By Emmy Benton, Editor-in-Chief

The phone rang for the first time in 1980. But these weren’t regular phone calls. These were some of the most difficult calls people ever had to make.

Outer Banks Hotline was founded in 1980 by Beth Story, a 20-something living on the Outer Banks who realized the need for a hotline to help people struggling with sexual violence. As time passed, it was clear that something more was needed, prompting the opening of Hotline’s building in 1996.

Hotline offers walk-in services, as well as a 24/7 crisis line, with a trained professional on call at all times. Tammie Perry, Hotline’s Safe House Manager, is one of these professionals.

“We give them safety, support, therapy, support groups and resources they may not know are available to them,” Perry said. “We are available to them 24/7 so they don’t have to walk through their crisis alone.”

Perry’s personal experience with domestic violence, as well as sexual assault by a stranger nearly 20 years ago, makes the work she does at Hotline all the more meaningful.

“I was just leaving an abusive husband. I was a wreck,” Perry said. “I walked through that alone. Our volunteers and staff are all trained in crisis intervention and how to offer support based on each person’s individual needs. Hotline goes far beyond that initial crisis call in support of each survivor that reaches out to us.”

Since June 2022, Hotline has received 383 calls on the crisis line, housed 22 clients in its safe house and spoken with an additional 58 clients in its office, which amounted to 113 actual visits. Since January 2019, Hotline has provided human trafficking victim services to 20 individuals who had been sex trafficked.

Every client who contacts Hotline for support receives their own personalized plan of action for their specific needs. Hotline offers case management services, legal assistance and access to other resources around the community, as well as support groups and a safe place for survivors.

Paige Mullen, a client advocate for Hotline, has experience in virtually every service that Hotline provides. Her main role is meeting with clients in need, but she also leads Hotline’s Sexual Assault Response Team, or SART for short. 

The role of SART is to sit with sexual assault victims at the hospital while they undergo exams or questioning. Simply being there for the clients directly relates to Hotline’s mission statement: “Promoting a safe and compassionate community.”

“We provide comfort and resources for them while we’re there and we do follow-ups after it’s over with to make sure they’re OK,” Mullen said. “We do follow-ups with a lot of our clients, whether it be domestic violence or sexual assault. We try to have resources and information for them, encourage them to go to social services if they need to, and reach out to other community organizations.”

Mullen also heads a domestic violence support group that meets every Wednesday at Hotline’s building in Nags Head. There, survivors speak with other individuals who have been through similar situations, in a safe environment with Hotline employees leading the discussion.

“It’s important for the community to have that support group for people to be able to come and talk about it,” Mullen said. “It’s an open forum group, so it’s less formal. A lot of times, having that open forum gives information to other people who may be going through the same thing.”

Employees at Hotline are required to go through 20 hours of training every year to ensure they understand their clients, but also attend workshops and take classes to obtain additional certifications.

In addition to sexual assault and domestic violence support and services, Outer Banks Hotline and the Dare County Sheriff’s Office have partnered to lead a Joint Human Trafficking Task Force that will be based out of Dare County but will serve surrounding counties across northeastern North Carolina.

The task force was one of 15 groups in the country to be awarded a grant through the Office of Victim Crime that will go toward fighting the problem of human and sex trafficking in the area.

“If the need wasn’t here in our area, we wouldn’t have gotten it,” Outer Banks Hotline Associate Director Stephanie Baker said. “Since I came to Hotline in October, there have been two human trafficking cases that we have dealt with here at Hotline. One male and one female, and they were both sex trafficked.” 

Hotline not only provides sexual assault, domestic violence and human trafficking services, but empathy and a safe place for people in these tough situations to come to. Hotline’s safe house is a place for people who are in immediate danger and need to leave the situation they’re in. Employees at the safe house offer compassion and guidance on next steps for victims, whether that be seeking counseling, applying for jobs or simply getting back on their feet.

“We get people that are coming from domestic violence and sexual assault situations, but they’re here because they have nowhere else to go,” said Dennie Williams, a Client Advocate at the safe house. “That’s where I see that anybody can be in that position and anybody can end up here.”

The eight-bedroom safe house is complete with a common living space, kitchen, full pantry and supplies for whatever their clients may need. In addition to the safe house, Hotline also has an apartment for clients who are ready to be on their own but may have trouble finding housing.

“It’s a great thing, especially here in Dare County where there aren’t many resources, so the fact that we get to do that is really good,” Williams said. “You see that someone really is trying and they have finally decided they’re not going back, they just need help.”

The employees at Hotline help anyone who calls the crisis line or walks through the door because they know the magnitude of these situations.

“We give our clients somewhere to feel safe, someone to talk to, someone to give them the resources and advice they need,” Perry said. “I know that the clients we help are very grateful. They just need somebody they can reach out to when they feel like everybody else is failing them.”

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, call the Outer Banks Crisis Hotline at 252-473-3366 or the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.

Senior Emmy Benton can be reached at 23bentonem58@daretolearn.org.