‘SAVE’ initiative designed to educate
Alanna Wolf Staff Writer
Sarah Kahmann, left, and Meghann Kosman
Two Maryville women are cooperating to present a new kind of sexual abuse prevention program through their newly lunched Sexual Assault and Violence Education initiative.
“A little over a year ago, we got together and decided to form a presentation to be taken out into the community about sexual assault,” explained Meghann Kosman, victim advocate at Maryville’s Children and Family Center of Northwest Missouri.
“Kosman met her SAVE partner, Maryville Public Safety Officer Sarah Kahmann, at the Children and Family Center attempting to locate resources while the two were working cases involving sexual assault.
Since realizing a year ago that they had worked some of the same cases, and the need to have more education about sexual assault, the two collaborated to launch their SAVE initiative.
“Our target is everyone, the entire community,” said Kahmann. “Not just high school and college girls, this is for everyone.”
Traditionally, the focus of sexual assault presentations has been to give women tips on how to avoid rape.
The SAVE presentation has one main message for everyone — do not rape.
“We feel like the message out there right now is how not to get raped,” said Kosman. “We want to change that.
“The message out there from us is ‘don’t rape,’” she said.
“The presentation is really based on the immediate need we see present in our community,” Kosman said. “Sexual assault is a major problem we see and this presentation is largely about sexual assault prevention.”
Kahmann and Kosman stress the need to report any sexual assault as soon as possible.
They encourage victims of sexual assault to go to a hospital immediately to report the assault in a safe and secure environment as well as have their mental and physical status evaluated so treatment can be administered if needed.
“It’s not so much about the conviction,” Kosman said, stressing the importance of immediate reporting. “It’s for the victim’s well being, the victim’s safety, the victim’s health.
“Every situation is unique,” Kahmann said. “If you’re a victim of sexual assault and you don’t want to talk to me as a police officer, that’s fine. But please go to the hospital and get your health and well being checked.
“The actual police report can wait, but report it to the hospital so you can make sure you’re safe,” she emphasized.
Their presentation includes information on what a victim can expect after reporting a sexual assault, from what a sexual assault forensic exam entails to what the potential court process could be like.
It also includes basic statistics from the website for the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, www.rainn.org,:
Of every 100 rapes,
• 32 are reported to the police
• Seven lead to an arrest
• Three are referred to prosecutors
• Two lead to a felony conviction
• Only two rapists will spend a day in prison.
Those facts motivate Kahmann and Kosman.
“We use these numbers in our presentation as our attention-getter,” Kahmann said. “We want everyone to understand there is a reason these statistics are the way they are, and we’d like to change that.”
The pair also focuses a portion of its presentation on the aspect of consent.
“We define what the statue of consent is in Missouri,” Kahmann said. “Because we have found that everyone has a different definition of it, we tell them what the state defines, that way they have a reference point to know that if it is not done this way it is a prosecutable offense.”
“We also talk about how trust becomes a weapon,” Kosman added. “Seventy-eight percent of sexual violence involves an offender who was a family member, intimate partner, friend, or acquaintance.”
For more information about SAVE or to schedule a presentation, contact Kosman at 660-562-2320 or [email protected] or Kahmann at 660-562-3209 or [email protected].
Kahmann and Kosman will be offering a SAVE presentation from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Sept. 17, in the large second-floor meeting room at the Maryville Community Center.
