Victim Rights Law Center

Help for Survivors of Sexual Assault

Call us at: 508-669-7020 Leave a message and we will call you back.

Who Do We Help?

The Victim Rights Law Center provides free and confidential help to survivors of sexual assault. Confidential means we won’t tell anyone your private information.

Sexual assault is when someone does something sexual to you without your consent. It can also mean that someone makes you do something sexual to them without your consent.

Consent means that you agree to or give permission for something you want to do. It is not consent if you do something because you are afraid or because someone forced you. Even if you agree to one thing, you can still not agree to something else. You can also change your mind at any time. Sexual assault can happen to anyone. It can happen in a romantic relationship. If can also happen outside of a romantic relationship. The person who hurts you can be someone you know, like a friend or caretaker. It can also be someone you do not know.

We call the person that this happens to a survivor or a victim.

HOW can we help?

Privacy

• If something is private, you might not want other people knowing it. In a criminal case, the person who hurt you will have a lawyer. That lawyer may try to get your private information. This could be information your doctor, school, or someone else has about you. We may be able to help keep your personal information private.

• We can talk about how to protect your privacy in all areas of your life, such as at school, work, a program, and in the courts.

• We can also talk to you about how to keep your information private online.

Safety

• You may want a restraining order from a court. That order would say that the person who hurt you must stay away from you and not hurt you again.

• If you want, we can help you ask a court for a restraining order. We can also help you talk to the judge when you go to court for a restraining order.

• We may be able to help you get a no trespass order for your school, work, home, day program, or where you spend your time. A no trespass order means the person who hurt you must stay away from that place.

School

• We may be able to help you get special education services from your school.

• We may be able to help you keep the person who hurt you away from you at school.

• If you were assaulted at school, your school might look into what happened. They might call this a “disciplinary process” or a “Title Nine investigation.” The school might want to ask you questions. They might want to punish the person who hurt you. If this process happens, we may be able to help you through it.

Immigration

• VRLC also helps survivors who are not citizens of the United States. If you are not a United States citizen but you want to stay here, we may be able to help.

Work

• You may not feel safe at work. You may want to take time off. You may want to change your work schedule. There could be other things you need at work. We may be able to talk to someone where you work to help with any of these things.

Public Benefits

• Public benefits we may be able to help you with are: § SSI/SSDI (Social Security) § SNAP (food stamps) § DTA Cash Assistance (TAFDC/EAEDC) § Unemployment Insurance (UI) • If you are not getting a public benefit that you could be getting, then we can tell you where and how to apply for it.

• If you applied for benefits and did not get them, we may be able to help you.

• If there is something wrong with a public benefit you are already getting, we may be able to help you try to fix it.

Where You Live

• You might not feel safe where you live. You may want to move or change the locks on your door. You may want to do something else to feel safer. We may be able to help with those things.

• Sometimes, landlords try to evict people. Evict means someone makes you move out of your home. We may be able to help you stay in your home.

There are some things we cannot help with:

• We do not help with family law issues. This means divorce, child support, child custody, and parenting time.

• We do not help survivors sue the person who hurt them for money.

• If we are unable to help you, we will do our best to refer you to someone who can.