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Chicago Reader
On a frosty day in February, Dr. Nora Rowley sat on the floor of the mustard-yellow playroom in the Marjorie Kovler Center in Rogers Park helping five-year-old Oscar* push a dump truck around the room. The boy had recently come to the city with his mother from Guatemala, and Rowley asked him what he thought of his new home. Oscar said he didn't like the wind and winter here.
Was there anything he didn't miss from his old home? she asked.
"The bad guy," Oscar said.
"Who is the bad guy?" Rowley asked.
"My daddy," Oscar replied. "He hit mommy and me."
When Rowley examined Oscar she found scars all over his body from being abused by his father, a gang member.
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Get your free digital downloads today. Documents include:
- Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Education Guidelines, Adult and Pediatric
- Forensic Nurse Death Investigator Education Guidelines
- Intimate Partner Violence Nurse Examiner Education Guidelines
- Non-Fatal Strangulation Documentation Toolkit
- Core Competencies for Advanced Practice Forensic Nursing
- National Training Standards for Sexual Assault Medical Forensic Examiners
- National Protocol for Sexual Assault Medical Forensic Examinations (Adult/Adolescent)
- National Protocol for Sexual Assault Medical Forensic Examinations (Pediatric)
The IAFN Foundation is seeking applications from IAFN members to serve on the IAFN Foundation Board of Directors. The IAFN Foundation is a 501c(3) non-profit that promotes the professional values of forensic nursing by supporting forensic nurses and ongoing advancements in nursing practice through scholarships and grants. Please apply by Oct. 7, 2019.
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By becoming a member of the International Association of Forensic Nurses, you will be joining the world's largest and most prestigious network of forensic nursing professionals. Association membership gives you the resources you need to develop your practice, connect with your peers in the industry, and stay up to date on the latest research and best practices.
Duquesne University School of Education
The forensic nursing community has long known that the lack of expert Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANE) throughout the country has been a major barrier regarding attempts to increase the number of SANEs. Many nurses complete the didactic SANE course, but then find it difficult to identify an expert SANE in their clinical area who can then mentor them through their first exams with a patient who has been sexually assaulted. The mentor would then be available to them to answer their questions as they begin to accumulate their required hours and expertise in order to sit for the certification exam. For those nurses who do not have a SANE mentor where they work, there are clinical courses that are sometimes offered at a site where the nurse can attend a 2-3 day hands on experience in order to learn how to conduct an exam.
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The Washington Post
Debbie Smith was ready to tell her story again, if necessary. Rape victim. DNA evidence untested for years. Evidence finally tested, suspect identified and convicted. Her story helped inspire the federal Debbie Smith Act, first passed in 2004, to provide funding for testing and training to eliminate the vast backlog of untested DNA and rape kit evidence across the country.
Over the next 15 years, nearly 200,000 DNA matches have been made by a national database after samples were submitted because of the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grant Program. But now that funding is set to expire, so Smith stood on a podium in Washington on Sept. 6 and pleaded with Congress to reauthorize the funding before the law expires Sept. 30.
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CNN
Alongside other "essential" household supplies for sale on Amazon, there's now a product offered that might give consumers pause: an at-home rape kit.
The "PRESERVEkit," listed for $29.95, is intended for those who have been sexually assaulted. It is advertised as "containing all of the tools and step-by-step directions needed for the proper collection of evidence if going to the police or medical facility is not an option."
Few people — prosecutors or advocates for sexual abuse victims — think this is a good idea, because the evidence collected would be useless in court and expose the alleged victim to medical risks.
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NBC News
Suicide rates are on the rise, especially in rural America, according to a study published Sept. 6.
From 1999 to 2016, the rate of suicide among Americans ages 25 to 64 rose by 41 percent, researchers reported in JAMA Network Open. Rates among people living in rural counties were 25 percent higher than those in major metropolitan areas.
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BBC News
On Sept. 1, a resident of Cagnes-sur-Mer in the south of France spotted a foot sticking out from a pile of rubbish, branches and an old quilt.
