paar.net : Pittsburgh Action Against Rape

HISTORY OF PAAR

Section Topics: Financials, Board Our Mission... Respond to survivors of sexual violence with crisis intervention, counseling and advocacy; advocate for systems to respond to and prevent sexual violence and educate to prevent sexual violence. Pittsburgh Action Against Rape (PAAR) is a private non-profit organization founded in 1972 by the Pittsburgh Chapter of the National Organization of Women (NOW) in response to a series of rapes and growing public concern. This grassroots effort was first organized as a Task Force on Sexual Assault to discuss and develop a response to the problem of rape. The goal was to initiate a comprehensive program for rape research, treatment and prevention.
1974	PAAR is officially incorporated as a rape crisis center with a mission to provide services to sexual assault victims within Allegheny County. PAAR initially offers community education, a crisis hotline and immediate crisis related services by an all-volunteer staff. With no base or budget for operation, PAAR continues to build a reputation for compassionate care. Volunteers work with hospitals to emphasize the importance of standard procedures and prompt examinations.
1977	PAAR receives grant from Governor’s Justice Commission to encourage rape victims to prosecute their attackers, enabling staff to maintain 24-hour hotline and provide advocates for victims in hospitals, police stations and at court proceedings. PAAR recognizes a growing need for counseling services for children who were sexually abused, as well as for adults who had been abused as children and had carried their secrets into adulthood.
1980	Anne Pride, PAAR’s first education coordinator, challenges the legal system and fights for the privacy rights of all rape victims when she refuses to turn over client records despite a judge’s threat of contempt. Pride is held in contempt of court and ordered to jail. On appeal, the case makes its way to the State Supreme Court, resulting in the Pennsylvania State Legislature passing the first law in the nation recognizing total confidentiality in communications between victims and rape crisis counselors.
1984	PAAR is selected by the National Center for the Prevention and Control of Rape as one of nine exemplary rape crisis programs most worthy of emulation in the nation. PAAR offers technical assistance and training to centers from Alaska to Washington, D.C., as well as groups in India, Thailand, Germany and Japan. PAAR also begins to treat more clients who experience multiple personality disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder, both of which are common reactions of victims suffering on-going and sadistic sexual abuse. PAAR counselor Anita Mallinger, along with colleague Robin Conners, develops cutting edge analyses of dissociation and multiple personality as effects of sexual abuse. Mallinger and Conners are credited with identifying the issue.
1988	PAAR introduces a comprehensive 30-hour training program to teach mental health therapists to work more effectively with victims of abuse. Over the years hundreds of therapists from Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio have received training, enabling them to better serve their clients.
1991	PAAR moves from small Oakland office to an historic South Side structure, formerly a Baptist Church. After raising money through a capital campaign , PAAR was able to purchase and renovate a building that would foster healing, support, and safety for victims. PAAR becomes one of the few rape crisis centers in the nation to own its own space.
1994	PAAR publishes Understanding Self-Injury: A Workbook for Adults; later translated into Norwegian in 1998. PAAR was subsequently recognized as a national expert in self-injury and staff members presented at conferences in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio.
1995	PAAR hosts its first annual Art Show for Survivors of sexual assault. The show allows clients to artistically express their pain and their healing through paintings, collages, photographs and drawings.
1999	Surviving and Preventing Sexual and Domestic Violence, written by PAAR staffers Anne Forrest, Kristy Trautmann, and Barbara Weiner, was published by the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape. In the four years following its publication, it was presented at numerous conferences locally and regionally.
2000	PAAR providing upwards of 1,000 prevention and awareness education programs to approximately 15,000 children and adults in schools and groups throughout Allegheny County. Under the Victims of Juvenile Offenders Act, PAAR begins advocating for victims who have been sexually assaulted by children under the age of 18 in the Allegheny County Juvenile Court system.
2002	Community Trainer Marlo Boyle develops training program for emergency room staff, residents, medical students and emergency medical services personnel.
2003	Child therapy offices remodeled. PAAR counselors trained in art therapy and the counseling of disabled children, including providing services for the deaf. Ann Hyman, a PAAR staffer for 25 years, won Pennsylvania's first award designated to "Outstanding Advocacy and Community Work in Ending Sexual Violence", which was presented by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center in April 2003.