Ever since Lindsey Silverberg had an “ah-ha!” moment in her victimology class at the University of Maryland, she knew she wanted to help victims of sexual assault and gender-based crime. “I can remember sitting in class and being really fascinated
with the intersectionality of crime and victimization, and reasons for that, and
I was just like, ‘this is what I want to do;’ it just kind of clicked,”
Silverberg said.
For much of her post-graduate life, Silverberg, 28, has been
involved in the research of, and has worked with, victims of gender-based crime
and sexual assault. Now, she works as an advocacy and outreach supervisor for
the Network for Victim Recovery of D.C. (NVRDC).
She often is on-call and responds to late-night and early-morning
phone calls from the hospital when victims come in. Silverberg is there for
them from the moment they walk in, to future court dates and safety planning.
She becomes their advocate and provides them with a network of support.
Silverberg was a criminology and criminal justice major and
women’s studies minor, and had been a teaching assistant for several
gender studies and victimology classes. During her senior year her interest grew
and she began working for Campus Advocates Respond and Educate (CARE) to Stop
Violence, an on-campus organization. There, she responded to victims of abuse,
assault and stalking. While working, her personal life began spilling over to her
work life. Along with dealing with victims in an official capacity, Silverberg
said her friends would unofficially disclose incidents of their sexual assaults;
she found these reports especially hard because she knew the victim and, many
times, the offender.
“There were a couple of offenders that I was pretty close to
before I found out that they were raping people,” Silverberg said. “That’s why
I think for a lot of people it [reporting sexual assault] is so scary because
[people are] like ‘I don’t believe you because he seems like such a good guy,
or he’s super popular or he’s in this fraternity; why or how would he ever do
that?’”
Silverberg said that it was because of this that she felt
the need to take some time off from direct victim services. “It was really apparent to me that I needed to take a break,
at least from direct services. Given how small the [University of] Maryland
community is, I knew a lot of both the survivors on campus, and the offenders, and that was really challenging to navigate while being a student,” Silverberg
said.
Silverberg graduated from the university in 2007 and attended
graduate school at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where she
studied criminology and public health and graduated with her master’s degree in
2010.
After graduating, Silverberg worked in the public health
sector for two years, but she explained, “It wasn’t what fueled me,” so she
applied to work with NVRDC, where she officially began two years ago. She started as a case manager and
worked her way to outreach services. Her job varies, depending if she is in the
office or on-call. As part of her job, Silverberg needs to be on call several
times a month, for 24 hours, in case a victim comes into the hospital in need of
her services. She meets with the victim and stays with her through a medical
forensic exam and provides support. If necessary, she offers emergency housing,
safety planning and any additional resources the victim needs.
When she isn’t on call, Silverberg
attends court cases with victims, follows up with clients and detectives or
works on the Poly-Victimization grant, an NRVDC research project exploring why
victims who suffer an attack are at greater risk for experiencing another one.
Silverberg acknowledges the mental, physical and emotional
toll this job takes on her. “Not every day is a great day in this work,” Silverberg
said. During a particularly hard day, Silverberg remembers the good
things that happen as part of her job. She gets to see how resilient people are
in the aftermath of something terrible, and
how empowered they become to move on. She speaks of one survivor she helped,
with whom she stays in touch. She was the second victim she helped.
“It’s amazing to see how far she’s come since [the attack]
happened. She’s such an inspiration,” Silverberg said. “It’s cool to see when
someone takes a life event that’s been so terrible and figures out a way to
make something positive out of it.”
Silverberg was not always very open about what she did. In the
beginning, fearing peoples’ reactions, she avoided discussing her work. Instead, she made things up -- telling people
she was a storm chaser and worked for National Geographic. Later, however,
she willingly talked about her experiences. “I’m proud of what I do,” Silverberg said.