Moving Upstream: Building a Trauma-Informed Community Response for Our Youngest Victims of the Opioid Crisis in Cheshire County

OVC’s mission is to enhance the Nation’s capacity to assist crime victims and provide leadership in changing attitudes, policies, and practices to promote justice and healing for all victims of crime. OVC achieves this mission, in part, by administering discretionary award programs supported by the federal Crime Victims Fund to develop innovative training and technical assistance, and to provide direct services to improve the overall quality of victim assistance. The purpose of the FY 2018 Enhancing Community Responses to the Opioid Crisis: Serving Our Youngest Crime Victims is to address an urgent gap in crime victim services related to the opioid epidemic and to expand upon existing or establish new programs to provide services to children and youth who are victimized as a result of the opioid crisis. The overarching goal of this program is to support children and youth who are crime victims as a result of the opioid crisis by providing direct services and support to these young victims at a community or jurisdictional level.

With this award, the Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital will provide early childhood mental health, trauma, and parental opioid and substance use disorders training and ongoing expert consultation to community and service professionals (e.g., early educators, foster/adoptive parents, victim and child advocates, domestic violence and homeless shelters) serving young children using standardized, evidence-based curricula. We will also facilitate information and referrals to partnering mental health, victim advocacy, and other services. Finally, the project will build capacity for evidence-based mental health treatment for young children. Overall goal is to enhance our community response to child victims ages 0-8 victimized by our opioid crisis.

CA/NCF