2022 Year at a Glance
We’re excited to share our annual 2022 Year at a Glance, which highlights and celebrates CAASE’s amazing work over the past year.
2022 marked our 15th year working against sexual harm and we were able to accomplish remarkable things! Our legal team served 174 survivor clients. Our public policy work championed monumental criminal legal reforms, ensuring survivors’ perspectives were heard. CAASE’s Community Engagement Director facilitated or participated in 91 events virtually and throughout our city. Our Prevention Educators empowered 5,518 teens at 13 schools in 2022—which included our 30,000th student over the life of the program.
Learn more about our innovative and collaborative work by reading our 1-page 2022 Year at a Glance. Click to view it in your browser or download the PDF. You may also read the text below.
Survivors’ Voices in Our Laws
Our Policy Department vigorously defended one of the most prominent laws passed in recent years: The SAFE-T Act, which is most known for ending the use of money bail in Illinois starting in 2023. CAASE proudly supports the law and had a direct hand in crafting its victim-centered protections. We provided seven public education events about the legislation and three training sessions for gender-based violence advocates. We also participated in two press conferences, a Springfield lobby day, and were interviewed for a multitude of news stories highlighting our contribution. Our policy work also included support for new state laws to better protect youth trafficking survivors and hold sex buyers accountable, end “source of income” discrimination in housing, and improve Illinois’ definition of consent.
We also grew our advocacy capacity, adding Policy Associate Tayler Mathews to our team in September. Tayler holds a PhD in political science, an MA in sociology, and advocates for survivors from a gender, race, and disability justice lens.
Inspiring Young Change Makers
CAASE empowered 5,518 teens at 13 schools in 2022. That led us to a major milestone: 30,000 young people served since our founding. We’re encouraged to see students’ needs shift over time from gaining awareness of sexual harm to coming into workshops with solid foundational knowledge and a desire to learn how they can take action.
We evolved our session on consent to reflect students’ growing understanding of the concept and enthusiasm to focus on how it’s practiced. We also developed new workshops on sexting and pornography based on students’ feedback and launched a webpage dedicated to teens. It’s a one-stop resource for young activists with questions about sexual harm, getting involved in the movement to end it, and where they can find help for a peer or themselves.
Our programs remain in high demand but, as always, students’ responses are our greatest indicator of success. This 9th grader’s comment highlights the impact: “I will practice consent more in my everyday life and teach it to others around me.”
Connection and Collaboration
Our Community Engagement work focused on providing consistent connection over the past year through 3 recurring virtual offerings. At our monthly “Let’s Chat Over Lunch” event, community members discuss and process current events related to gender-based violence and social injustice. Another monthly event, “Virtually Together”, is produced in partnership with Surviving the Mic. It’s a creative outlet focused on poetry where survivors access healing and support. CAASE also invites fellow service providers who are survivors working in the anti-sexual violence movement to our quarterly gathering “Survivors Supporting Survivors in the Movement”.
144 people connected at our Community Engagement offerings in 2022 and, all told, the department facilitated or participated in 91 community events, panels, or resource fairs. Our focus on building partnerships in the places we serve was also expressed in our commitment to coalition meetings. Our Community Engagement Director attends an average of 3 per month, collaborating with allied organizations to spark change throughout the city.
Seeking Justice With Survivors
Our Legal Services team took on 270 diverse matters while serving 174 survivor clients in 2022. Their work ranged from arguing against defense requests for therapy records on multiple cases (including three minor survivors), successfully representing 32 student survivors in Title IX matters, and winning the sealing or expungement of 175 arrests for a survivor of human trafficking, and much more. Our Pro Bono Project also connected 28 private attorneys with meaningful work supporting survivors, a 22% increase from 2021.
Our legal team’s impact on the lives of our individual clients is also multiplied by our continued commitment to driving systematic improvements for survivors. In collaboration with our public policy department, our legal team championed the Pretrial Fairness Act. Their intimate knowledge about the experiences of sex crime victims in our legal system helped illustrate how desperately we need pretrial detention decisions based on risk, not wealth. Their expertise helped bring survivors’ perspectives to the forefront and counter widespread misinformation about the law.
View CAASE’s 2022 Year at a Glance as a 1-page PDF by clicking here.
This piece was published on January 12, 2023. It was designed and authored by Hayley Forrestal with input from CAASE’s program directors. Learn more about our staff here.