Public Awareness
National Crime Victims’ Rights Week
In April 2020, OVC sponsored the annual commemoration of National Crime Victims’ Rights Week (NCVRW). The theme—Seek Justice. Ensure Victims’ Rights. Inspire Hope—recognized that education on crime victims’ rights is key to ensuring that all participants in the criminal justice process acknowledge and support those rights. The theme also invited us to celebrate the individuals and groups whose advocacy has propelled the victims’ rights movement forward for the past half century, inspiring in victims and their loved ones a feeling of hope for progress, justice, and healing.
The 2020 NCVRW Resource Guide—a suite of user-friendly sample materials and other resources, professional artwork, and guidance to help communities implement public awareness campaigns on victims’ rights and services—received nearly 95,000 page views. Additionally, dozens of communities received Community Awareness Project grants of up to $5,000 each to conduct public education and awareness activities on crime victims’ rights and services in their jurisdictions during NCVRW.
Due to the pandemic, OVC hosted the first-ever private, virtual National Crime Victims’ Service Awards Ceremony (in 2020), which included special messages from the U.S. Attorney General and the Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Justice Programs (OJP). Friends, family, colleagues, and OVC and OJP staff attended and had the opportunity to hear directly from each award recipient about their extraordinary acts of service to crime victims.
Social Media Presence
In FY 2019, OVC reached new individuals interested in victims’ rights and services. Throughout the 2019 NCVRW campaign, more than 33,000 new users visited OVC’s website. The livestream and recording of the National Crime Victims’ Service Awards Ceremony on OVC’s Facebook page had more than 3,000 views and reached more than 13,000 individuals.
In FY 2020, OVC continued to have the most social media followers of any OJP office, achieving more than 20,000 social media followers in April 2020. Additionally, the NCVRW listserv had more than 16,000 subscribers in April 2020, compared to approximately 12,000 subscribers in April 2019.
Public Recognition
In FY 2019, OVC’s 2018 NCVRW Resource Guide received an APEX Award of Excellence in the Electronic Publications category. The Apex Awards are sponsored by Communications Concepts, Inc., a firm that advises publishing, public relations, and marketing professionals on the best practices for improving their publications and communications programs.
The OVC TTAC website received a 2019 W³ Silver Award in the Website – Government category. The W³ Awards celebrate digital excellence by honoring outstanding websites, web marketing, videos, mobile sites/apps, and social content.
OVC TTAC also received 2020 Communicator Awards of Distinction in the Government Website category for their revamped homepage, and the Instructional Online Video category for the introduction video. The Communicator Awards are the leading international awards program recognizing big ideas in marketing and communications.