We serve five counties with an estimated population of 141,738. And if you 
notice, it may be difficult to see, Pike County is that very eastern county. 
It's the largest county in our service area. The population in this county 
alone is just a little more than 60,000, and the reason I point that out is if an 
individual lives in one corner of that county and is seeking service in 


another part of that county, our rural area, it could possibly take an hour 
one way just for service. So location in itself in our area becomes a barrier. 

What I would like to do right now is tell a story as grant manager I 
communicate with GPOs for every single grant that we have, and two years 
ago we had a GPO for a different grant contact me about a site visit. Her 
question was when I arrive at the airport, what type of public transportation 
will I take to get to your agency? Will I take a train? Will I take a subway? 
What will I take to get there? We sort of giggled, had a little conversation. I 
explained to her that the airport is two-and-a-half hours away from our 
service area and that she would rent a car and drive down the beautiful 
mountain parkway to get to our office. So she realized right away that 
transportation and location is a barrier for service. And GPO is a grant 
program officer. 

So on to our to service users. During the last quarter of reporting 
within our domestic violence and sexual assault work, January 1st through 
March 30th, 2019, as reported, 167 unduplicated individuals received 
services. 69 of those self-identified as having disabilities. And that is 
41.31% of service users. As of yesterday, our new report data is in, and in 
that quarter, which was from April 1st through June 30th, 112 service users 
were seeking service --I'm sorry, we had 112 unduplicated individuals 
receiving service. 79 self-identified as having some type of disability. So 
that is 70.53% of service users. This means that we are making progress 
in service. Our users are feeling very comfortable in seeking services with 
us due in part to a welcome, safe and accessible environment. 

And what is rural? So a question I would like you to think what does 
rural mean to you. What does it mean to provide services in a rural 
community? So you can use the chat pod at the bottom of your screen just 
to share some of your thoughts. Think about the location of your service 
area or your region and keep in mind that rural is very different depending 
on your location. I'll pause for just a moment to give you time to think about 
what rural means to you. 

>> I see that most of you are saying that it is an area where there are 
no public transportation, there may not be high volume of population of 
people, not a large amount of resources. So as defined, rural is any area 
or community respectively no part of which is within an area designated as 
a standard metropolitan statistical area by the Office of Management and 
Budget. Any area or community respectively that is within an area 
designated as a metropolitan statistical area or considered part of a 
metropolitan statistical area and located in a rural census tract, or any 
federally recognized Indian tribe. So the bottom line is that area isn't a part 


of an urban or metropolitan area located in rural --sorry, I repeated myself. 
I'm so sorry about that. Remember that the largest county in my service 
area was Pike County. That was the farthest tip. The highest elevation is 
3100 feet. It's mountainous terrain and many of our roads are one-lane 
windy roads. Therefore, transportation and location again is a barrier for 
us. 

So rural survivors with disabilities. People who live in rural areas are 
more likely to report having a disability --so sorry --more likely to have a 
disability and just as likely to experience sexual assault or domestic 
violence. 17.1% of rural Americans report having a disability compared to 
11.7% of urban-dwelling Americans. And this statistic comes from those 
who actually report. Largely we have found in our service area, and I'm 
sure that that does not vary very far in your service area lots of individuals 
with disabilities do not report. So just think about this for a moment. Does 
anyone have any comments about this statistic? If so, please use the chat 
pod. 

And moving on. So now that we have somewhat decided what a 
rural community is and how it may be defined by your service area, now 
let's get into the heart of our discussion. So I would like you to use the chat 
pod to answer this question. What barriers to service provision are you 
facing in your rural community? There may be the obvious barriers that 
you're aware of. Think not only about physical access but also about what 
barriers may not be visible. Is it attitude and stuff? Is it the way the crisis 
line is answered? Is it the way frontline staff may treat individuals with 
disabilities? Take a moment to type out your thoughts in the chat pod. 

I'm seeing transportation. Serving 10 counties. Budget cuts. 
Exactly. Lack of affordable housing. Transportation and language barriers. 
So --poverty. Some of the same things that we have faced and continue to 
face in our rural area. Availability of law enforcement quickly arriving. That 
is also something that we struggle with in our area. Lack of knowledge 
about domestic violence and sexual assault. Shelter is one hour away. 
Lack of knowledge. So it seems that we have lots --lots of us share the 
same barriers. So I would like to move now into barriers for survivors with 
disabilities in rural communities. As Ashley said, we are Bridging Safe 
Access to Big Sandy and we are a grantee, and I am the former Project 
Director, and in our work within our rural community, we have identified 
barriers for survivors with disabilities to live in rural areas, including, and 
this is not every barrier, these were just some of the barriers that we did 
face and solutions: Lack of confidentiality. Communication and/or 
language access challenges. Lack of assistive technology. Limited 


accessible transportation options. Cultural challenges. And limited 
resources. Lots of you guys mentioned things like that whenever you were 
writing in what you feel like may be barriers in your communities. 

