SAKI Virtual Academy

Interactive e-learning curricula to help reform sexual assault response.

The Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) Virtual Academy is an online learning platform that offers five e-learning curricula. The curricula are broken out into 24 separate e-learning modules to allow learners to complete courses at their own pace. Through each course learners are asked to complete knowledge checks and case study challenges to assess their comprehension of the course content.  

SAKI Toolkit

Explore, save, and share the resources you need.

The Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) Toolkit offers hands-on resources tailored for the community of practitioners working to respond to cold case sexual assault. Users of the toolkit can explore key categories of sexual assault response, browse topics centered around skill development, and save tools to a customizable Briefcase dashboard.

Explore resources, save them for later, or share tools with others. The SAKI Toolkit is an ideal place to create curriculum for your team or stay up to date with the latest practices in sexual assault response.  

Visit sakitta.org for more information.

Fayetteville and Portland:  Reforming the Response to Sexual Assault 

With funding from the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, the Fayetteville Police Department and Portland Police Bureau are changing how they respond to sexual assault victims, partnering across the community, and bringing offenders to justice. Watch the video to learn more about Fayetteville and Portland’s efforts to end the backlog of unsubmitted rape kits, and find out about other SAKI grantees at www.sakitta.org.

Prosecuting Cold Case SA:  The Dallas County Experience

With funding from the National Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI), Dallas County is prosecuting sexual assault cold cases as a result of testing previously unsubmitted sexual assault kits. By moving these cases forward, the Dallas County District Attorney's Office is helping to bring long-awaited justice to victims. Watch the video to learn more about Dallas County's efforts, and explore our other SAKI grantees at www.sakitta.org. 

The U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), has released competitive grant announcements under the National Sexual Assault Kit Initiative. State, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies; prosecutors’ offices; and governmental non-law enforcement agencies acting as fiscal agents for these types of agencies were eligible to apply for funding. The BJA website provides information on upcoming funding opportunities. Check https://www.bja.gov/funding.aspx for details.

SAKI grantees have access to customized TTA resources as part of their BJA funding that are not available to the general public. However, the SAKI TTA team also creates materials (e.g., guidelines, trainings, webinars) that will showcase best practices and lessons learned and that will be openly accessible to other jurisdictions and the public. 

SAKI Training and Technical Assistance Factsheet

The overarching aims of SAKI are to create a coordinated community response that ensures just resolution to sexual assault cases through (1) a comprehensive and victim-centered approach; (2) jurisdictional capacity building to prevent unsubmitted SAKs in the future; and (3) supporting the investigation and prosecution of cases for which SAKs were previously unsubmitted.

The IACP is positioned to support SAKI sites in their efforts to: 

• assess organizational priorities and develop leadership to sustain a meaningful response to sexual assault;  
• identify promising practices and procedures to implement and/or strengthen sexual assault response;  
• present cutting-edge information and innovative strategies and techniques to enhance the capacity of law enforcement to provide effective, consistent response to victims of sexual assault; 
• develop comprehensive law enforcement and community wide guidance, training sessions, and partnerships to support the elimination of untested SAKs; 
• provide information on the realities of sexual assault victim response and perpetrator behavior, the neurobiological impact of trauma, and effective methods for conducting sexual assault investigations and interviews; and 
• create effective partnerships with community organizations and other criminal justice system partners.

Please contact Emily Burton [email protected] for more information.