The Butler County HOPE Initiative

OVC’s mission is to enhance the nation’s capacity to assist crime victims and provide leadership in changing 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 this solicitation is to address an urgent gap in crime victim services related to America’s Drug Crisis to support direct services to children and youth who are crime victims as a result of the nation’s addiction crisis.

This award made to Butler County of Ohio is funded under OVC FY2020 Enhancing Community Responses to America’s Addiction Crisis: Serving Our Youngest Crime Victims. The Butler County HOPE Initiative aims to create an enhanced trauma-informed system of care, made up of four components that target youth impacted by the addiction crisis: The HOPE Initiative will support youth by organizing community partners and activities to align resources, ensure accountability, and improve the quality of services for youth in Butler County. HOPE Initiative will include the creation of a fidelity model for “Celebrate Me” prevention groups, so that the groups can be replicated, and connect to a full trauma-informed system model. Lastly, The HOPE Initiative will enhance professional development for early childhood service providers, providing them tools and resources to strengthen resilience and address challenges that the youngest and most vulnerable youth face

CA/NCF