So when we think about lack of confidentiality, if you're in a rural 
community, chances are you're in a very small community where everyone 
knows everyone and their business. Where we're located it's exactly like 
that. Everyone knows everyone. Also, perpetrators are less likely to be 
complete strangers. And in most cases individuals with intellectual or 
developmental disorders who experience domestic violence and sexual 
assault, their perpetrator, unfortunately, may be family or their personal 
care attendants. That in itself is a barrier. Especially if it's a family member 
or their guardian, personal care attendant, because they will keep them 
from seeking service. 

So solutions. Some of the solutions that we came up with for lack of 
confidentiality, as a community mental health center, we provide a diverse 
array of services. Individuals who seek services with Mountain 
Comprehensive Care Center have access to basic healthcare services as 
well as behavioral health. So it is virtually impossible for people to identify 
exactly why an individual is seeing us. We provide basic healthcare. 
People can go there to have their blood pressure taken care of. People go 
there if they have any type of --just normal day-to-day physical health 
condition. We --in our clinic building we also have referrals for housing, 
foster care, case management. We have a therapeutic rehab program 
which is done as a TRP, and advocacy and support where individuals can 
go to receive emergency protection orders. And that's just to name a few. 

People have --I'm sorry --we have multiple locations across our 
service area. So people can go into a location they feel most comfortable 
with --[audio interruption] 

>> KIMBERLY SPARKS: I'm sorry about that interruption. I'm sure 
Leslie is taking care of that for us. Can everyone hear me okay? 

So as to having locations all across the area, if a client needed to see 
someone but they wanted to seek service out of their home county for 
anonymity, services are available across the five county region and we are 
expanding basically across the state now. And an emphasis on 
confidentiality among staff and service providers. In our agency we are 
trained quarterly in regards to client confidentiality. A lot of our intellectual 
disability clients work through a supported employment program, which are 
out in our communities, and confidentiality is a must. Our service 
providers, our clinicians and our service users all share the same 
community. And so our agency prides itself on continual evolving client 


confidentiality issues. So that as you're thinking about confidentiality, that 
is something definitely that you want to think about, is your service 
providers and your users are sharing the same communities. 

The next thing that we talked about as far as barriers, although our 
original grant did not focus on Deaf or hard of hearing, we had little 
communities all across the Big Sandy region who had language access 
barriers, and, of course, we had lack of access to interpreters, and these 
small communities were using home sign as opposed to interpreters, and 
then home sign that interpreters were not familiar with. So some of the 
solutions that we came up with, as we worked together with Big Sandy 
Health Care, who is one of are our collaborative partners, we talked about 
where these little pods or where these little communities were located and 
we looked at what type of service that they were receiving, and 
unfortunately we realized that they were not even coming in for basic health 
needs. And so one of the things that moved out of this discussion is we 
need to build a relationship with an interpreting service, and at that point we 
got in contact with Interpreting Services of the Commonwealth and we now 
have this beautiful [no audio] 

>> It sounds like we might have lost you, Kim. Do you want to try to 
mute your microphone and unmute it and see if that helps? 

>> KIMBERLY SPARKS: I'm standing --[no audio] 

>> Kim, can you hear me? 

>> KIMBERLY SPARKS: Sorry. Is everyone --can everyone hear 
me? 

>> I can hear you. 

>> KIMBERLY SPARKS: Okay. I don't know what happened. 

Okay. So we were talking about a relationship with interpreters. We 
built that relationship, and now we have those small communities of Deaf 
and hard of hearing individuals who are seeking services, and we also 
have interpreters who will attend court and interpret during domestic 
violence court cases. 

So securing funding for language access, this is something that we 
decided, and I guess as grant manager I sort of had the say-so in working 
with our grant writers, is every grant that we write now, whether it is a grant 
that specifically asks for access --money for access, we write that in 
because we are doing a disservice to our survivors if we do not write that 
in. So think about if language access is an area that's a barrier for you, 
communicate with your grant writers or talk to your funder about the 
availability of monies for language access. 

