Detroit center launches $15M campaign to boost care for sexual assault victims

Kimberly Hurst was training at Wayne State University to be a physician assistant when an attending doctor handed her a rape kit to collect evidence on a patient, but she hadn't learned how to use it.

After working in a Detroit hospital emergency room, Hurst sought training as a sexual assault forensic examiner because she's passionate about helping those who are sexually assaulted and collecting DNA to increase the chances of identifying and holding a perpetrator accountable.

While moonlighting as a forensic examiner, better known as a professional who administers a rape kit, Hurst noticed many sexual assault victims she served in Oakland and Macomb County hospitals traveled from Detroit or Wayne County because they couldn't get a forensic exam there. So in 2006 she began the first program in Wayne County to provide sexual assault forensic exams to women, men and children after a rape.

Nearly 20 years later, Avalon Healing Center has grown to six forensic exam centers in the region providing trauma-informed care while offering the only follow-up care center in Michigan. It offers other services such as transportation, expert witnesses and healing services such as yoga, sound bath, Reiki and art therapy. All for free.

Now Avalon Healing Center has launched a $15 million capital campaign to sustain the organization's work and try to complete an effort to become a one-stop shop for survivors of sexual assault and human trafficking. The group hopes this help its Detroit facility become a national model of care.

"There is something about being there to help someone and maybe get them to see how we can turn the page," Hurst said to a group of supporters gathered at a recent high tea to help launch the campaign. "I know that we've saved lives. We've changed lives."

Avalon Healing Center started with Hurst and two forensic nurse examiners and has since grown to a staff of 40. A catalyst was when Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy asked the group if it could provide counseling and other services to the survivors of the 11,341 untested rape kits that were discovered in a Detroit warehouse in 2009, said Trinea Gonczar, director of engagement.

"We have leaders from across the country and across the globe looking to us to for this model care," Gonczar said, adding that finding spread-out resources after a sexual assault is exhausting and can lead to some giving up. "If you have everything you need in one place, you can engage in that healing journey."

Besides its work with survivors, it working this week to help combat human trafficking as Detroit prepares to host the NFL Draft.

The work Avalon Healing Center is doing is so important, said Cynthia Ford, who works on many philanthropic causes including Forgotten Harvest, where she serves on the board.

"This is an organization that has embraced justice," said Ford, who attended the launch of the capital campaign.

Sexual assaults are "way too prevalent" needed to be addressed, she added.

Avalon Healing Center was only offering rape kits at one clinic location in Detroit in 2006 when it was known as Wayne County SAFE (Sexual Assault Forensic Examiner's program). Hurst said initially Ascension St. John Hospital and Henry Ford hospitals were referring patients. The program was seeing 200 sexual assault victims a year and providing care, she said.

Today every emergency department in Wayne County refers sexual assault patients to Avalon Healing Center, Hurst said. It has six clinic locations, including within Ascension St. John, Detroit Receiving Hospital, DMC Sinai Grace Hospital, a clinic in a medical office building in Taylor and Kids-TALK Children's Advocacy Center.

Avalon Healing Center's team is made up of trained nurses who are on call 24/7 and respond to a sexual assault survivor who shows up at a clinic with a medical provider and a trained advocate. A full medical evaluation is done, medications are provided to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, along with the DNA collection. The organization also provides other services such as counseling as well as a follow-up clinic that provides pregnancy and disease testing and ensures patients are taking their medications.

"We've got everything in place to take a barrier away from somebody needing or wanting services," said Hurst.

Avalon Healing Center, which has served 23,000 victims since it opened, operates on a budget of just under $5 million, 80% of which is financed by federal and state dollars, Hurst said.

The capital campaign is for the second phase of construction at a 30,000-square-foot facility on Bagley in Detroit that opened last year and will add more trauma-informed design and more programming such as financial education. It has received a $1 million grant from Yield Giving, an organization established by philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, along with $4 million from other sources.

Having a one-stop location for sexual assault victims is important, Hurst added.

"So survivors don't have to go to all kinds of different places that they would otherwise have to figure out transportation," she said. "The goal is to focus on healing."

kkozlowski@detroitnews.com