HER FIRST CASE was not at all what she expected. Like every rape crisis volunteer, Jamee Roberts went into her work knowing she would be seeing disheartening crimes. Yet she believed she could help ease someone's trauma, which would make the job worthwhile.
Instead, Roberts completed her 40 hours of training, was given a beeper, took her first crisis call and drove quickly to Primary Children's emergency room - only to find that the 6-month-old baby who was raped had bled to death on the way to the hospital.Another volunteer might have given up right then. Another volunteer might have started looking for a less distressing way to donate her time.
Not Roberts. She was sickened and sad, but she didn't quit.
That was seven years ago. She's been volunteering for the Salt Lake Rape Crisis Center ever since. She's spent thousands of hours, mostly on nights and weekends, listening for her beeper and hurrying to the emergency room.
Sometimes, when she comes quickly through the hospital doors, she sees something that makes her want to gasp. But she doesn't. She asks herself, if someone in my family were lying on that table, how would I want them to be treated? Then she's calm. Then she can do the job she is supposed to do.
"I can't say, `I like doing this work,' " says Roberts. She never gets used to seeing women and children - even a few men - who have been brutalized. "I would rather the crime would stop and I would be out of a job."
But she keeps on volunteering. She volunteers because she can, because her husband's salary makes a second salary unnecessary, and because Roberts knows rape crisis workers make a difference. "I see people being able to go on. When they were at a place where they never thought they could."
Still, Roberts does get angry. She meets too many women who - at least initially - blame themselves. She sees too many children who aren't believed. She thinks our society takes better care of pets than it does of human beings. Sometimes the injustice makes her furious.
She doesn't want to get bitter. She tries to find a positive place to put all the energy her anger creates. During the school year she visits classrooms to talk to children about prevention. This summer, Roberts is putting energy into an art auction fund-raiser for the Rape Crisis Center.
In the volunteers' office at the center, Roberts hardly has room for her notebook. She sits surrounded by paintings, jewelry, stationery, clothing and pottery. She was gratified, she says, when she called local artists and asked them for a donation. She knows how many such calls they get, from various nonprofit organizations, yet 85 of them told her, "Yes, this is a cause I would like to support."
The Salt Lake Rape Crisis Center staff of six couldn't make it without community support and a group of volunteers numbering 137. Last year the center served 4,600 people, not counting those who got prevention education.
A licensed social worker does individual counseling, but other than that, volunteers do everything the paid staff does, says director Abby Maestas. Volunteers staff the 24-hour crisis phone line, meet victims at the hospital, go to court, help run the support groups, do crisis intervention with victims' families and significant others, and make follow-up calls and referrals.
While crisis workers are occasionally called to other hospitals, they most often visit Holy Cross (when the rape occurs within Salt Lake City limits) and St. Mark's (when the rape occurs in the county). All children are seen at Primary Children's Medical Center. Rape cases are handled at these specific hospitals where the staff has experience in collecting evidence, explains Roberts.
At Primary Children's, on a recent hot afternoon, the emergency waiting room was never empty. Summer seems to be the time for sprains and cuts and accidents of every kind. A father carried in his 10-year-old daughter who had fallen down some concrete stairs. A mother brought in her 12-year-old, who had sliced his hand with a knife.
And then there was the 5-year-old girl who had been fondled by her uncle. For some reason, says Maestas, child molestation seems to increase in the summertime, too.
Roberts met the little girl and her mother in an examining room. The child's voice could be heard occasionally, in the waiting area. The child sounded shrill and excited but cheerful enough. A police officer walked through the door and was taken back to see her.
It was a typical work day for Roberts; this day on which a child's life was forever changed.
Roberts' main goal, with children and with adults, is to let people know she believes them and to give them back a sense of control.
In a typical crisis, after she introduces herself to the family, Roberts sits in on the police interview. "I don't say much. Leading the witness can be very damaging to the case. I do some crisis intervention. If someone is choking up, can't seem to answer a question, I'll say, `You are doing a great job. I know this is hard to talk about. Do you want to take a minute before you talk about it?' "
Roberts says children know the hospital is a safe place. Being examined feels different from being abused. "The doctor is going to come in pretty soon and listen to your heart," explains Roberts. She explains what other body parts will be examined and says, "Is that OK?" She asks permission to help establish the difference between this situation and the abuse situation. "Tell us if something hurts you and we will stop right away," she says.
Often a parent will bring a child in to be examined without saying why they are there. Roberts talks to the child about different kinds of hurts, hurts on the arm or leg, that the doctor will look at. And hurts on other parts of the body that might be harder to talk about.
"I tell them that Mommy, or Daddy, or Grandma, or whoever brought them in loves them very much." She explains people will be looking at them and talking to them "just so we can know what happened and try to make sure it won't happen anymore."
When she's working with children, 90 percent of whom are abused by someone they know well, "I never make a guarantee it won't happen again," says Roberts. Nor does she make guarantees to adults about what will happen after their assault. She's worked with enough rape victims to know there aren't any guarantees - except that, when they need one, a crisis volunteer will be there.
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Additional Information
Crisis center benefit
La Caille at Quail Run will host a benefit for the Salt Lake Rape Crisis Center on Thursday, July 14. A dinner will be followed by live and silent auctions, featuring Utah artists such as Gary Collins and A.D. Shaw. Tickets are $50. For reservations call 467-7282.