BREMERTON — If you were an assault victim and your world was turned upside down, where would you turn?

Many turn to the Kitsap Sexual Assault Center, or KSAC.

Although April was Sexual Assault Awareness Month, funding needed to assist victims of sexual assault in Kitsap is needed year-round.

KSAC, a nonprofit organization, was established in 1975. Staff members assist sexual assault victims and their families by providing no-cost counseling, advocacy, therapy, a 24-hour crisis line (1-866-831-2050), and sexual assault prevention education.

The organization has a roughly $500,000 annual budget and a fully credentialed staff at three locations: Bainbridge Island, Bremerton and Port Orchard; KSAC also has therapists at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church on Bainbridge Island. KSAC staff and volunteers hope to expand their presence in North Kitsap by moving into Fishline’s proposed comprehensive services center on Viking Avenue.

“Providing access to experts who can understand and offer the kind of specialized counseling and support needed by our clients who have experienced a violent or sexual assault is part of why Fishline is building its comprehensive services center,” said Mary Nader, executive director at North Kitsap Fishline.

“Through partnerships with the specialists in their field, and having their services located on site, trusted and compassionate care will be more accessible for our North Kitsap neighbors than has been available in the past. Though we wish people never had to experience crises like these, we are glad that our community pulls together to help victims stabilize and heal.”

KSAC Executive Director Sandi Carlton said the commitment to join Fishline in its new comprehensive services center will cost up to $8,000.

“We’re committed,” Carlton said. “We’re trying to find the funds to do this.”

KSAC hopes a more centralized north-end location will make assistance more accessible to clients.

“It’s a long way from Kingston to Bremerton or Port Orchard to see a therapist,” Carlton said. “Collaboration and one-stop service are always an important thing when providing social services, and we’d like to be able to provide these services to everyone.”

Last month, KSAC kicked off its first annual fundraiser, “100 Stand Up Men and Women Say No to Sexual Assault,” to raise money and encourage the community to stand up against sexual assault. Their goal is to raise $100,000 to cover essential operating costs and other expenses not covered by grants. KSAC raised $14,800 as of May 2, though board members said donations are still “trickling in.”

“The funding for this program is critical,” Carlton said.

Prior to becoming executive director, Carlton was a therapist of KSAC for seven years. “I had the opportunity to sit with clients one-on-one through therapy. The stories we hear are horrific,” she said.

From 2016 to present, KSAC has provided services to 384 men, woman and children. Of them, 201 were children — about 52 percent, almost 10 percent higher than the previous year’s rate.

Of KSAC’s 3,030 clients from the year 2000 to present, its youngest reported client was 3 years old; the oldest, 62.

“This is something that never really goes away,” said Kitsap County Sheriff’s Detective Lori Blankenship, a KSAC board member. “It’s a very worthy cause. And it’s certainly a job we handle here at the sheriff’s office.”

KSAC makes presentations at schools and before community groups, reaching an estimated 800 people a year from the outreach.

“Most of us do it because we’ve been touched by it ourselves,” Carlton said. “These are issues that touch people’s hearts. We want [assault victims] to know, there’s somebody here for you — you don’t have to go through this journey alone.”

Beverly Van Santford is a child and family advocate with KSAC. She is working on more than 150 cases.

Committed to helping victims become survivors, Van Santford said, “Believing in them makes the biggest difference to the victim. My role is to be here for them and to be an advocate for them. I’m their biggest cheerleader here as they go through this process to get them back in control of their lives.”

She added, “We want them to know they are not alone. Their whole world as they knew it prior no longer exists. They’re now thrown into court, police investigations, therapy, emotions associated with trauma … For a lot of them, their innocence is taken away and often times this manifests into difficulty in relationships and mental health issues such as PTSD, depression or high anxiety.”

Donate by sending a check to Kitsap County Sexual Assault Center, P.O. Box 1936, Port Orchard, WA 98366. Go to www.ksacservices.com to make a donation using a credit card, debit card or PayPal account. For more information, contact KSAC at 360-876-3282 or e-mail ksac@ksacservices.com.

“We need a program like this in the community, to make a difference, to reach out your hand and give back to help that other person,” Carlton said. “I would bet every person knows someone who’s been a victim of sexual assault.”

— Sophie Bonomi is a reporter for Kitsap News Group. Contact her at sbonomi@soundpublishing.com.

To learn more …

These films explore issues related to sexual assault, human trafficking, and shaming.

“Audrey and Daisy”: In two towns on different sides of America, two teenage girls pass out while intoxicated at high school parties and, while unconscious, are sexually assaulted by boys they call friends. In the aftermath, the girls each endure online harassment. Both attempt suicide; one dies. The film explores this new public square of shame from the perspective of the teenagers and their families — including the boys involved in the assaults and the girls willing to speak out publicly.

“Caged No More”: A woman (Loretta Devine) and a former Special Forces soldier (Alan Powell) try to stop a man (Kevin Sorbo) from trafficking his two young daughters in Europe.

“UnSlut: A Documentary Film”: In 2013, Rehtaeh Parsons, 17, committed suicide. The Halifax, Nova Scotia, teenager had been gang-raped a year and a half earlier by classmates and was thereafter labeled a “slut.” Despite transferring schools many times, she could not escape cyber-harassment and in-person bullying. Rehtaeh’s is not the only story like this to make headlines in recent years.

Through interviews with sexuality experts, advocates, and media figures, “UnSlut: A Documentary Film” explores the causes and manifestations of sexual shaming in North America and offers immediate and long-term goals for personal, local, and institutional solutions.

”UnSlut” features conversations with those who have experienced sexual shaming, including Rehtaeh’s family and friends. The filmmakers also spoke with: Samantha Gailey Geimer, who was publicly shamed by the media after she was sexually assaulted by director Roman Polanski in 1977, when she was 13; Gina Tron, who wrote about her experience of being shamed out of pursuing charges against a serial rapist in Brooklyn, New York; and N’Jaila Rhee, who coped with sexual assault and the subsequent loss of support from her family and church by reclaiming her sexuality as a “cam girl”; and Allyson Pereira, who was ostracized in her New Jersey town after texting a photo of her breasts to an ex-boyfriend.