Facilitating preparatory conversations with interpreters. This was 


especially important in working with those families who use home sign, and 
so typically in that situation there is someone who can home sign with the 
Deaf or hard of hearing individual who can also communicate with the 
interpreter. And so that is something that is still evolving, but that was just 
a way that we worked to get those individuals familiar with ASL interpreters. 
Building relationships with community partners with a vision to increase 
access to service. So the U-Haul clinic which is our Big Sandy healthcare 
clinic that is our community partner, really they are the people who help set 
this in motion, and as a direct result we now have this collaborative that is 
able to provide interpreting services on a monthly basis. And whenever we 
think about what grew that from, in that particular clinic alone when we 
started our work there were 12 individuals who identified as Deaf or hard of 
hearing who came for service, and in a three-year period that number has 
increased to 85. And without a doubt it's probably slightly larger than that 
now. So this allowed us to increase access for Deaf survivors and have 
better outcomes. And I think a key thing here to remember is building 
these relationships along with the desire to provide accessible services. 
That is the way to meet the diverse needs of rural survivors. First you have 
to look at what challenges that you have before you, and keep in mind that 
those challenges will be different in every rural community. 

Technology. And this was big for us. We had a lack of assistive 
devices to assist in service provision and communication. When we began 
our work, it almost felt as though we were in some type of ice age as 
assistive technology goes. The only thing we had was text telephone, the 
TTY. That was it. So huge barrier for us. Some of the solutions, as our 
grant required, we conducted a safety and access review to determine 
gaps, and as we did our safety and access review, based on the diverse 
needs of our service area, we found that there were things like pocket 
talkers with headphones that would block out the background noise and 
amplify the conversation for the person who was hard of hearing, that those 
were desperately needed, and as part of our safety and access review, we 
asked for that and those were some of the things that were approved, and 
all of our community partners have those, and then we also looked at 
laptops with communication apps, and --the intention for this is not only for 
individuals who may be hard of hearing, but also individuals with intellectual 
disabilities who may have difficulty expressing what they want to say. So 
you also have to think about everything being in plain language. Being 
able to easily communicate or break things down so that you can 
communicate with individuals, especially those with an intellectual 
disability. And then another thing that came from our safety and access 


review was some of our community partner and our web sites did not have 
an accessibility to increase the fond size, and we also purchased Zoom 
Text for web sites so that individuals with difficulty seeing, some visual 
impairment, could increase the font size for easy accessibility of services 
provided at each of our partnerships. And these again would vary based 
on what your community needs. If you are in a more metropolitan area, 
some of these same barriers may not be there for you. Your barriers may 
be different. And so I would suggest using a safety and access review to 
determine where your gaps are, what barriers that you may have. And 
then I would also say that my contact information will be at the very end, 
and if you do not have any idea what a safety and access review is like or 
looks like, you can contact me or you can contact the folks at Vera and we 
will be more than glad to share that information with you and get you 
headed in the right direction. 

And now this seems to be the big one for everybody. Transportation. 
So some of the problems that we faced were modes of transportation were 
extremely limited. In our area, I know this is going to be shocking for you to 
believe, we do not have cabs. We do not have Lyft. And we do not have 
Uber. No public transportation. Accessible transportation is available, this 
is through a community action partnership group, but the individuals 
seeking transportation must have a 72-hour notice. If someone in their 
home has a car in their name, regardless of if they're still a licensed driver, 
that person cannot use transportation. And there are also income limits 
and copays. Again, think back to that largest county in my service area. A 
client can live more than one hour away in one direction from where they 
need to go to seek service. So you can see how transportation becomes a 
huge barrier for us. 

So some of the solutions that we have come across is funding for 
accessible transportation and grant applications. We have a different 
grant, which is part of our Healing Program, and that grant has afforded us 
two vans. Neither of those are wheelchair accessible. However, if it's an 
individual in a walker or on a cane or just an individual, for example, who 
doesn't meet that income guideline, we have community support specialists 
who can use those vans to go get that client and bring them in for service. 
So that has been wonderful. And then our Community Support Associates 
can use their own vehicles as long as it is not someone who is 
wheelchair-bound. Several of our grants have written in mileage for those 
folks to be able to help transport, and we also have fuel cards. Several of 
our grants will provide fuel cards so if that individuals have a vehicle but 
struggle with funding to get to appointments, several grants provide fuel 


cards for that. And then VOCA, which is the --I'm so sorry, my computer is 
freezing here. Due to the number of clients who can't access services, we 
have used VOCA funds to ask for a handicap accessible van, and this 
would allow those clients in wheelchairs to be able to be transported easily, 
and this all came as the Sandy Valley community action transportation 
could not carry individuals in wheelchairs because their copay was too 
high, and we had a male survivor seeking service at our healing place who 
was rejected, the transportation department rejected him, and so that 
conversation took place, and so we have requested that and we find out 
this fall if we get that van. So we're keeping our fingers crossed that that 
comes through for us. 

