Capacity Builders, Inc.'s Youth Victims Initiative

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 Capacity Builders will address the needs of youth victims of crime (birth to age 20) as a result of the opioid crisis by working closely with existing programs. Participants will be referred from the following existing Capacity Builders programs: Teen Pregnancy Prevention, Sexual Assault/ Domestic Violence Advocates, Justice for Families, Drug-Free Communities, and related services. The project will provide a group therapy intervention for trauma in schools and functional family therapy, and develop and disseminate materials about available services. Targeted trainings to first responders across the Navajo Nation, and identification and analysis of data sources associated with the opioid and child victimization crisis will be provided. Finally, Capacity Builders will create a child victim of opioid-related crime task force.

CA/NCF