“Crisis is often when it comes out”: CATS workers’ experiences of sexual assault disclosures in crisis psychiatric settings

Deposited with permission of the author. © 2006 Elizabeth McLindonCrisis Assessment and Treatment Service (CATS) workers are often the first point of contact between an individual and the mental health system, thus these mental health professionals are the gatekeepers to further mental health service use and referral to other service sectors. Among the users of mental health services, there is an overrepresentation of women who have been the victim/survivors of sexual assault while research documents that these service users have a predominantly negative experience of disclosing, in other words, talking about sexual assault to mental health workers. The aim of this study was to explore the research question – what are the ways in which CATS workers understand their response to victim/survivors who disclose sexual assault in psychiatric crisis service settings? To achieve this aim, fifteen CATS workers from a Melbourne metropolitan service took part in a small scale, feminist based, exploratory study utilising a qualitative and quantitative survey design. Key findings of this research were that firstly, a majority of participants do not feel well equipped to respond to disclosures of sexual assault; secondly, workers indicated the need for training in this area; thirdly some participants held misconceptions about sexual assault including the lack of a gendered understanding; fourthly, some workers expressed a problematic understanding of trauma and awareness of how to effectively respond to a disclosure of sexual assault; and, finally, this study found minimal communication between CATS and specialist sexual assault services. The implications of these findings highlight the need for sexual assault training; a review of CATS role in relation to women disclosing sexual assault; and the need for cross-sectoral practice