And then moving on to culture. Culture was a big barrier in, I think, all 
three of our programs when we started this grant. There was the lack of 
trauma-informed knowledge that basically went back and forth between our 
disability program, sexual assault/domestic violence program, which is all 
housed under Mountain Comprehensive Care Center, and then the 
trauma-informed culture of a legal aid. One of our partners is a legal aid. 
And then an actual health service. And so one of the things that we did 
was --and this came out of our needs assessment --is that we needed to 
work on staff capacity so that our staff in all three community partnerships 
were comfortable in offering trauma-informed accessible service. So some 
of the things that we talked about is creating a culture with the desire to 
shift so that we have welcoming environments, so that when an individual 
with a disability came for service they didn't feel like it was a big thing to 
disclose that they had a disability. And if you think back to what our latest 
stats were, we had 70% of individuals seeking service this past quarter who 
self-identified as individuals with disabilities. And when I think back at 
where we were when we started this, that is a huge gain for us, huge gain. 
Cross training to build staff capacity. This was one of the things that we 
talked about as a victim service program. Any person who works in the 
Healing Program has to have trauma-informed training, and so we thought 
about this, and that also was something we wanted to offer to especially 
frontline staff at the legal aid and to staff who are front desk staff at Big 
Sandy healthcare. And just being able to feel comfortable in asking an 
individual, "Do you need any type of modifications, do you need someone 
to read this to you --" especially in the legal department --"do you need me 
to say this in a more simple way so that you can understand?" And lots of 
things in the legal world are difficult for able-bodied people to understand 
as opposed to individuals with intellectual disabilities. And so we've 
worked very diligently in that training. As new staff are hired, that training 


continues to happen. As Big Sandy healthcare or our Apple Red Legal Aid 
hires new staff they are constantly communicating with us saying "Hey, we 
have these folks we to get trauma-informed trained," and it has been 
wonderful. That has been one of the things that has really helped to shift 
our culture and make it welcoming and just allow individuals to feel at ease 
when they come to seek service. We have individuals who come for 
emergency protection orders now who will say to the advocate who attends 
court with them, "I know you're going to be there to explain it to me. I don't 
have to worry." And I feel like all of those are things that came out of our 
work. And that leads into weaving into a person-centered focus into 
everything that we do. We want to make sure that just being 
person-centered is an innate part of our work. We want it to just be who we 
are. And so now we've put on the lens of being person-centered and 
everything we think about, everything we do comes back to, is this going to 
make access for individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities? 
And if the answer is no, we continue to modify until it is accessible. And 
then eventually it just becomes part of everything you do. Again, we've 
worked very diligently to train our community partners, and not only did we 
train them in trauma-informed care, but we've also trained them in mental 
health first aid. Mental health first aid is something that is extremely 
important. When an individual may be contacting the crisis line or coming 
to see an advocate or even going to legal aid, if that person is at risk, we as 
frontline staff or direct service providers need to realize that person is at 
risk and we also need to have a toolkit to be better prepared to help that 
person, and from that came a resource guide, and we all have that 
resource guide now so that if someone is at risk, then there's a protocol 
already in place and our frontline staff know exactly who to contact so that 
we're able to help our folks, and that again is just part of culture change. 
And culture is a huge barrier. I don't --and I've seen it change in the five 
years that I've been in our program. It's shifted dramatically, and I'm so 
proud of that. And I feel like that just been a team effort. 

So I saw lots of you talked about limited resources. So there are a 
lack of resources available to fill in the gaps that we have identified, and so 
some of the things that I wanted to talk to you about is SAMHSA, which is 
the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. There 
are a plethora of funding opportunities through SAMHSA, most of those 
funding opportunities will allow you to write in accessible services. And so 
if you are the person at your agency who is responsible for writing the 
grants or communicating with your grant writers, make sure that you look at 
in your solicitation what type of accessibility things can be funded through 


