Victims of domestic violence and sexual assault can now receive more help from the people they can turn to with a new comprehensive statewide services directory for victims, state and University officials say.

Lori Corral, spokesperson for Attorney General Jim Ryan, said the new Illinois Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Services Directory has 110 listings of programs available to domestic violence and sexual assault victims. She said the directory includes numbers and information for counseling, shelters, legal advocacy and other services.

Also within the directory, there is a public awareness poster that has a statewide toll-free number for victims and a list of friends of victims that can be called if the victims need help, Corral said.

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Corral said when women need more help than a given provider can give, the directory will help the more than 60,000 Illinois women who report instances of domestic violence and sexual assault every year.

Experts believe that there are more than that who just don’t report it, she said.

Corral said the directory is being sent to legal professionals, hospitals, the Department of Children and Family Services, the Department of Public Health, universities, community organizations and victim services programs.

Beth Firestein, SIUC Women’s Services coordinator, said the directory could be a valuable resource because when women report a sexual assault or domestic violence to the police or law enforcement, the police may not be prepared to provide the counseling the victim may need.

Victims of any kind of violence need access to that information readily and in a convenient and centralized place, she said.

Firestein said Women’s Services has its own sexual assault brochure, but the directory definitely will be useful on campus even though it is statewide and may not have access to local services.

Corral said the idea of a directory for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault originated with The Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women’s Network.

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She said the network had planned on doing a directory for the Chicago-area but realized there was nothing like this for the rest of the state. The network decided to work with the attorney general’s office to make one, Corral said.

The first batch of directories was slated to be about 2,500, but we had a great number of calls, she said. Now we don’t know what the distribution will be.