It was the disfigured body of a woman, the victim of a brutal attack. Her partner denies her murder.
Salomé, 21, could be France's 100th victim this year of "femicide" - usually defined as the murder of a woman by a partner, ex-partner or family member. The day after Salomé's body was found, a 92-year-old woman was caned to death by her 94-year-old husband.
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Spectrum News 13
For the people inside the medical examiner's office in Kips Bay, Sept. 11 is something they think about every single day. They're forensic scientists who are still trying to identify victims' remains, now 18 years after the attack.
"This is a process that we've not stopped since 2001," said Mark Desire, the assistant director of the department of forensic biology at the medical examiner's office. "So all of the remains — and there are 22,000 remains that have been recovered — all of those remains have been attempted many times over the years."
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The New York Times
Sexual assault in the military is a problem widely recognized but poorly understood. Elected officials and Pentagon leaders have tended to focus on the thousands of women who have been preyed upon while in uniform. But over the years, more of the victims have been men.
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UNFPA
Several weeks ago, a woman brought her 11-year-old daughter, Anne*, to a UNFPA-supported health facility. Their family had been uprooted by the conflict in Ituri Province and, in the chaos, Anne was sexually assaulted.
A nurse welcomed the girl, who was too terrified to speak. With a lot of time and patience, clinic staff helped Anne feel comfortable enough to tell her story and consent to an examination. A social worker began to help her through the healing process.
Tragically, Anne’s experience is far from unique. Thousands of women and girls in Ituri Province have been subjected to gender-based violence, as have women and girls in conflict-affected North Kivu and South Kivu.
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News24
The South African Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecology has introduced new guidelines for the routine screening of females victims of intimate partner violence.
"GBV (gender-based violence) is a public health scourge that affects one in every three women globally and is no doubt the most pervasive of all human rights violations. In South Africa, a woman is killed every three hours, ranking femicide in this country fourth highest in the world," SASOG said in a statement.
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The Guardian
Blood on the walls. Bruises like smashed plums. As long as Sefina* can remember, family violence has been part of her life. She watched her mother routinely attacked by her stepfather. “Sorry,” her mother would whisper afterwards to the children.
Then, Sefina’s elder sister was nearly killed by a group of male relatives for breaking the curfew. “Sorry,” her sister told her as she later left the island for good.
“It’s a norm here. You don’t talk about violence, you have to be absolutely silent,” says Sefina, now 22, and suffering from depression and anxiety. She has survived multiple suicide attempts.
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ABC News
A 12-year national plan to reduce domestic violence is nearing its end, but it's unclear if the strategy is working.
The Federal Government concedes it's difficult to know the extent of the problem, with inconsistencies in reporting across states and territories.
Added to that are decades of women having suffered in silence, leading to an underreporting of their abuse.
There's no lack of good will to address what's so often been dubbed a national scourge.
But until the numbers start to fall, statistics will grow and lives will continue to be destroyed.
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Baylor College of Medicine via Medical Xpress
Astrocytes are the most abundant cells in the brain, yet there is still much to learn about them. For instance, it is known that, when the brain is injured or diseased, astrocytes are the first responders. They become reactive and play roles that can be both beneficial and deleterious, but little is known about how these diverse responses to injury are regulated. Working with mouse models, a multi-institutional group led by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine has identified nuclear factor I-A as a central regulator of both the generation and activity of reactive astrocytes.
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European College of Neuropsychopharmacology via Medical Xpress
Scientists have found that brain networks develop differently in males and females at puberty, with boys showing an increase in connectivity in certain brain areas, and girls showing a decrease in connectivity as puberty progresses. These analyses were focused on brain regions previously identified as conferring risk for mood problems in adolescents, suggesting an association, although this needs to be tested. This work was presented at the ECNP Congress in Copenhagen, and is based on a recent peer-reviewed publication.
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Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health via ScienceDaily
Women who experienced six or more symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder at some point in life had a twofold greater risk of developing ovarian cancer compared with women who never had any PTSD symptoms, according to a new study from researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Moffitt Cancer Center.
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