SAMHSA. Also family violence and prevention services act, FVPSA. 
FVPSA is the grant that provided us with two vans, and that grant 
specifically that we have is to serve children and their non-offending 
caregivers who are affected by domestic violence. And although their 
monies paid for those vans, our entire Healing Program has access to 
those. So if any of you apply for funding through FVPSA, again this is 
family violence and pre-convenient sir services act, keep that in mind, 
VAWA, violence against women's act, there is more money --well, there is 
more money invoke a, which is Victims of Crime Act, but I do know that 
VAWA will allow money for interpreters. Prior to getting this grant we did 
use some VAWA money for interpreters. VOCA, the Victims of Crime Act, 
will allow for lots of accessibility. So if you have VOCA money, make sure 
to look at what is available. I know several other programs in the state of 
Kentucky were awarded vehicles for transportation. I believe that we are 
the first to ask for an actual wheelchair accessible van, and we have 
documented in our reports that these are barriers and that solutions to 
these barriers are ways that we can get clients in for services is to have 
wheelchair-accessible vans. And so while I'm there, I do want to take a 
moment to mention, no matter what your funding source is, you all have 
reports, either quarterly or semiannual reports. In every single one of your 
reports there is an area where you write a narrative and discuss strengths 
of your program as well as challenges or barriers. That is your opportunity 
to talk about lack of resources. That's your opportunity to talk about why 
you feel like you need fuel cards or why you feel like you need assistive 
technology. Use those reports. Do not think about, "Oh, I just need to put 
this in so that VOCA says I'm compliant and will continue to give me 
money." Those people read those reports and they look at what you're 
saying you need based on what your next funding request is. And so 
document all of your challenges. That will go a long way in helping you 
receive funding for most of your barriers that you face. And then, of 
course, Office of Violence Against Women. There are a plethora of grants 
available there. In our program we have several OVW grants. Every OVW 
grant that we've had in my time with our program allows for accessibility. 
So make sure --and lots of people don't even know what all types of OVW 
grants you can apply for. We have OVW grants that allow for safe 
visitation. There is accessibility money in that grant in case we have 
children or parents who are visiting that need interpreters. We have 
advocacy and support, which is improving criminal justice response. There 
is money built in that to provide interpreters for domestic violence hearings 
at court. And then, of course, the disabilities, and there's lots of money 


built in for access there. So don't be limited to your normal typical streams 
of funding. Think outside the box. And if any of you have questions about 
what types of funding may be available, please feel free at the end when 
you see my email, jot that down, email me. I'm fairly familiar with almost 
any kind of grant that a victim service program can apply for. As you're 
partnering with other organizations in your community facing similar 
resources, show share your expertise and resources. I do want to make a 
comment here. At the beginning of our grant we had a fourth partner, 
which is a domestic violence shelter. Things did not work out, and they had 
to pull their partnership. But it is not all lost. As our relationship continued 
to grow, even though they were not a partner in our grant, that domestic 
violence shelter relied on us to share information with them and recently 
they had to move based on the highway coming in, and one of the things 
that the director at that domestic violence shelter is very proud of now is 
because of that work that we've done together and that she's seen, she 
actually has a suite for individuals with disabilities. It's an entire suite. 
Everything has been modified so that if they have someone who comes 
into the domestic violence shelter in a wheelchair, everything is perfect for 
someone who is seeking safety but also in a wheelchair, and the room is 
set up so that if the female has children, her children can be in the same 
suite with her and not have to go to a different part of the shelter. And so I 
feel like because we have that relationship and we're sharing that 
expertise, that is a direct result of us still continuing to build that relationship 
even though they were not able to continue as a partner in our grant. So 
each agency will have folks that have different expertise that they can bring 
to the table. Some of the most important expertise they can bring to the 
table is compassion and commitment. If they have compassion and 
commitment, then it's going to make your services so much easier to be 
accessed by individuals with disabilities, and culture and attitudes are what 
needs to be most accessible. If an individual calls the crisis line and they 
have a speech impediment and they can pick up that the person answering 
the crisis line sort of is a little frustrated they may have to deal with them, 
chances are they may hang up and not call back. So you want to make 
sure you build that culture from the very bottom all the way through the end 
to make sure that individuals with disabilities know this is a welcome, safe 
place for me to come and receive service, seek service. And so creative 
funding, we already talked about that. 

Final tips for success. So culture change is the most important factor 
in successfully serving survivors with disabilities in rural communities. So 
thinking about access and safety in everything your agency does. I will 


also say here, think outside the box. Don't be limited to, well, it's just 
physical access. When we started, that 'think is where most of us were. 
We were looking at physical accessibility, but within just a few interviews, 
whenever we did focus groups, we realized that probably there were more 
cultural areas that needed to be worked on as opposed to physical areas. 
So don't just be stuck with physical access. Be creative. Think about how 
you can leverage your existing relationships and resources to provide 
accessible services. And one of the things that I want to talk about here is, 
our Executive Director, just in our work that we've done, he wanted to be a 
catalyst for change, and as our work evolved, he decided that we just 
wanted to be that agency that already when we bought new properties, let's 
go ahead and make these changes as we go. And I feel like that that was 
a direct result of him being a key part of our work. And so when you're 
being creative about how to leverage for exist young relationships, don't 
forget about those key relationships, your stakeholders, your chief financial 
officers. They are the people who know where the money is and how you 
can spend the money. So be creative and pull us a those people together. 
And when, especially in rural communities, when people start saying "thank 
you" to your Executive Director, people who are your service users, that 
goes a long way. We had a state sexual assault coalition site visit one day, 
and the lady who was here, the program coordinator, went into our clinic 
and new furniture was being delivered, and she looked, and she said, holy 
cow, what's going on? And our service users had created a survey --or 
had completed a survey, and they had let our Executive Director know that 
the chairs in the waiting area were not comfortable. So these nice, 
modern, comfortable chairs were moved in. It appears to be more of, like -almost 
like a reception area or a waiting area in a fancy hotel. They're 
really nice and plush. There's rugs. There's some little side tables and 
lamps. And it just created a very welcome atmosphere, and that was 
because our executive was getting client surveys and the clients said, it's 
hard, it's cold, it's not inviting, it's not welcoming, and, again, because he 
is --he has that relationship with us, that was able to make a change. 

