Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — To ensure justice and create a more compassionate and streamlined response, service providers must intervene in a way that speaks to the context of each victim's circumstance and respects the unique roles of the different professionals involved in responding to sexual assault.

Over the years, many of our government agencies and non profits on the island of American Samoa have found a disconnect when responding to victims of sexual violence, which is why developing a team approach with those certain goals in mind was of importance.

Together, EPIC partnered with other local nonprofits to include the American Samoa Legal Aid and Catholic Social Services, government agencies such as the Attorney General’s Office, Department of Human and Social Services, Department of Health, LBJ, and first responders EMS and DPS, to create a Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) that will provide interagency, coordinated responses that prioritizes victims needs through interoperability protocols, an effective referral system, coordinated case management, a paperless client tracking system, and cross trainings that will then in part hold offenders accountable, and promote public safety. 

This past week, EPIC with the SoValTi team from Oregon, provided training for victim advocates, counselors, and the community under the TOA Tama’ita’i program, which is funded by the US Department of Justice Office on Violence against Women. While they might seem like a fairly new organization in this line of work, many of the representatives are well known in the community to have spent many years providing legal service for victims, housing, advocating, and addressing the issue at hand.