Development of a medical center rape crisis intervention program

The Rape Crisis Intervention Program at Beth Israel Hospital utilizes volunteer multidisciplinary counseling teams drawn from psychiatry, social work, psychology, and nursing staffs. The premise of the program is that early crisis intervention can prevent later development of psychological disturbances in later development of psychological disturbances in victims. Counselors accompany victims throughout emergency room procedures: follow-up begins 48 hours after the initial contact and continues at regular intervals for at least a year. The authors discuss the problems of implementation, which include staff resistance, finding questions, and varying levels of counseling sophistication, and describe how these difficulties have been handled in their program. They note that this program is becoming a resource center for the community.