The District of Columbia’s Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) is a multidisciplinary group composed of agencies and organizations that provide services to victims in the aftermath of a sexual assault with the purpose of providing a coordinated response to sexual assault in our community. The team meets bi-monthly as a full team and on alternating months a sub-committee meets and conducts sexual assault case reviews.

The SART charter includes representatives from the following agencies and organizations:

• D.C. Office of Victim Services and Justice Grants

• Office of the Chief Medical Examiner

• Department of Forensic Sciences 

• D.C. Forensic Nurse Examiners

• United States Attorney’s Office

• Metropolitan Police Department 

• Network for Victim Recovery of D.C.

• The Wendt Center for Loss and Healing

• United States Park Police

• D.C. Rape Crisis Center

• George Washington University

• MedStar Washington Hospital Center

The mission of the D.C. SART is to:

• Ensure consistent, sensitive services for adults who have been sexually assaulted;

• Identify and remedy gaps in services;

• Increase engagement in the criminal justice system;

• Improve forensic evidence collection and processing of results; and

• Improve investigations and increase prosecutability of cases.

The DC SART accomplishes this by:

• Upholding national and District standards of practice to ensure consistent responses to all adults who have been sexually assaulted;

• Developing and maintaining professional relationships through respectful communication and cross-disciplinary training among team members;

• Facilitating a case review process to identify and improve services; and

• Providing outreach and education to the community regarding sexual assault.

For more information on the D.C. SART please visit http://dcsart.org/