A Carbondale group was the prototype for the legislation requiring all communities containing institutions of higher education to form a community-campus sexual assault task force, says Beth Firestein, coordinator of Women’s Services.

Firestein, Chair of the Presidential/Mayoral Task Force on Sexual Assault, said legislation has gone into effect this year, and the task force would be happy to play a pro-active role in helping others to fulfill the legislative requirements, but other institutions have yet to ask for advice.

We were the reason the legislation came about, she said.

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Firestein said she and the other members of the task force have talked to people in the SIUE community to begin a similar group.

The task force, which began in 1992, reported to the Carbondale City Council Tuesday their progress in filling the gaps in existing service delivery and the improvement of community response to sexual assault.

The report to the council listed seven accomplishments that will push the group closer to its goals. Goals include the distribution of brochures on sexual assault/acquaintance rape prevention and developing a victim’s bill of rights to be added to the newest revisions of the brochure.

Firestein said there are several current projects the group is involved in. She said the group is trying to extend the educational efforts for high school and junior high school students by finding a brochure that can be distributed to their age groups regarding sexual assault.

Also, creating a victim computer database which provides assessments of the extent of the problem of sexual assault in the community is a top priority, Firestein said.

The task force was originally started by Women’s Services at a grassroots level.

We held several think tanks to see what other people thought, and that was in 1991, Firestein said. Out of a number of recommendations that came out of the think tanks, one was to form the task force.

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Firestein addressed Council members Tuesday by saying, I hope you would agree that it’s really an asset for the community, and it represents the best of the city and SIUC working together.

She said the groups efforts were enthusiastically supported by Mayor Neil Dillard and SIUC President John Guyon.