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.Abstract Teaser