SCCADVASA Executive Director Sara Barber was recently featured in CanvasRebel, a publication dedicated to sharing stories that matter. In the story, Sara shares how she got into this work, resilience, and what it takes to succeed in the world of victim advocacy. *Partial excerpt below.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Over 40% of women in our state experience at least one incident of sexual violence, physical violence and/or stalking during their lifetime so it is critical that we increase prevention and awareness efforts, support our member organizations in their provision of services that meet the needs of individual survivors, and provide effective public policy advocacy that works towards improving system responses to intimate partner violence.
Our role at SCCADVASA is focused on training & education, technical assistance, and policy advocacy. Our member organizations, located in communities across the state provide emergency shelter, counseling, court and medical advocacy among the many services that individual survivors need to find healing. We center our work in the values of humility, leadership, collaboration and credibility and actively seek to identify the additional or different needs of survivors from historically underserved or marginalized communities.
SCCADVASA’s legal program, established in 2018, partners with contract attorneys to provide survivors with representation in civil legal issues at no cost. This program was established to fill a gap for those who cannot afford an attorney, but who may not qualify for traditional pro-bono legal services. Last year, we served 179 survivors through this program.
