The rural domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking program (rural program) is authorized by 34 U.S.C. 12341

Rural program funds are used to support programs that: 1) identify, assess, and appropriately respond to child, youth, and adult victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking in rural communities by encouraging collaboration among victim service providers, law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, courts, other criminal justice service providers, human and community service providers, educational institutions, and health care providers; 2) establish and expand victim services in rural communities to child, youth, and adult victims; 3) increase the safety and well-being of women and children in rural communities, by (a) dealing directly and immediately with domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking; and (b) creating and implementing strategies to increase awareness and prevent these crimes; and 4) develop, expand, implement, and improve the quality of sexual assault forensic medical examination or sexual assault nurse examiner programs. Grantees must use at least one of the following strategies in implementing their projects: 1) implement, expand, and establish cooperative efforts and projects among law enforcement officers, prosecutors, victim service providers, and other related parties to investigate and prosecute incidents of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking; 2) provide treatment, counseling, advocacy, legal assistance, and other long-term and short-term victim and population specific services to adult and minor victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking in rural communities; 3) work in cooperation with the community to develop education and prevention strategies directed toward such issues; 4) develop, enlarge, or strengthen programs addressing sexual assault; and 5) develop programs and strategies that focus on the specific needs of victims of who reside in remote rural and geographically isolated areas. Through this continuation OVW rural program project, the northern michigan childrens assessment center (nmcac), in partnership with crawford county prosecutor's office, crawford county sheriff's office, grayling city police department, iosco county prosecutor's office, iosco county sheriff's office, oscoda city police department, tawas city police department, east tawas police department, ogemaw county prosecutor's office, ogemaw county sheriff's office, west branch city police, otsego county prosecutors office, otsego county sheriffs office, gaylord city police, oscoda county prosecutor's office, oscoda county sheriff's office, roscommon county prosecutor's office, roscommon county sheriff's office, gerrish township police department, richfield public safety, denton township police department, michigan state police (MSP) houghton lake post, MSP west branch post, MSP otsego post, river house, INC., shelterhouse, womens resource center of northern michigan (wrcnm), hope shores alliance, and university of michigan will implement the first step program to hope and healing. This sane project addresses the following purpose areas: 2, 3, and 4 for crawford, iosco, ogemaw, oscoda, otsego, and roscommon counties in michigan. Specific activities will include: 1) maintaining 24/7 sexual assault nurse examiner (sane) and victim advocate services; 2) providing on-going specialized training for nurses and advocates to ensure best practices; 3) employing a part-time masters therapist to provide follow-up care, therapy, crisis intervention and court support; 4) partnering with law enforcement for a special investigator, who provide training, education, and outreach to improve response to sexual assault; and 5) maintaining quarterly sexual assault response team (sart)/domestic abuse response team (dart) meetings with multi-disciplinary teamcommunity partners. The project will address the following priority areas: priority area 2: prevent and end sexual assault, by strengthening efforts to prevent and end sexual assault through prevention, outreach, medical forensic care, advocacy, and therapy. The timing for performance of this award is 24 months.