Groups reach out online to abuse victims
— -- The nation's largest anti-sexual-assault organization will announce today that it is pioneering an Internet-based hotline to counsel abused young people, part of a new trend to reach a generation often more comfortable with texting than talking.
The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network has run a telephone hotline for 14 years. But now it hopes to reach a new generation "who would've never picked up the phone" with an anonymous, instant-messaging-based hotline, says Scott Berkowitz, RAINN president.
Hotlines often serve as the first stop, whether people are reporting recent abuse or revealing old traumas for the first time. That's why anonymity is paramount, Berkowitz says.
Trained hotline operators don't press callers to reveal personal information, but they will help connect them with authorities and counselors when appropriate, Berkowitz says.
RAINN (RAINN.org) is part of a growing number of organizations reaching out to young people reared on video games, cellphones and the Internet by testing new breeds of services.
"You've got to reach out to teens where they're communicating," says Nancy Willard, author of Cyber-Safe Kids, Cyber-Savvy Teens.
Other recent examples include:
• The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline launched a page on popular social networking site MySpace last year and recently built one on rival Facebook. The social network pages lead to the telephone hotline, where people can speak with trained phone operators.
It now receives 20,000 visitors a month to its website directly from MySpace.
"One might say that if the Internet were a phone line, our site would be ringing off the hook," says John Draper, Lifeline manager.
• Oakland-based Internet Sexuality Information Services offers teens information about sexually transmitted diseases via cellphone text-messaging.
• The Austin-based National Domestic Violence Hotline simultaneously launched phone and Internet hotlines for teen dating violence last year, says CEO Sheryl Cates.
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