SANE nurses needed in Camden County
The Camden County Prosecutor’s office is seeking registered nurses to become trained as forensic nurses as part of the state’s Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) program to assist rape victims and police.
The SANE program was created in 1998 to better treat sexual assault victims, Theresa McLaughlin, assistant coordinator of the Camden County SANE program, said.
“If they were assaulted and came into the nearest emergency department, they would be triaged like any other patient, and since they’re not really ‘acutely injured,’ they’d be put on the back of the list – they’d be waiting with their torn clothes, or whatever, in the main waiting room of the emergency department for hours,” McLaughlin said. “If it were your wife or daughter, you wouldn’t want that to happen, God forbid, and as they’re sitting there, we’re losing evidence.”
The standards for the SANE program’s training come directly from the New Jersey Attorney General’s office, McLaughlin said.
The program uses a Sexual Assault Response Team (SART), which comprises a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner, who is trained in forensic nursing and handles the evidentiary examination and treatment; a Rape Care Advocate, who is trained in crisis intervention; and a law enforcement officer with specialized training in the area of sexual assault.
While every county has its own SANE program, McLaughlin said Camden County’s program is the busiest in the state.
“The SANE program came about because the nurses saw that these patients weren’t being well-served, so we went for additional training to learn how to collect evidence,” McLaughlin said. “We went to forensics classes, and the board of nursing came onboard and actually had requirements that we would have to pass in order to become certified as a forensic nurse – to collect this type of evidence.”
McLaughlin is a nurse who sees patients at Cooper, Kennedy and Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center hospitals. The Sexual Assault Response Teams are on call 24/7, though, as of a couple years ago, there were only 175 nurses were certified with SANE.
To help bolster those numbers, RNs with at least two years of full-time clinical nursing may participate in the 64-hour, basic SANE course held Oct. 8, 9, 10, 22, 23, 24 and Nov. 18. Participants must be a New Jersey resident and licensed in the state.
McLaughlin said nurses pay for their own training, but in Camden, once they’re active for six months, and taking active calls, they are reimbursed for the course. And the result of having more SANE nurses available?
“I know that across the board guilty pleas are up,” McLaughlin said. “Most of the time, when there’s DNA [evidence available], and it’s a he said/she said, what they tell me is nine times out of ten, the perpetrator will take a lesser charge, and that eliminates our victims having to testify.”
For more information about the SANE program or to register, call 856-365-3111.
The SANE program was created in 1998 to better treat sexual assault victims, Theresa McLaughlin, assistant coordinator of the Camden County SANE program, said.
“If they were assaulted and came into the nearest emergency department, they would be triaged like any other patient, and since they’re not really ‘acutely injured,’ they’d be put on the back of the list – they’d be waiting with their torn clothes, or whatever, in the main waiting room of the emergency department for hours,” McLaughlin said. “If it were your wife or daughter, you wouldn’t want that to happen, God forbid, and as they’re sitting there, we’re losing evidence.”
The standards for the SANE program’s training come directly from the New Jersey Attorney General’s office, McLaughlin said.
The program uses a Sexual Assault Response Team (SART), which comprises a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner, who is trained in forensic nursing and handles the evidentiary examination and treatment; a Rape Care Advocate, who is trained in crisis intervention; and a law enforcement officer with specialized training in the area of sexual assault.
While every county has its own SANE program, McLaughlin said Camden County’s program is the busiest in the state.
“The SANE program came about because the nurses saw that these patients weren’t being well-served, so we went for additional training to learn how to collect evidence,” McLaughlin said. “We went to forensics classes, and the board of nursing came onboard and actually had requirements that we would have to pass in order to become certified as a forensic nurse – to collect this type of evidence.”
McLaughlin is a nurse who sees patients at Cooper, Kennedy and Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center hospitals. The Sexual Assault Response Teams are on call 24/7, though, as of a couple years ago, there were only 175 nurses were certified with SANE.
To help bolster those numbers, RNs with at least two years of full-time clinical nursing may participate in the 64-hour, basic SANE course held Oct. 8, 9, 10, 22, 23, 24 and Nov. 18. Participants must be a New Jersey resident and licensed in the state.
McLaughlin said nurses pay for their own training, but in Camden, once they’re active for six months, and taking active calls, they are reimbursed for the course. And the result of having more SANE nurses available?
“I know that across the board guilty pleas are up,” McLaughlin said. “Most of the time, when there’s DNA [evidence available], and it’s a he said/she said, what they tell me is nine times out of ten, the perpetrator will take a lesser charge, and that eliminates our victims having to testify.”
For more information about the SANE program or to register, call 856-365-3111.
