Volunteer Advocates provide a substantial amount of the crisis services provided by the Albuquerque Rape Crisis Center. They receive a comprehensive 50-hour training that is offered on a quarterly basis and is open to both professionals and community members. To date we have 86 active Volunteer Advocates working in Crisis Services.

Annually, Crisis Intervention Services anticipates responding in over 2,500 crisis calls and advocating for more than 400 survivors at the SANE unit and local hospitals.

To address the needs of these clients, we are expanding the role of our Volunteer Advocates by developing a Peer Support Advocacy Program. Through this new program, a Peer Support Advocate will be assigned a client to whom she/he would provide ongoing support, on the phone and in person, potentially from the time of the assault through the course of recovery from the trauma. As a result of implementing this program, survivors and their loved ones will be connected to our services more quickly, experience a significant increase in client follow-up and receive greater continuity of care.