Why the Largest Rape Crisis Center in New Mexico Uses StriveDB

Kim Stark, Executive Director: I would like to thank StriveDB for making my job easier. Truthfully, as an executive director who has to follow those numbers and stay on top of that, to be able to connect departments within your agency has really helped make our job a lot easier. Hands down, would definitely do it again. It saves time, and I feel for the clinicians too. It has been a time-saver for me as well. There's been a huge difference.

We were beyond terrified getting a new database, because it's new. Anything new is scary. But I would say thanks to you guys for making it not as scary, because I would not want to have any other database.

My name is Kim Stark, and I'm the Executive Director of the Rape Crisis Center of Central New Mexico and Albuquerque SANE Collaborative. It's always crazy. It's non-stop. We're the largest rape crisis center in New Mexico, and because there's so much crime in Albuquerque, we go 90 to nothing. The last five days, we had 15 cases that came in for medical accompaniment. So it is really crazy busy.

We were pretty fortunate because I know a lot of rape crisis centers use spreadsheets. We didn't have spreadsheets. We had a database. It just didn't do the amount of work that StriveDB does for us. We were still having to add numbers up. We didn't have where we could just hit a button and it would generate a report.

Being able to tie those calls to survivors, to track how many calls you have, to track the hours that the volunteers have worked, to track the advocacies, I think those are all going to be really important. It does make it a lot easier to be able to hit a button and it just generates the information that you needed for that report. You aren't having to go dig and find: how many continuing clients did you have? It's nice to be able to do that. And it helps with VOCA, because I know there's a lot of people who have to do VOCA as well. That one's a little harder and a little trickier on the reporting, but it is nice to be able to have all that data in one place. It makes my job a lot easier for the reporting, because the reports are so customized to what we need.

It also helps in tracking serial rapists. If you have a serial rapist, we've got some cases where there are similarities. Let's say he writes a particular thing on their skin. We can go in and search for the wording that was used on their skin and see how many cases are connected to that. When you're talking to law enforcement in those SART meetings, you can say, "Hey, this is not the only case. We have this guy in the database more than once."

We did have a sex trafficker that we presented in September that came back around in January, and law enforcement were familiar with that name because of what we had told them about it. They were actually able to get a conviction, which is great because he was trafficking children.

We were so used to the old system that we were like, "Oh, we're not going to be able to find everything." That was some of the hesitancy. The transition itself wasn't as bad as I had anticipated. What we found helpful for our department was that we would have a meeting once a week, just for about half an hour to an hour. Any updates that had come through, we would show. If somebody was confused on an area, we would show them. As I said, it was pretty intuitive and we just encouraged people to look around and try to open things and try them out.

At first, change is always hard. But once we got through that first initial couple of weeks, people did seem to really like it. They made comments, especially about the scheduling and different things. It was so much easier than our previous database. Now that they know how to do it, it's a lot faster for them. The notes are faster.

Sofia Chavarria, Volunteer Program Director: My name is Sofia. I'm currently the Volunteer Program Director with the Rape Crisis Center. I started off as a case manager as well, so I have a sense of both. I got to see our original database, and I got to see our new database from both sides. I got to do case management on both of them, and also volunteer on both of them as well.

Coming from the case management side now to the volunteer side, it's been helpful to see that our volunteers don't have access to a lot of client information, which has been very helpful as well. It's like two different sides of the database, which I like: they have their one side of it, and I also have my side of it.

Even though they're not seeing client information, it's very helpful that they're able to log in and enter stuff, because they still have access to entering the client's name. Once they enter the client's name, I'm able to, on my end, pull that and add it to the client's chart.

With the past database, our numbers were all over the place. Now with the new database, they're able to keep track of the numbers a little bit easier as well. You guys have been really helpful as far as support. When we reached out, you've been very responsive and helped us adjust what we needed to or tell people where they needed to go. Once that was done, it's been very smooth sailing.

Kim Stark, Executive Director: I do this because I think that no survivor should ever have to go through this by themselves. I can't imagine having someone that was sexually assaulted, whether an adult or a child. Our youngest victim was 10 months old last year, and our oldest was 98. So it runs the gamut. I can't imagine anyone coming forward and having to go through all the steps that it takes: from getting the courage to finally call the hotline, to going in and getting a sexual assault forensic medical exam, to all of it: if you have to have a protective order, or any kind of case management, or any of your medical bills paid because you received injuries, and then if you want to report to law enforcement, having to report to law enforcement alone. Then if it goes to court, having to go to court alone. I just can't imagine making someone go through that by themselves. So I think that's why I keep doing it. And I think it's a grassroots movement to end sexual violence.

Working with you guys made it a lot easier for me. Truthfully, everybody, I promise, everybody loves it. It's an adjustment, because anytime you're learning something new, obviously you've got that learning curve. But once you figure it out and you can see how versatile it is, it really does help.