What it Means to be a Hospital Advocate
Since 2001, Women’s Crisis Center has provided 24/7/365 responsiveness to hospital emergency departments throughout our 13-county service area. Each time a victim-survivor of domestic violence, rape, or sexual assault presents for care in an emergency department within our service area, Women’s Crisis Center dispatches a professionally-trained advocate—staff (in Northern Kentucky and Buffalo Trace) or volunteer (in Northern Kentucky).
Without our dedicated volunteers who give of their own time—both throughout an extensive training and continuing education process and during their monthly on-call shifts—such responsiveness would be impossible. Women’s Crisis Center volunteer hospital advocates come from all walks of life, and all experiences. They are friends, mothers, sisters, professionals, social workers, retirees, students, activists, artists, and educators. Some are themselves survivors of domestic violence, rape, or sexual assault.
Our hospital advocates are unified in their belief that every survivor deserves one-on-one support and attention while navigating the immediate aftermath of domestic violence, rape, or sexual assault. Our hospital advocates are the reason why Hope is Found Here.
Program-Specific Requirements
- Submission of Women’s Crisis Center Volunteer Application
- In-person interview
- Reference check
- Criminal background check
- Successful completion of 40-hour hospital advocacy training series (offered several times yearly)
- One-year minimum commitment to serving the agency as a hospital advocate
- Reliable transportation (via personal vehicle) to local St. Elizabeth Hospital locations
- Availability for at least two on-call shifts per month
40-Hour Training
- Offered 3 times annually—in spring, summer, and autumn
- Required for new direct-service volunteers and new agency staff
- Classes conducted via 8 sessions in the evenings and on weekends within a given month
- Mark your calendars for our next 40-hour training series in April 2017!
- Email shanat@wccky.org for details.
- Women’s Crisis Center 40-Hour Training Schedule [April 2017]
- Click here to learn more about requirements of attending 40-Hour Training