Timing Considerations for Sexual Assault Examinations

Just a quick reminder: you have until Wednesday at noon ET to enter the Sexual Assault Quick Reference giveaway. Head over to the post and leave your comment to be eligible!

SAFE-TA (a project of IAFN) is offering a free webinar December 15th at 2pm, ET: Timing Considerations for Sexual Assault Examinations. Presented by Jack Ballantyne, Ph.D. and Pam Marshall, M.S., this webinar will offer advanced education to practitioners on issues involving timing of evidence collection, advances in forensic DNA technology, and factors affecting time since intercourse intervals.

Weekly Wrap-Up & Giveaway Reminder

This week over at the sustainability site, a few things for you to peruse:

• A great handwashing poster that made me smile, particularly timely since my house is currently germ-central
• A look at the challenges of asking for help and some of the opinions out there on how best to do it
• And of course, a reminder about our current giveaway here at FHO.

Speaking of which, please don’t forget to add your comment to the giveaway post to be eligible for the Sexual Assault Quick Reference, courtesy of G.W. Medical Publishing. It’s a perfect size for use in the clinical arena (did I mention it has photos?), or a fantastic gift to giveaway to a member of your team (say, the person who did the most cases in ’09 or took the most call). And please keep in mind, eligibility is not limited to US and Canadian readers, so for all of my international readers (I see you in my stats, so I know you’re out there), please include your comments, too. Deadline to enter is November 25th at 12pm ET.

Bonne chance and have a great weekend!

Organ Trafficking & Transplant Tourism

A subset of human trafficking, organ trafficking and transplant tourism are significant concerns around the globe. And while they’re not discussed to the same extent as sexual exploitation and forced child labor, quite a bit’s available on the subject. It initially caught my eye when I noticed Harvard’s Initiative to Stop Human Trafficking had an archived webcast available on their site addressing the issue. You can link to it, along with podcasts, articles, and other resources after the jump.

Integrating Injury & Violence Prevention

STIPDA, ASTHO, and NACCHO have several archived injury prevention webcasts, 2 of which might appeal: Integrating Injury and Violence Prevention with Maternal and Child Health Programs, and Integrating Injury and Violence Prevention with Healthy Again Initiatives. They are free to access–the archive site also includes a variety of supporting articles and other materials for the maternal-child session that are probably worth perusing, particularly for those of you working in the area of abusive head trauma (scroll to mid-page to find them).

Best Practices to Combat Human Trafficking

No wrap-up at the sustainability site today (the blog was quiet while I was on the road). Instead, a new offering from the Government Innovator’s Network and the Initiative to Stop Human Trafficking: Best Practices to Combat Human Trafficking–Forced Labor. It will be held November 16th from 10 AM-12 PM (bummer for any of you west of the Mountain time zone). This webinar will focus on the best practices to combat one of the most invisible forms of human trafficking. The discussion will be moderated by E. Benjamin Skinner, Fellow, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School and author of A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery. If you can’t attend, these guys are usually pretty good about archiving their sessions, so it should be accessible after the fact.

I’m knocking off early and heading to Savannah, GA for some mandatory fun (family-style). Hope you have a good weekend in store, as well.

A Call to Men

Prevention Connection‘s latest newsletter is pretty fantastic. It includes audio recordings from the 4th Annual A Call to Men conference (PDF), held last spring in NYC. If you’re not familiar with the project, A Call to Men “challenges men to reconsider their long held beliefs about women, in an effort to create a more just society. We achieve this by encouraging change in the behaviors of men through a re-education and training process that challenges sexism.”

Maximizing the Potential for DNA Technology

NCVC is hosting a webinar November 18th at 1pm ET: Maximizing the Potential for DNA Technology. “The goals of this webinar are to expose participants to the “big picture” of how forensic DNA came to be the potent crime-fighting tool that it is today, and for participants to learn about today’s most extensive and innovative applications of forensic DNA in the United States and abroad. The speaker will highlight the importance of DNA databasing for identifying offenders and solving and preventing crimes and will present intriguing cases and innovative techniques using forensic DNA.”

