The MSU Sexual Assault Program is in need of more funding to hire more licensed counselors.

While much of the program’s work can be done by volunteers, we are trained only in crisis intervention.

We can help in the moment — talking someone through a panic attack, meeting a survivor at the hospital for an exam, calling to see if a local shelter has an open bed — but we are not professionally licensed.

Our empathy and desire to provide support cannot replace the years of schooling and thousands of practice hours of a counselor.

Even though the Sexual Assault Center is housed at MSU, the majority of its funding comes from a grant through the Victims of Crime Act, and it also does some of its own fundraising. We’ve been fortunate to have continued funding through the Federal Crime Victim Fund, but it isn’t enough.

MSU needs to provide more funding to the Sexual Assault Program to help it care for the mental and emotional well-being of MSU’s own students.

Counseling is an important part of the long-term work of healing from trauma. It’s a recommendation I make, as a volunteer, to every survivor I meet.

And it’s a service the Sexual Assault Program doesn’t have the resources to properly provide. Too many MSU students need counseling services and the university doesn’t provide for enough staff to meet that need, creating a wait list to get an appointment.

When I’m on-call, I know that survivors might have to wait up to four weeks to see a counselor. The effects of trauma don’t wait until a mental health professional is lined up, and the longer a survivor has to wait, the more potential there is for harm.

National statistics suggest that, as a conservative estimate, there are 5,000 survivors of sexual assault at MSU. Supporting these survivors should be a priority, and having enough counselors is an important part of that support.

Jessica Kane is an English graduate student and a volunteer with the MSU Sexual Assault Program.