He can more beyond your community. There are likely state, and 
national resources available to you. Again I'm just going to ask you, when 
you have a need, reach out. If you have domestic violence coalitions, 
sexual assault coalitions, reach out. Those people will help you. Say, hey, 
I have these barriers, I have these things I need help with. Is there a way 
you can help me with this. And you will learn that people want to share 
their resources. They want to share their information with you, because at 
the end of the day, we want individuals who need our service to come get 


our service. That's what we're here for. 

And so now I am going to ask if you have any particular questions or 
some things that you would like to know more about. Please use the Q&A, 
and then you also have my contact information there. My email is 
Kimberly.sparks@MTcomp.org. And that is my office line. I do work from 
home a lot, so email would be the best way to contact me. 

>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: We already have a bunch of questions 
lined up for you. The first is that resource guide that you mentioned that 
you have for staff, is that something you would be willing to make publicly 
available? 

>> KIMBERLY SPARKS: Absolutely, yes. And it was something -the 
resource guide was something that bits and pieces were already in 
existence, but after our needs assessment we realized it needed to be 
more comprehensive, and that was something that we worked together to 
make sure was available for our entire region, and I do have that available, 
and if anyone would like to see that, you can email me and I can send you 
an electronic copy, and it would sort of give you an idea of how to structure 
your resource guide. 

>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: That would be great. I think they're 
looking for some guidance on how to structure that as well as how to frame 
the issues. 

>> KIMBERLY SPARKS: Right. And the one thing that I will mention 
about the resource guide is a resource guide in a metropolitan area may 
look entirely different than ours, and this was just compiled over the 
resources that we knew individuals in our area would most likely need. So 
just keep in mind that you will need to adjust that based on your area. 

>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: Great. Thank you. 

We also have a question regarding sexual assault nurse examiner 
exams, and the question is, this person has been facing barriers because 
there's a lack of nurses in nearby hospitals. Many times victims are having 
to find themselves to travel to hospitals very far away, which is serve as a 
huge barrier for survivors with disabilities and other survivors that don't 
have transportation. Have you dealt with this? And if so, what solutions 
have you been able to think of? 

>> KIMBERLY SPARKS: So we, again, have a rural shelter grant 
from OVW which allows us to have the only rape crisis center in the state of 
Kentucky that offers on-site safe exams along with acute residential stay 
after. It's just a four-bed shelter. And that is, again, the Office of Violence 
Against Women rural shelter grant, and we have SANE nurses that are 
there. That facility is staffed 24/7, and when the police, state police, or 


local law enforcement bring a victim there, they actually get the SAFE 
exam there. Now, we have had hospitals in our region who did have but 
now do not have SANE nurses and so they will ask law enforcement to 
transport them to us if they come to the hospital first. I would also tell you 
to write that into your VOCA applications. VOCA will pay for SANE training 
if you have a state sexual assault coalition, your state --I'm sorry --your 
state sexual assault coalition chances are will provide the training for you. 
There may be a small fee, but VOCA will pay that. And then hospitals, if 
your hospital does not have a SANE nurse, reach out to your local clinics. 
We, Big Sandy Healthcare, is actually training two additional SANE nurses 
so that we will have back-up on-call SANE nurses at our crisis center. 

>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: Thank you so much. 

One of the other questions that we got involved how to identify 
trained American Sign Language interpreters and what that process looked 
like for you to identify a reputable interpreting agency. 

>> KIMBERLY SPARKS: So we have --because we have the 
intellectual and developmental disability program in our community mental 
health center, the director of that program basically gave us the contact 
information, and I just set up a meeting with one of the ladies there, and 
that's when the relationship began. So I would probably reach out to a 
disability organization because someone in that department would have a 
regional or state contact information for ASL interpreters. 

>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: Thank you. Another question that we 
have had is when we're talking about confidentiality, one of the questions 
came in around how you all have approached mandatory reporting 
requirements in Kentucky and what that looks like for your agency. That's 
something they are struggling with. 

>> KIMBERLY SPARKS: So in the state of Kentucky every one is a 
mandatory reporter, and the way that we have addressed this is that we 
have the conversation with the individual, and we talk to the individual 
about the mandatory report, we talk to them about what it's going to look 
like, and we allow the individual to be decision-makers in that, and if --so 
that the individual has input on making the report. Fortunately, that is not 
something that we have to deal with often, but we do have policy and 
procedure around that, and if anyone would like to see our policy and 
procedure, I would be more than glad to share that with you as well.. 