Weekly Wrap-Up @ the Sustainability Blog

I’m in Philadelphia and then heading on to Maine this weekend for a DV course we’re teaching up there next week, so things are (and will continue to be) light over at the sustainability site. However, there are a couple things from this week you might find interesting:

• A succession planning webinar, for those of you in (or striving to be in) leadership positions. It’s a critical piece of the work that doesn’t get discussed as much as it should.
• A post about difficult conversations over at the Harvard Business site. It seems like we started talking a lot about ethical communication at the IAFN Assembly in Dallas last year, and the idea has continued to really stick with me. I love that the focus of the post referenced here is about being ambushed by angry confrontation, since it’s a situation most of us don’t handle as gracefully as we’d like.
• The press release regarding the Justice for Survivors of Sexual Assault Act, introduced by Senators Franken, Grassley, Feinstein and Hatch.

It’s a beautiful, sunny day here in Philly, and while I’ll spend most of the day over at the ASC meeting (we’re doing an interesting panel as one of the closing sessions), I have been assured that there will be good Cuban food and a mojito waiting for me at the end of the day. Hope such rewards are in store for you, as well. Have a great weekend!

Addressing DV in the Workplace: EAP/Employer Partnerships

UPDATE: SORRY, EVERYONE, BUT REGISTRATION FOR THIS ONE IS NOW CLOSED. PLEASE SEE THE COMMENT FOR INFO ON HOW TO ACCESS MATERIALS.

The Corporate Alliance to End Partner Violence is hosting a webinar November 12th from 2-3 pm ET, Addressing Domestic Violence in the Workplace: Employee Assistance Program (EAP)/Employer Partnerships. “A recent survey of CEOs found that most believe domestic violence to be a serious issue, yet 71% did not believe it is a problem in their company. The reality is that approximately 21% of fulltime working adults report being a victim of domestic violence…

Articles of Note: November Edition

Time once again for a run down of some of the new and noteworthy articles in the current literature. All of these are from the October/November issues. As always, please keep in mind this in no way a comprehensive list; simply items that have caught my attention from a selection of peer-reviewed journals. Links lead to PubMed abstracts; from there you can choose what’s worth a.) paying for; b.) a pilgrimage to your nearest medical library;  or c.) downloading via the full-text access you possibly have at your disposal. To be honest, it was kind of a light month; not nearly so much grabbed me in my rounds of the recent stuff.

Trafficking: New Offerings from the Week that Was

Over the past week there have been several new offerings related to human trafficking:

Phil Borges has an interview on his blog with Rachel Lloyd, founder of GEMS (Girls Educational and Mentoring Services). “Rachel told me that historically law enforcement in our country has punished the victims of the sex industry—the vulnerable and exploited adolescent girls that are coerced and trafficked into the trade.  She said that labeling and jailing them as ‘teen prostitutes’ instead of what they are–exploited and trafficked children– while ignoring the 30 to 40 year old men that sell and buy these girls has been a crime in itself.”

Listen to the 8+ minute audio file here.

Elder Abuse in Indian Country

OVC is hosting a web forum November 4th from 2-3pm ET: Serving Elder Abuse Victims in Indian Country. You can submit questions in advance and then return to the site on the 4th for some real-time discussion. If you can’t make it, all the answers will be archived and available for review at a later date.

Predicting Lethal IPV

Thanks to everyone who sent me the head’s up on this one–I love when readers forward events to me (hint). The Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School is sponsoring a webinar November 12th, from 3-5pm ET: Can You Predict lethal Intimate Partner Violence? Participation is free of charge; you can register for the session here.

New Sustainability Bulletins

I’m taking a couple much needed days off, so it’s going to be a short week here. But before I shut down the computer, I just wanted to alert you to what’s happening over at the Sustainability site. We have just released two new publications from the project in our Sustainability 101 series (some of you received them in hard copy in ATL): Creating a Business Plan for Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners and Fostering Collaboration Between SANE Program Coordinators and Medical Directors.

Human Trafficking

UPDATE: The Family Justice Center Alliance is hosting a webinar on human trafficking Thursday, November 5th, from 9-10am, Pacific. Participation is free, but registration is required. Kay Buck from CAST will be the featured speaker.

You can view content from previous FJCA webinars here.