Doris Stevens: Making the most of a perfect opportunity in changing times

It may be hard to imagine, but 30 years ago rape barely registered in the public awareness as a serious crime requiring care for its victims and punishment for transgressors. Doris Stevens, director of the Harborview Center for Sexual Assault and Traumatic Stress for more than 25 years, recalls what it was like when she began her work in 1973.

Doris Stevens

“If rape was thought of at all, it was considered a rare occurrence,” she says. “Little was available for victims of sexual assault anywhere in the country. Rape was something the victim had to live with. If it happened at all, it must have been because of something she did.”

It was in this moral, therapeutic and legal vacuum that Stevens began at Harborview. On loan at first as a social worker from Medina Children’s Services, she joined a small part-time staff at what was then known as the Harborview Sexual Assault Center.

Stevens credits the feminist movement for helping to raise awareness about rape. There were speak-outs on sexual assault in which women came forward to tell about their experiences and to demand a public response.

The Sexual Assault Center began in Harborview’s Emergency Department, with victims receiving medical treatment and immediate crisis response. It was believed at the time that this would be sufficient to prevent long-term problems, Stevens recalls. It wasn’t until later that staff learned that follow-up care was also important.

It was also some time before staff realized the degree to which children are also victims of sexual assault. “We knew that it happened to children, too, but it was years before we knew that it happens to children more than adults,” Stevens says. “Children had even less credibility than women.”

Because research has always been an important component at the center, the enormity of the problem - for children as well as adults - soon became evident. Promoting public awareness and devising systems for treating victims became vital to the center’s evolution.

Protocols formulated at Harborview for medical treatment, crisis counseling and follow-up care are now used all over the country. Health-care workers are taught to be non-judgmental as they perform a step-by-step physical exam, including evidence collection. Physicians in training from throughout the region now receive ongoing instruction on the latest therapies for sexual-assault victims.

Services for children include special interviewing techniques and medical protocols. The Children’s Response Center, located at Overlake Medical Center, is managed by Harborview to meet the needs of pediatric victims on the Eastside. A statewide foster-care assessment program, begun last year, also grew out of the awareness of the tremendous problems faced by children under difficult circumstances.

The center, now housed at 1401 E. Jefferson St., serves 2,000 sexual-assault victims a year, as well as 200 adults and children needing counseling for traumatic stress. The Children’s Response Center sees 500 children annually. Hard work by Stevens and her staff has put the program on healthy financial ground, according to Karil Klingbeil, director of social work at Harborview.

“Her leadership and creative abilities have carried Harborview’s message throughout the region, the nation and other countries,” Klingbeil says. “Doris has established a financially solid clinical, research and training program that has made major contributions to the field of sexual assault and traumatic-stress counseling.”

Networking and coordination with the criminal justice system, mental health agencies and parent-child agencies has always been a part of the center’s mission. As she looks toward retirement after 27 years at Harborview, Stevens has the respect of her colleagues throughout the region and around the country.

“Doris was a pioneer before there were any road maps,” says Mary Ellen Stone, director of the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center. “She brought commitment and a willingness to tough things through, and she established credibility for this issue in the public arena. The women’s movement made us aware of a need to help rape victims, and Harborview stepped up to make it happen.”

The center now offers residents of King County medical, counseling and advocacy services on a sliding scale or for no fee. The center is open to everyone, Stevens says, including homeless women, several of whom are treated at no charge every week.

“For a true social worker who wants to advocate and create something new, this was a perfect opportunity,” Stevens recalls of her early days at Harborview. “It’s hard to imagine a challenge like this - to start somewhere, see a need, and be at the right place at the right time, surrounded by supportive people. This has been a wonderful experience.” ¶

Larry Zalin, Harborview Medical Center