MOUNT VERNON — According to the Ohio Domestic Violence Network, 33% of women and 25% of men in the United States will experience some form of sexual assault.
Sexual Assault Awareness Month is an annual campaign to raise awareness about what many call a silent epidemic.
Executive Director Lindsey Lamp said that although April is a month of awareness, New Directions does the work year-round.
However, she said April provides an opportunity.
“Although we do it every year, it’s important for us to have a moment to reflect on the previous year and reset for the future,” she said.
“Our goal continues to be bringing our community together to celebrate survivors, inspire healing, and embrace growth. Our community is doing it, but you don’t realize you’re doing it sometimes.”
In 2024, New Directions served 35 clients specific to sexual assault.
Knox County Prosecutor Chip McConville said that in 2024, his office indicted nine individuals for sexual assault.
Those numbers do not illustrate the whole picture.
“The vast majority of sexual assault cases go unreported,” McConville said. “What we see is the tip of the iceberg.
“The cases New Directions sees aren’t necessarily the cases we see. In a lot of cases, the victims do not report for a variety of reasons.”
McConville cited an upcoming case as an example of the prevalence of sexual assault in Knox County.
“We tried to seat a jury in February. We couldn’t get a jury seated because potential jurists said either they have been a victim of sexual assault or a relative has been a victim of sexual assault,” he said.
“They didn’t think they could be impartial.”
The economic effect of sexual assault in Knox County
Sexual assault or domestic violence affects the community, not just the individual.
“If an individual has been impacted by intimate partner violence, their families are impacted, their workforce is impacted, the community, law enforcement, prosecutors, hospitals, first responders, schools, children, youth — all these systems are impacted by one person,” Lamp said.
She cited a 2024 Knox County study that shows the financial impact on Knox County for intimate partner violence is over $6 million.
“That’s related to workforce, hospital, medical, mental, bills, a lot of different systems. When you think about $6 million between survivors in our community being impacted in one year, it’s huge,” she said.
“The cost is too high, and the burden is too great for survivors in our community.”
Lamp said there is power in prevention.
“The question is how can we continue to work together to prevent and reduce intimate partner violence from happening so that we can bring that number down? What do we do?
“As a community, we’re working on it, but we have to continue to figure out how do we do this,” she said.
Multiple layers of trauma
Lamp said an increasing concern is the multiple layers of impact and trauma that are occurring. Situations might present as one thing but have underlying causes.
“A survivor could be turning to unhealthy coping skills such as drugs and alcohol as a result of sexual violence that has occurred or domestic violence that’s occurred,” Lamp explained.
“Then they’re having to navigate and deal with this new situation. And they’re still not addressing their mental health, so now they have mental health and all these co-occurring systems and impacts happening to them.”
She said that when law enforcement receives a call about a crisis, responders try to peel back the layers to determine what’s at the core.
“Peeling back those layers is so hard to figure out, especially if it’s a crisis situation and you’re trying to just give them the help that they need to make sure that their safety is established in that moment.”
Lindsey Lamp, executive director of New Directions
Data also shows an increase in strangulation cases. However, Lamp said it does not reflect the number of strangulations. Instead, there is an increase in it being named and identified as strangulation because of a new law.
The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 categorizes strangulation and suffocation as criminal acts.
“Naming it is bringing it to the public’s awareness, and it does make them a more concerned public,” Lamp said.
Community growth: Positive changes and collaboration
Lamp said positive changes over the years include more community members actively participating.
“Through our efforts to create a more informed community about what is sexual violence, domestic violence, human trafficking, and how it can impact our community, it has increased bystander intervention skills, their ability to see and recognize that something’s not right,” Lamp explained.
“Then they get to be active bystanders, whether it is saying, ‘hey, that’s not OK,’ checking in and providing support to an individual, calling out what they see, or calling somebody and delegating to first responders.”
Another positive change is greater collaboration with law enforcement. That collaboration immediately connects survivors to New Directions’ resources.
“We have a unique ability here in Knox County where we work well with one another,” Lamp said. “We’re always trying to figure out how to continue to grow and work on that partnership.
“When we talk about it at the state level, there are many programs that talk about how they do not have working relationships or collaborations with law enforcement. So we really try not to take that for granted,” Lamp said.
“When we increase protective factors, we build a connected community.”
Lindsey Lamp, executive director of New Directions
Lamp said partnerships continue to grow across the board, whether with school teachers or social service agencies.
New Directions offers prevention programming in all county high schools, most middle schools, and some elementary schools.
“That is continuing to create that informed community that we want,” Lamp said.
She also cited the Teen Advisory Council (TAC), which builds leadership skills and equips students to be peer mentors. TAC creates social change at the high school level and helps support and uplift healthy relationships.
Engaging fathers and empowering male survivors
The community has a misconception that New Directions only serves women. However, the organization does serve male clients.
“No one is treated differently when they walk through our doors. They’re all treated the same,” Lamp said. “They all receive free and confidential services. Anything that we provide is provided to everyone.”
New Directions received a grant to fund a new fatherhood initiative. The agency is creating an action plan to hold community listening and feedback sessions later this spring.
The goal is to find out what fathers need and what affects them.
“We want to hear from them; we want them to have a voice so that then we can create this action plan utilizing their voice and what’s relevant to them and what do they need,” Lamp said.
“We are not sure what is going to come out of it. We have some ideas and thoughts based on data we’ve already collected, but a father’s group could come in and say that data is completely inaccurate and not relevant. This is what we really need.
“So we’re prepared for a complete pivot if needed,” Lamp said.
New Directions also focuses on males through its youth leadership programs.
“We do work with male athletes, for example, building up their knowledge around personal responsibility, integrity, respect,and communication,” she said.
“If we have a group of males that wants prevention programming, we would also do that. We’re always open to collaborating and meeting the needs when we do our prevention programming.”
New Directions provided a variety of services in 2024
•Aided 429 clients across various advocacy services, including sexual assault, legal, housing, youth, and domestic violence
•Provided shelter to 32 adults and 19 youth for a total of 2,100 days
•Provided 4,933 youth and 3,892 adult prevention services
Increasing awareness
In addition to operating two shelter homes, New Directions operates out of its administration building at 212 N. Main St.
Lamp said the administration building brings staff members together in one place. It also enables support groups to meet privately rather than in public places like the YMCA or library.
“It’s creating visibility for survivors, so our walk-ins and our ability to meet clients is more survivor-centered and trauma informed than the approach that we do now,” she said.
New Directions will host various activities during Sexual Assault Awareness Month. One event features police surgeon Dr. Bill Smock for extended training on the impacts of strangulation, forensic examination, and investigation strategies.
A new program called Empowerment Connections for guardians and their youth will segue into the training for May’s Mental Health Awareness Month.
The program involves learning how to use parents’ and youths’ strengths to develop healthy coping mechanisms as they work through relationships with teachers, children, or romantic partners.
Anyone wishing to support New Directions can donate online or via mail to 212 N. Main St.
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