Stuart House a haven for young victims of sexual assault

Five years ago, Marleney* found herself at the doorstep of a pink, two-story building in Santa Monica, reluctant and apprehensive.

She had been sent to Stuart House for a required year of therapy, after her high school counselor discovered she had suffered from nearly three years of sexual abuse by her father. Although she initially found the house daunting, she said she eventually found the peace and safety she was looking for.

“When I first went in, I was very scared, but the whole environment they put together (was) very welcoming,” Marleney said. “It made me feel safe.”

While extensive national attention has recently been given to the issue of sexual violence on college campuses, not as much has been given to youths who have survived sexual violence. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, about 63,000 cases of child sexual abuse were reported in 2012, an increase of about 2 percent from the year before.

Stuart House offers an eponymous program that treats child and adolescent victims of sexual assault for free. The house, an extension of the Rape Treatment Center at the Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center, provides services such as 24-hour medical care, evidentiary examinations, case management and counseling.

In November last year, the University of California Board of Regents approved plans to relocate Stuart House to a new, larger building near the Rape Treatment Center so that it can serve more children.

“(Stuart House) is over 25 years old, so we’ve completely run out of space,” said Gail Abarbanel, director of the Rape Treatment Center and founder of Stuart House. “We can’t serve any more children than we serve now.”

The Rape Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides support for child survivors of sexual assault, is raising the money to fund the project, which is projected to cost about $17 million.

The house currently serves about 300 children annually, and the new building will double the capacity, which will allow for more staff members and a training center for first responders, police and medical personnel. UCLA and Stuart House are partnering on the project, which is expected to finish next year.

Abarbanel, who created the Rape Treatment Center in 1974, founded Stuart House in 1988 to address problems she saw with the way child survivors of sexual assault were treated after reporting assaults.

Abarbanel said she thinks some agencies involved in treating child survivors have lacked coordination and sensitivity in their work.

“Many agencies are involved when a child is hurt,” Abarbanel said. “It’s important for the children and the community for these agencies to communicate.”

Some children who are transferred between different agencies after assault must go through multiple interviews and retell their experiences, Abarbanel said. Members of Stuart House found that some children were interviewed as many as 12 times.

“It’s really hard for children to withstand that (systemic) trauma,” Abarbanel said.

Children who come to Stuart House are interviewed only once by an expert child forensic interview specialist, while child advocates, police and prosecutors watch behind a one-way mirror to avoid duplicate interviewing, Abarbanel said. She added that forensic specialists at Stuart House are trained in child development, which helps them adapt different interviewing strategies for specific age groups.

Thomas Lyon, a professor at the USC Gould School of Law who specializes in child maltreatment, said child sexual abuse is quite different from sexual violence toward adults because children often suffer abuse over a longer period of time.

Lyon said he thinks a jury often doesn’t understand why children take longer to report abuse, so their cases are difficult to prove in court. Adding to the difficulty, Lyon said, is that children often have to face the defendants in court when they give their testimonies.

“It’s terrifying for children to go to court. They are often intimidated by the presence of defendants,” Lyon said.

Stuart House videotapes interviews with children when they first enter the house, and the interviews can be used as additional evidence in court, Lyon said.

Marleney, who is now 20 years old and studies biomedical science at Loyola Marymount University, initially refrained from telling her story at the house, but she began to feel more at ease after a few weeks of therapy.

“It was really hard at first,” she said. “But as soon as I told (the counselor), it felt as if this weight had been lifted from my shoulders and as if she was sharing my pain.”

Marleney said her experience at Stuart House helped her start a new chapter of her life.

“If I hadn’t met (Abarbanel) and if I hadn’t gone to Stuart House, I might have not been where I am now,” she said. “It would have been hard to make it out of high school.”

Stuart House assisted her in her academic endeavors, equipping her with free SAT tutoring and a laptop. With the support of the house, she graduated high school with a 3.8 weighted GPA.

Though Marleney no longer receives treatment at Stuart House, she continues to be involved in other ways and sometimes speaks at the organization’s charity events.

“The biggest help they gave me is not just helping me get over what I went through, but making me stronger,” she said. “They helped turn my story into something so positive.”

*Marleney, a victim of sexual assault, requested that we refrain from using her last name in the article for her protection.

Contributing reports by Jeong Park, Bruin senior staff.