Wayne County SAFE Welcomes Sharron Fincher as New Access Coordinator

Sharron Fincher didn't always work in sexual assault advocacy. In fact, she held positions across many fields, like healthcare and banking. But according to her, she never really held much passion for those jobs. She said that volunteering after hours was what she looked forward to the most.
"Initially, I just started volunteering with WC Safe more so for the outreach. I like to be out in the community and get to know people, and this is a wonderful community," Fincher said. "It's the second largest sexual assault advocacy organization in the country, which is great, so I really learned a lot from them. The volunteering was amazing, and it made me more passionate to want to be involved. I was invited to work with the organization at Naomi's Nest, which is an addiction recovery center where we facilitated a talk group. And that actually has (grown) into other things, and made me be even more passionate about it."
And then, after finding her groove within the world of volunteering, the stars aligned.
"The opportunity for employment became available, I applied and I thought, 'How great would this be? To not volunteer in what I'm passionate about, but for that to be my career,'" Fincher said. "I applied, and fortunately, they hired me."
Now, Fincher is WC Safe's new Access Coordinator. Over the past several months, Fincher has been helping to develop the new position, which focuses on bringing an understanding of sexual assault to diverse communities.
"I have a wonderful team that's really supportive, and what I do is outreach," Fincher said. "Particularly like LGBT, Arabic, Indigenous, Asian, hearing-impaired, African American, Hispanic — so, any marginalized population is what my job consists of."
A large part of Fincher's role focuses on the creation of sexual assault workshops for those marginalized communities.
"And along with that, I'm really working on cultural competency within our organization (so that we are) aware of the differences within cultures and the needs of those individual clients," she said. "We are creating workshops. I also go out in the community and I create a lot of those as well."
According to Fincher, these workshops have been gaining traction locally. She said that clients and coworkers alike have been interested in gaining a deeper understanding of cultures other than their own, and the cultural impacts of sexual assault. Although the creation of these programs isn't easy, Fincher said that it has been going smoothly overall — she said the thing she worried about most hasn't been a problem either.
"I thought that the biggest challenge would be me. I am a lesbian, a masculine of center presenting lesbian. I know that in other cultures, homosexuality is kind of a sore topic to talk about, but ironically, communities are very open. They're very interested in what we have to say," Fincher said. "They're very interested in learning about us and me and the LGBT community, and the culture of WC Safe, too. So, I've been pretty blessed that there's acceptance, and what I thought was going to be barrier was not. That's very warming, because it just lets me know how great Detroit is and how progressive we are."
Now that Fincher is warming up to the role, she said that her biggest challenge will be to help other get over the stigma surrounding sexual assault victims. She said that many people fear judgment, and avoid getting the help they need because of it.
"When you talk about trans women for example — judgement is huge. It's, 'Are you going to believe me?' Even with people who are commercialized sex workers." Fincher said. "You just have to create a clean slate for people, and allow them space to tell their story and not judge them and be open to it. Even culturally, if you go across the border and some women are survivors, may be looked at differently by their families, and you don't want that and it's not their fault."
WC Safe offers counseling and sexual assault advocacy services, in addition to a variety of clinics and workshops. All services are confidential. If you have been a victim of sexual assault and need help, WC Safe can be reached at (313) 964-9701 or online at wcsafe.org. WC Safe is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and is located at 2727 Second Ave., Detroit.