PORTLAND, Ore. -- As National Crime Victims' Rights Week continues, professionals in the field get a chance to shine the light on services that are available to victims.

There are several challenges involved with helping, crime victims' advocates say.

The first is restoring their physical and mental health.

The next is helping them learn how to protect their rights as victims.

It may be too simplistic to say that Shannon Hansen had a long and painful education about her rights.

But after seven years with a husband who abused her, she'd had enough.

"He'd do a lot of pinning me down, pressure points. He'd bend my fingers back in certain positions to hold me. He'd drag me through the rooms. He used to beat me in the ears a lot," Hansen said.

Hansen said that often happened in front of their kids. Beginning in 2001, she and her husband divorced twice; there were separations and restraining orders. He's now serving five and a half years in prison. But when the abuse started she didn't know what to do.

Advocates work from each DA's office for the victims of crime: from fraud, to assault, to sexual abuse. This Crime Victims Rights Week seeks to bring the two together sooner.

"We do crisis response. We contact victims immediately after arrest. We talk to them about what their rights are, what to expect," said Michelle Ellis of the Washington County Victim Assistance Program.

The private, nonprofit Sexual Assault Resource Center in Washington County also tries to reach out to victims. Many face post-traumatic stress. They may not think clearly about their rights, their kids or pressing charges.

"The individual gets assaulted, but this is a community based problem," said Erin Ellis of the Sexual Assault Resource Center.

Rape victims can have the evidence collected confidentially while they decide if they'll report to police.

"We want to give the sense of control back -- a couple of days, weeks or months -- to really look at what their support structure looks like," Erin Ellis said.

Options like that -- or the right to break an apartment lease if a woman obtains a restraining order for domestic violence -- are unknown to many victims.

"It was pretty much life or death. When I got out, if I did not fight for me and my kids' rights to stay away from the guy he was gonna hurt us again," Hansen said.

Hansen said she's working on a Web site she calls survivorsreunite.org to share what she's learned from her domestic violence case.