>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: Thank you. Thank you. One of the other 
questions --I've heard people saying they would love to see some of the 
resources Kim has mentioned, including the mental health toolkit, 
mandatory reporting policies and procedures. If you are interested in those 


specific materials, please reach out directly to Kim so that she can send 
those to you. And we'll try to get you as many of the resources as we can, 
but in the meantime please reach out to Kimberly at the email address up 
on the screen. We still have a few more questions. We have a question 
regarding the communication app that you mentioned, particularly that you 
used for those with I/DD, and they're just wondering if you could provide, 
like, the names of those apps or an example of how they work. 

>> KIMBERLY SPARKS: Again, that would be something I would 
have to send out in an email because I would have to switch from this 
screen to go over to where that is. But some of the examples are, like, the 
speech to text --like where an individual would speak and it would text, or 
where someone would speak and pictures would pop up. And then we 
have an individual at one of our grant houses who is a Deaf-mute 
individual, and he has apps that he can actually scroll through and look at 
pictures and he communicates by typing pictures --tapping pictures, and 
the instructors many work with him at the greenhouse communicate with 
him by tapping pictures. 

>> Great. Thank you. So if you're interested in that, also please 
email Kimberly directly for that as well. 

One of the trends that I noticed in the chat pod while you are 
speaking today, Kimberly, was around lack of other community resources. 
So not having a --maybe they're a sexual assault organization that doesn't 
have mental health providers in their community, or there's not a disability 
community --or disability agency within their community. How would you 
recommend them approaching the issue when they don't have other 
community-based organizations within their same rural community? 

>> KIMBERLY SPARKS: Just make communication --try to join 
some listservs. In our --in our state there was a statewide coalition before 
our local coalition. Leslie may remember this. Project Safe. Some of you 
who are from Kentucky may have heard that. Project Safe was a statewide 
coalition that addressed accessible services for domestic violence and 
sexual assault all across the state. So even though your rural community 
may not have those resources, reach out to others. Use the website for 
end abuse for people with disabilities to find out where state coalitions 
exist, and just research as best you can. I had actually heard about Project 
Safe long before I started this work, and if I'm not mistaken, and Leslie can 
correct me if I'm wrong, I think that they were a grantee for three straight 
cycles, and so as a statewide collaborative, there were tons of things 
available that individual regions may not be aware of, and it was just a 
matter for me of researching, finding out who these contacts were, and 


making contact with them. So if you don't have that resource available 
locally, reach beyond your local. Ask regionally or state and check out the 
end people with abuse website because you guys have everything listed 
there. 

Also I would say check with your local state behavioral health 
organizations at the state level. Those folks could direct you to where 
services are available and who your contacts would be for that. 

>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: Thank you. I'm trying to scan the chat pod 
to see if there are any other questions. If you have any other questions for 
Kimberly, we have some time left. So this is your opportunity to ask her 
about maybe a barrier that you're facing within your agency that she didn't 
address today, or a problem that you've come across that you would like to 
talk through with her, or any sort of other ideas you might have. I'm going 
to open it up in the chat pod for just a few minutes and see if anything else 
comes up. 

>> KIMBERLY SPARKS: Ashley, I do see that Maria had asked a 
question about the mental health toolkit. Maria, was that in regards to the 
mental health first aid training? 

>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: It looks like, yes, it was. 

>> KIMBERLY SPARKS: Okay. So this is a SAMHSA grant, and it is 
mental health and first aid awareness grant training, and you could 
probably just Google that to find out who the trainers are in your areas. I 
am a certified trainer, and it's an actual very strict 8-hour training that you 
do with agencies, individuals who want to learn. It's for church people. It's 
for parents. Anybody who just wants to be better informed. And there is a 
book that comes with it, and it breaks down different types of depression, 
anxiety. It gets you very familiar with individuals who talk about suicide. 
And what typical behavior would be like and what behavior in crisis would 
be like, and how you respond based on, oh, that's just typical, or, oh, no, 
this is crisis, it can escalate, this is what I need to do. And so it is an 
invaluable training. So you could probably just Google "mental health first 
aid training" to locate instructors, because this is nationwide, and you could 
locate instructors that are close to you. And an instructor can certify you in 
any state. 

>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: Great. Thank you. 

We have had some questions about the records of attendance that 
we provide. We provide those at the very end of the webinar for download. 
So once Kimberly has done and we've wrapped up all the questions, we 
will provide that to you to download it or you can email me directly to 
receive those records of attendance. We did have another question for 


you, Kimberly, and that was, really, what started your agencies looking at 
expanding your accessibility services and what was your first step? 

