FCS Summer4840- Volunteering at SACIS!

For the Project Link assignment, I volunteered at SACIS. SACIS or Sexual Assault Counseling and Information Services is an agency on Eastern’s campus to help all victims of sexual assault, harassment and abuse whether they were affected directly or indirectly. For my 2 hours of service they instructed me to help organize their storage closet of brochures and information.  The activity reinforced the concepts I learned in this course because subjects like child disabilities and sexual abuse, how to help after sexual abuse, and the numerous brochures of statistics, just to name a couple, were all infront of me. Being in class and learning about these subjects has more of an impact when you see the same subjects in another environment.  There was not much networking to be done here since I worked in a storage closet on the second floor away from the higher ranked employees.  I was working alongside Jenna, a former volunteer turned employee for the past year.  We discussed our educational and career paths and discovered that we were both Psychology majors in undergraduate but that field was not as hands on with the public as we would have liked to be.  Working directly with her I did not network or try and see where her connections lied, but met a familiar face and maybe someone I can get advice from later in life.  Being a volunteer just working for 2 hours restricted the areas I was able to get involved in and actually be hands on with what they do on a regular basis.  For those who are more long term, they offer  a 40 hour training and from there you can become involved with the inner workings of the agency. This has a great effect on the EIU and Charleston-Mattoon community, because they are spreading knowledge, empowering individuals and helping those affected by sexual abuse.  This being a rural area, there may not be many agencies for this area and to have it located on a college campus brings comfort and accessibility to college students who may have been violated.  Overall, it was good to get more of a visual to what agencies offer and it is reassuring to know that there is information out there that is useful. What could be changed is utilizing this information. They had so much information in that closet where I felt it should be in someone’s hands.  My ultimate goal is to own my own counseling center and I will make sure that stating information and statistics will be first before I hand out brochures. Handing them out does not guarantee that they will read them, but make that a second option for information.

Ebony Frazier