Minneapolis City Council unanimously agreed to renew a $400,000 contract with Cornerstone to improve the associations’ shelters on March 17.
Cornerstone is a nonprofit organization that gives financial and legal assistance to sexual assault survivors, provides emotional support to victims and works with the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) to support victims.
Jude Foster, the director of community services at Cornerstone, said the $400,000 would go to improving Cornerstone’s shelters and helping with the domestic violence support programs.
The partnership between Cornerstone and the MPD started in 2021 when the MPD put out a request for more advocates in the department.
Currently, the MPD has two advocates from Cornerstone in their department, one at the domestic violence unit and the other at the sexual assault unit.
According to Emily Olson, the deputy chief of investigations, advocates help sexual assault survivors by helping victims understand legal terminology, help them find housing and stay with them during the Sexual Assault Nurse Examination Process (SANE).
Sexual assault advocates like Olson said support for victims is crucial. According to the National Sexual Violence Center, around 63% of sexual crimes are not reported to the police. Olson said the advocates help during the often cumbersome and unkind police investigation process.
“There is a certain amount of shame and embarrassment that victims sometimes carry that is unwarranted,” Olson said. “So, you try to be really sensitive about those things, and I think that they need extra care.”
Foster, who worked as an advocate with Cornerstone for about 30 years, said having an advocate with victims also gives them a sense of safety the police are not able to provide.
“It’s important to have somebody that has the capacity to stay in contact with that victim survivor,” Foster said. “So giving that victim survivor updates, this is where your investigation is going. Those kinds of things also just provide that emotional support for victim-survivors.”
Advocates also support survivors by being avenues for survivors to share information about the assault without having to report it to the police. Under state law, sexual assault advocates can not be made to testify.
Ashley Taylor-Gougé, the associate director of the Sexual Violence Center, said the privacy from advocates helps survivors feel supported when they may not be ready to report it to the police.
“Many survivors don’t feel comfortable engaging with the criminal justice system, and having an advocate they can trust — who is not a representative of the police department — helps to build trust and ensures they feel safe opening up,” Taylor-Gougé said in a statement. “When survivors know their advocate is someone who is solely there to support them, not to represent law enforcement, it creates a sense of security and empowerment.”
Going forward, Foster wants to expand the advocacy program at the MPD by adding more advocates to the sexual assault division.
Olson said she wants the partnership to show people in Minneapolis that the police and government are a united front in preventing more trauma for survivors of sexual assault.
“When we have survivors or victims of any crime, I think they need to feel supported by everyone, and I think that we all need to be one front,” Olson said. “We need to be all on the same page, and we all need them to feel like the system is working with them and for them, and the only way that we can do that is if we all are publicly putting forth the same message, that you are supported, that we are here to help you, and that the system is here to fairly and equitably give you support and services.”