>> KIMBERLY SPARKS: I was not a part of our agency at that time, 
believe it or not. I was teaching kindergarten at that time. We did have 
different staff then, and her whole reason behind wanting to apply for the 
disabilities grant is she knew with our large population of intellectual 
disability folks that we had to have gaps. She knew that there were gaps. 
She knew that people were not seeking service that needed service, and 
she knew there had to be a way to make service accessible. And so she 
contacted the grant writer. They sat down. They talked about what they 
wanted. And we got the grant and then I feel like that it's just --I think it's 
grown beyond what she ever imagined it would because now it's just part of 
the fabric of who we are. Everything we do we see through the eyes of an 
individual with developmental disabilities. 

>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: I did type the name of the grant that you 
originally applied for, which is OVW's training and enhanced services to 
end violence against women with disabilities grant program, also known as 
the Disability Grant Program for short. That was sort of what started your 
momentum, right, in moving forward. 

>> KIMBERLY SPARKS: Absolutely. Yes. 

>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: Are there any other questions for 
Kimberly? Shana asks do your counselors have specific certifications to 
serve people with disabilities? 

>> No, they do not have anything specific for individuals with 
disabilities. They all do have the same types of trauma-informed, 
evidence-based training. I think that we pride ourselves in sending our 
trauma therapists to as much training as we can. We meet on a monthly 
basis as a staff, and we talk about, like, trending needs, and we talk about 
ways that clinicians can make seeking service for an individual with 
disabilities easier, and I feel like when we collect our data reports each 
month that's why we see so many individuals self-identifying. Our clinics 
are just --they just treat everyone as family. They treat everyone as 
equals. And it doesn't matter if it's an individual with an intellectual 
disability or if it's a 12-year-old who identifies as bisexual. Everyone knows 
this is a safe place. I can come to you and tell you exactly what I need and 
I know you're going to help me. So we're very person-centered. We're 
very trauma-informed. We meet everyone where they are. 

>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: I'll just add to that that having worked with 
Kim's organization and seeing the work they have done, they have put in a 
lot of work in partnering with disability organizations and other people in the 


community in order to really make sure that they're providing services that 
are accessible. So as much as she underestimates the effort they will 
really put into it, it's been a long process for them to build in accessibility 
into everything that they've done. 

>> KIMBERLY SPARKS: Yes. 

>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: I'm not seeing any other questions right 
now. I am see --I want to give a quick thank you to Melanie, the 
interpreter, and to Larry, the captioner. I am seeing some thank you’s from 
audience members for your hard work during this webinar. We appreciate 
that. Nancy is saying to reach out to your local centers for Independent 
Living, Arc. Other organizations. One of the things many Kimberly -requires 
that it's cross-agency. So there is an disability partner and --it's 
automatically built in that you're sort of cross working together. Nancy 
used the example of the ark of Minnesota who partnered with a sexual 
violence center. That's another grantee based outside of Minneapolis. So 
the work that they do really is multiple agencies coming together to share 
their knowledge and expertise in disability and victimization. 

Kim, do you have any lost thoughts? 

>> KIMBERLY SPARKS: No, I do not. I just thank you all so much 
for joining me today. Make sure that if you would like copies of any of the -our 
guides --I would also like to throw out there that we created both a 
female and male picture guide for the SAFE exam and I can send you 
those as well. Just reach out to me if there are any other questions that 
you have or any of the product that we have created. I would be more than 
glad to share that with you. 

>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: Thanks so much. Thank you again for 
presenting today. This was a very informative presentation. And I would 
like to thank all of you for participating in today's webinar. And we do ask 
that you complete a brief evaluation survey. You can find the link either in 
the PowerPoint or directly below the PowerPoint where it says "webinar 
evaluation." You would just click on the words "webinar evaluation" and 
click "browse to." We would appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to 
share your thoughts with us so we can continue to work to meet your needs 
during these webinars. 

A quick note, if you would like a record of attendance, it is in the 
bottom right-hand corner of your screen in the files pod. So if you click on 
the words "record of attendance July 2019," and then you click "download 
file" the copy of the record of attendance will download to your computer. If 
you have any trouble getting that record of attendance you can email us at 
CVS@vera.org and we can help you out. Also available for download in 


that pod is the PDF of our PowerPoint presentation. For those of you 
interested in downloading a transcript of the webinar, you can do so by 
going to the captioning pod at the bottom of your screen and clicking where 
it says "save." I'll leave the webinar open for just a few moments to give 
you time to download this. Again, a transcript as well as the PDF file and a 
recording of the webinar today will be emailed to you within 48 hours of this 
webinar. 

Thank you and have a great afternoon, everyone!