Tonight I went to the local rape and domestic abuse center for a meeting. I'm a Victim Advocate at work and the center was having a meeting for their VA's and I thought it'd be good to attend and get some insight.
Mostly I thought this would be good because where I work I probably will never have to use my training as a VA, mostly because of a lot of bureaucratic red tape as well as people where I work just don't report this stuff. (Sadly, that is.) Hell, we barely report harassment, let alone assault. That's a whole other story.
So this training, where one of the victim/witness assistants for the states attorney's office spoke on her duties, was good. I got to meet some of the VA's for the center and get an insight into their world a bit. A lot of what I learned in training seems to be real for them as well. And it makes me wonder...
Maybe I need to step up and volunteer for this center. I was saddened to look at their schedule for next month and see so few names there, or that only 3 VA's were at the training/meeting (which makes me wonder where all the rest were tonight). And as our leader tonight said, they can use all the help they can get.
I'm scared though. I know I've been trained, but I've never had to deal with that situation (assault, sexual or domestic). I'm not sure I'm strong enough to handle that. I know there would be more training and that they walk you through calls for the first few times, but I'm just not confident that I could actually help someone.
So I'm not sure what to do. Pray, yes. Consider it all, yes. Do some research, yes. But in the end...am I emotionally stable enough to do this?
No comments:
Post a Comment