Serving Child Crime Victims Impacted by Addiction

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 New Mexico Kids Matter, Inc. is funded under OVC FY2020 Enhancing Community Responses to America’s Addiction Crisis: Serving Our Youngest Crime Victims. New Mexico Kids Matter’s Serving Child Crime Victims Impacted by Addiction project will: 1) Expand and enhance our existing Court Appointed Special Advocacy (CASA) program to provide direct services for foster children who have experienced child abuse and/or neglect related to family/caregiver addiction to help them heal from the adverse childhood experiences (ACES) they have experienced as a result of their crime victimization and ensure they can return to safe and stable permanent homes; 2) Provide direct services to families with addiction issues who are involved with the child welfare system to improve their parenting skills and enhance the families’ abilities to remain stable or reunify during substance abuse treatment and recovery; and 3) Develop, lead, and participate in partnerships and collaborations to use local data to identify and address the most pressing local needs for child crime victims from families with addiction issues.

CA/NCF