Iowa''s Strategic Planning Project for Culturally-Specific Victim Service Programs

In May 2013, OVC released the Vision 21: Transforming Victim Services Final Report. The Vision 21 initiative examined the current framework of the victim assistance field in the United States. The initiative was the first comprehensive assessment of the field in nearly 15 years. The FY 2015 Vision 21 Innovation Grants: Enhancing and Transforming Services for Victims of Crime solicitation furthers the goals of Vision 21 through 8 purpose areas. Purpose area #1 (State Strategic Planning) focusses on developing, enhancing supporting, and/or institutionalizing a cross-cutting strategic planning process at the local, tribal, and state levels, involving all stakeholders, including crime victims.

Under this OVC-funded state strategic planning effort, the Iowa Attorney General’s Crime Victim Assistance Division (CVAD)’s Victim Services Support (VSS) Program (the state agency that administers all federal and state grants focused on direct services to crime victims), plans to develop seven culturally-specific victim services statewide strategies to enhance services offered to culturally-specific populations (i.e., African American, African immigrant and refugee, Latino and Hispanic, Asian and Pacific Islander and American Indian or Native American, as well as victims who are deaf or hard of hearing and a program specific to serving victims who identify as LGBTQIA). The grantee intends to focus on assisting culturally-specific programs in conducting strategic planning, which will focus on building capacity, recruiting and retaining high-quality advocates, increasing outreach to crime victims, increasing accessibility of programming to victims, strengthening innovative services to crime victims, and creating funding stability and sustainability.

CA/NCF