University of Idaho administrators and local organizations detail the challenges of addressing domestic violence and sexual assault during the COVID-19 pandemic.
For local organizations, as well as the UI campus, the ability to assist survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault has been significantly mitigated by COVID-19. As resources that were normally available for survivors have been harder to come by, if not entirely unavailable, the past year and a half have revealed some of the cascading effects of the pandemic that have become incredibly difficult to address.
“It’s quite frankly a pandemic inside of a pandemic when it comes to the lives of domestic violence and sexual assault survivors,” Acting Director of Alternatives to Violence of the Palouse Andrea Piper-Wentland said.
As an organization that relies on volunteers, Alternatives to Violence of the Palouse was hit particularly hard by the employment shortages of the pandemic. A significant portion of the city’s population left because of COVID-19, and some of the volunteers, who were sourced from the university, were unsure of whether they would be able to return in the fall. This forced the shelter to rely more heavily on its few employees.
“In some instances, that means I’ve got a staff person essentially working 24 hours a day,” Piper-Wentland said. “They may have worked in the office all night and then taken a backup (shift) to answer the crisis line where normally that would be a volunteer.”
While the final percentages were not yet available, Piper-Wentland said the shelter saw a 21% increase in individuals seeking assistance at the onset of the pandemic and estimated a total increase of 30% over the prior year.
Though the increase in demand was in and of itself a challenge, Piper-Wentland said that part of the difficulty over the past year has been addressing situations that have been made more complex by COVID-19. Shifts to telehealth decreased access to counseling and shifting availability amongst providers for follow-up care after a sexual assault all factor into the equation. More broadly, the increased level of isolation made it particularly difficult to get out of harmful circumstances.
“For some survivors, maybe they had employment,” Piper-Wentland said. “That was the time when they were safe, when they were at their job. That might not be a thing anymore because of the pandemic.”
As people were forced indoors, these opportunities for escape became harder to come by as more and more felt trapped in unhealthy relationships.
The resources that are provided by Alternatives to Violence were also strained as a result of the pandemic. Piper-Wentland said that the demand for food and clothing, which is provided through community donation, has been particularly high. Overall accommodations were impacted by social distancing restrictions, which forced the 14-bed shelter to shift from being able to accommodate multiple families to just two at a time.
To address the decreased shelter capacity Piper-Wentland said that Alternatives to Violence has been forced to look at using hotels outside the Moscow area in order to ensure that survivors are provided safe housing, a solution that only added to the shelter’s strain for resources. These relocations are funded through emergency financial assistance, which the shelter uses to not only coordinate safe housing arrangements but also to help fund transportation when necessary.
Like Alternatives to Violence, the UI campus has also seen an uptick in sexual assault cases since the start of the pandemic. Despite the presence of COVID-19, however, the university has shown that educational programs can be integral to addressing the issue of sexual assault and interpersonal violence on campus.
“We’ve seen a pretty steady amount of sexual assault cases that we’re working with folks on,” UI Associate Director of Violence Prevention Programs Emilie McLarnan said.
McLarnan was unsure if this increase was the result of COVID-19 or the result of the campus population being more aware of the reporting mechanisms, as McLarnan noted that Campus Safety Awareness Month was well-attended by students this year.
The university’s Green Dot Safety Program, which provides bystander intervention training for students, faculty and staff, also saw encouraging numbers despite shifting to an online format at the start of the pandemic. This increased attendance has also coincided with an increased number of stalking reports, which remains a primary challenge on campus.
“In general, we’ve had more reports of stalking on campus over the last year and a half, two years and I think that students are understanding more about the dynamics of that issue,” McLarnan said. “I don’t think it’s a result of COVID, I think it is students understanding and recognizing the science more readily.”
Royce McCandless can be reached at [email protected]