Bshs 355 Personal Interview Paper

Personal Interview Paper

Shaun Weems

BSHS 355

February 6, 2016.

Karen Miner

Personal Interview Paper

For this paper I chose to interview Marisa Gonzalez who is the coordinator for the sexual assault center and crisis center. Marisa works directly with the sexual assault victim making sure they receive the proper counseling and treatments to recover from their traumatic experience. Marisa also handles recruiting volunteers who also meet with the victims at the time of their incidents and also take crisis calls when they are scheduled to be on call.

The interview started out by Marisa explaining to me how she came about working with sexual assault victims. Being a survivor of sexual assault herself at the age of 10 by a family member, she made it her life passion to spread the word of awareness along with wanting to help victims overcome their tragedy. Marisa went to Norfolk State University where she obtained her associate in Psychology along with her Bachelors in Sociology with a focus in Human Service. Marisa was hired in 2008 as the crisis coordinator. She then proposed to the board to obtain a group of volunteers who would assist in crisis calls along with servicing sexual assault victims. Now she is in charge of 40 volunteers and also constructs events that help brings sexual assault awareness to our community.

After speaking with Marisa, her main focus of her job is making sure the victims she helps can once again live a productive life and that they are given all the resources possible to continue treatment. A typical day for her is creating events that will bring awareness throughout our communities with the help of her volunteers. Marisa set up programs at local schools to talk about appropriate and inappropriate touch. She also sets up daycare at the agency for victims that have counseling sessions but might not have sitters for their children. She has set up book reading for children at Barnes and noble as well.  Marisa also sets up fundraising events that helps raise money for the sexual assault center for things such as rape kits, clothes and supplies for victims who clothing is taken for evidence, and personal examination rooms where the victims can get examined and still be able to keep their privacy along with their family members. She recently put together a pool tournament that raised over 10,000 for the sexual assault center.