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If you or someone you know needs resources or support related to sexual violence, contact the Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault’s 24/7 hotline at 800-871-7741.
Keri Kapaldo is a registered nurse and sexual assault forensic examiner at St. Joseph Hospital in Bangor.
When a survivor comes to the hospital after a sexual assault, they are often just hours removed from one of the most traumatic experiences of their lives. The support they receive in that moment shapes what comes next and how they carry that experience in the months that follow.
Sexual assault forensic examiners, or SAFEs, are specially trained healthcare practitioners who provide care to patients after assaults. They complete extensive, specialized training to provide trauma-informed medical care and collect evidence that may be used in a criminal investigation.
I have been a SAFE for more than a decade and currently serve as the program coordinator of St. Joseph Hospital’s comprehensive violence SAFE Program, one of only two such programs in the state. I’m incredibly proud of our program, and part of our success lies with our deep ties to our local sexual assault support advocates, because this work truly couldn’t be done without them.
While the SAFE’s role is incredibly important, I know we are just one part of Maine’s response to sexual violence. We are not the ones who sit beside a survivor for hours after the exam ends or follow up days later when the shock begins to wear off. We are not the ones helping them navigate protection from abuse orders, therapist referrals, housing concerns, or the complex emotions that surface in the weeks and months that follow.
Advocates do that work, and they do it incredibly well. But for far too long, the pay for this work has not matched the skill, training, and emotional toll it requires. I am grateful that funding for forensic exam kit tracking and testing has been included in the proposed budget. Having transparency and accountability around forensic evidence is critically important. Survivors deserve to know where their kits are and that their cases are being taken seriously.
But medical care and kit tracking is just the beginning of everything that comes next, and advocates shape that experience in ways that are hard to overstate. They are the steady presence who help survivors make sense of what is happening, understand their options, and move through systems that can otherwise feel overwhelming.
For decades, advocates did this work for wages that did not reflect its complexity or importance, and I have seen firsthand what that does to programs. High turnover means that beloved, skilled advocates burn out or leave for work that pays their bills. When they leave, advocacy programs lose years of training and institutional knowledge, hospitals lose trusted partners, and survivors lose continuity, because they lose someone who knows their story and has been there since the beginning.
Last year, the Legislature took an important step by funding a wage increase for sexual assault advocates. That increase has made a significant difference, but without further action, that funding will expire and those wages will disappear.
Without a strong advocacy workforce, the state’s progress on sexual assault kit reform will not have the impact it is meant to. Survivors’ decisions about whether to report or have evidence collected are directly shaped by whether they feel supported enough to take that step. Making the wage increase for advocates permanent is a meaningful way to invest in survivors, support a workforce we should all value deeply, strengthen the care people receive in our hospitals, and ensure that these broader investments work as intended.
That is what it takes to build a response that works for survivors.
