Expanding Healing Hurt People with Community Health Worker Peer Training and Deployment

The Office for Victims of Crime’s (OVC) Vision 21: Transforming Victim Services Final Report (Vision 21) envisions that “all crime victims in the 21st century can readily access a seamless continuum of evidence-based services and support that will allow them to begin physical, emotional, and financial recovery.” However, Vision 21 recognizes there are serious challenges to achieving this goal. Improving the field’s understanding of violence and trauma and their effects on survivors are among these challenges. To this end, OVC collaborated with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to release the FY 15 Supporting Male Survivors of Violence solicitation. The solicitation sought to enhance the services available to male survivors of violence, particularly boys and men of color, and their families, by funding demonstration projects that put in place evidence-based models and practices to provide trauma-informed, comprehensive services and supporting policies for these survivors and their families. OVC and OJJDP used this solicitation to competitively select 12 demonstration sites from across the country to meet this need.

Drexel University will use this award to expand services and support available to male survivors of violence and their families through the Healing Hurt People (HHP) Program, an established trauma-informed hospital-based intervention for victims of intentional injury that works to engage these survivors in a trajectory of healing after their acute injury. During the three year project period, HHP will be replicated in four additional trauma centers in Philadelphia. HHP will further expand its capacity by adding two types of positions to the current program model; Community Intervention Specialists, licensed clinicians that provide both case management and behavioral health interventions, and Community Health Workers, with evidence-based training and unique skills to meet the needs of male survivors. The new staff positions will better serve survivors by expanding HHP's ability to engage them in a trauma-informed, culturally competent manner, using clinical and peer staff that understand how this survivor group identify themselves.

ca/ncf

The Office for Victims of Crimes (OVC) Vision 21: Transforming Victim Services Final Report (Vision 21) envisions that all crime victims in the 21st century can readily access a seamless continuum of evidence-based services and support that will allow them to begin physical, emotional, and financial recovery. However, Vision 21 recognizes there are serious challenges to achieving this goal. Improving the fields understanding of violence and trauma and their effects on survivors are among these challenges. To this end, OVC collaborated with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to release the FY 15 Supporting Male Survivors of Violence solicitation. The solicitation sought to enhance the services available to male survivors of violence, particularly boys and men of color, and their families, by funding demonstration projects that put in place evidence-based models and practices to provide trauma-informed, comprehensive services and supporting policies for these survivors and their families. OVC and OJJDP used this solicitation to competitively select 12 demonstration sites from across the country to meet this need. Drexel University will use this award to expand services and support available to male survivors of violence and their families through the Healing Hurt People (HHP) Program, an established trauma-informed hospital-based intervention for victims of intentional injury that works to engage these survivors in a trajectory of healing after their acute injury. During the three year project period, HHP will be replicated in four additional trauma centers in Philadelphia. HHP will further expand its capacity by adding two types of positions to the current program model; Community Intervention Specialists, licensed clinicians that provide both case management and behavioral health interventions, and Community Health Workers, with evidence-based training and unique skills to meet the needs of male survivors. The new staff positions will better serve survivors by expanding HHP's ability to engage them in a trauma-informed, culturally competent manner, using clinical and peer staff that understand how this survivor group identify themselves. ca/ncf