Drug-Facilitated Sexual Assault Prevention
Authors: Imani Garrick, Lorren Grantham, McKenzie Mahlum, and Alexa Weaver
Faculty Supervisor: Nicole Mansano, DNP, RN, CNM, CNE
Community Partners: Safe Harbor and Connie Smith Rape Crisis Center
Abstract:
Our community health project focuses on the awareness and prevention of drug-facilitated sexual assault (DFSA) in Glynn County. By providing three local bars, Bubba Garcia’s, Ziggy’s, and Moonshiners, with educational booklets on facts about DFSA, the signs and symptoms victims may show, and ways to prevent DFSA from taking place in their establishment we aimed to increase the knowledge and safety of our community. Also, by supplying the bars with drink safety devices such as plastic lids, drug testing coasters, and My CupCondoms our goal is to promote a “party safe” environment. In collaboration with Safe Harbor/Connie Smith Rape Crisis Center, we were able to provide DFSA education and promote the rape crisis center along with other resources locally and on the CCGA campus, through the distribution of flyers and drink safety devices at The College of Coastal Georgia’s Homecoming Tailgate event. This project has increased not only our awareness of DSFA but also the awareness of our community. We hope that the members of our community along with our community partners continue to practice and promote drink safety year-round with the use of plastic lids for mixed drinks, drug testing coasters, and My CupCondoms. Throughout our project were able to incorporate many of the Service-Learning Objectives and Outcomes defined in the College of Coastal Georgia’s Service-Learning Model. Our project allowed us to collaborate with our community partners to tackle DFSA prevention to better address the needs of our community (SLO 1.1). It allowed us to assess the impact that DFSA makes on various stakeholders such as the individuals who have been sexually assaulted, the bars their drinks were contaminated in, and the rape crisis center that they receive medical care (SLO 1.3). This project allowed us to use the knowledge obtained in our previous Mental Health course as we assess the impacts that DFSA has on the community, while also incorporating concepts of our Community-Focused Nursing course to determine the needs specific to our community and address them accordingly (SLO 2.2). Since we collaborated with a variety of community partners across Glynn County our project also allowed us to gain valuable access to different resources within our community that we used to collect research data (SLO 2.3). As the project creators, it allowed each of us to increase our awareness and education about drug-facilitated sexual assault and, as future healthcare professionals, allowed us to take initiative and make a change that is needed in our community (SLO 3.3).
