From the Defense Manpower Data Center
Office of the Secretary of Defense
We are now in our first few weeks of data collection for the 2015 Survivor Experience Survey (2015 SES). Many of you have already started to help us reach out to survivors and offer them an opportunity to take this anonymous survey. We still need your help though in offering this survey to those survivors we have still not reached and those who have recently become eligible. The data from this on-going survey effort will be used to inform reports and briefs to senior military leaders, the Secretary of Defense, and Congress.
As a reminder, the 2015 SES was created to assess survivors’ satisfaction with the services and resources they recently received or used. A survivor is eligible to participate in the SES survey if they made a report of sexual assault in any form (restricted or unrestricted), ranging from a penetrating crime like rape to a contact crime like abusive sexual contact. The reports could even be for assaults they experienced prior to entry into military service. Although participation is voluntary, we want to ensure that all sexual assault survivors who meet the following criteria have the opportunity to take the survey:
* Current military members (Title 10 or Title 32 status even if part-time),
* Who have made either a restricted or unrestricted report of sexual assault,
* And who made their report of sexual assault 30 days ago and after October 1, 2013.
Please continue to encourage your sexual assault survivors to talk with their SARCs to get more details about the survey or to directly contact the Survey Processing Center via toll-free at 1-800-881-5307 or e-mail DODHRA.SES-Survey@mail.mil to get information about the survey and obtain a unique ticket number. Also, please remind the survivor that their responses will be anonymous and there will be no way to link survey responses to their identity. The ONLY reason we require a ticket number is to protect the survey from those who are not survivors of sexual assault. This practice is consistent with industry standards.
We will also be providing paper survey forms (along with return envelopes) to installation SARC offices in late September that can be used if the survivor would prefer to anonymously mail in their completed survey form.
We know you are very busy and appreciate the time you are taking to reach out to survivors to let them know about the survey. Your personal attention to this important survey will provide the Department valuable feedback from survivors to make prevention and response programs the best possible. If you have any concerns, comments, please call our Survey Processing Center toll-free at 1-800-881-5307 or e-mail DODHRA.SES-Survey@mail.mil.
Thank you for your continued assistance!