Every month, we feature a United Way Partner Agency’s client experience, demonstrating the impact that donations to United Way of Sheboygan County are making. This month’s client experience was submitted directly by Deborah Lee, Associate Director at Safe Harbor of Sheboygan County, as part of their annual application for Prevention & Education program funding.

“Our Prevention Education Specialist provided a presentation with one of the Assistant District Attorneys from Sheboygan County to a large group of Lakeland College students, many of which were spring sport athletes.

The topic of this presentation was Sexual Assault and Consent. As we always do, we were observing the audience and noticed that one of the girls had tears running down her face and a friend consoling her. 
We walked over to the counselor that was at the presentation and asked her if she could touch base with her while we finish our presentation. As the girl walked out of the room, the counselor followed and offered support. She ended up disclosing that she had been sexually assaulted and had just not realized it before the presentation.

She was not interested in receiving services at that point, but a couple days later she remembered us and wanted to make a report regarding the assault. We had talked to her about her options in reporting and what to expect.

A couple days later, we received a phone call from the Sheboygan County Sheriff’s Department requesting our advocacy services at a sexual assault interview. When we arrived, we noticed it was the girl from the presentation. After hearing the presentation, she wanted to come forward and report what had happened to her. 

Without the awareness and support at the presentation she may not have reported the assault and been introduced to services.”