The Tarleton Counseling Center has received the second continuation since 2017 of the Victims Assistance Grant — $221,520 for resources for students who have experienced violence.
The grant, awarded by the Governor’s Office through the federal Campus Victim Assistance Program, provides campus-specific victim aid. The grant provides salaries for a full-time advocate and three full-time counselors trained to assist survivors of physical and sexual abuse, intimate partner abuse, domestic violence, stalking and harassment, and to work with students who come to Tarleton from the foster care system. The grant also provides prevention training for students, staff and Tarleton police officers.
According to Caris Thetford, Assistant Director of the Substance Abuse and Violence Prevention Program, many students are affected by violence at some point in their lives, whether before they get to campus or after. “The Victim Assistance Grant allows counseling services to serve them in the most successful way possible by providing advocacy as well as travel and assistance with exams.”
“With this grant, we have provided direct advocacy support for at least 115 students in the past year,” said Dr. Brenda Faulkner, Director of Student Counseling. “The reason we wrote the grant was because we were seeing the number of reports rise between 2013 and 2016 and we wanted to provide support and advocacy for those survivors.”
For more information, contact Dr. Faulkner at 254-968-9044 or email studentcounselingservices@tarleton.edu.
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