Jeannette M. Adkins

Jeannette M. Adkins | Ronald Wilson Reagan Public Policy Award
Michael’s House Child Advocacy Center/Greene County Prosecutor’s Office
Bellbrook, Ohio

Jeannette M. Adkins, MEd, LPC, CA, is a pioneer, leader, and visionary in the victim services field. For over 38 years, she has advocated for victims of crime at the local, state, and national level. 

Ms. Adkins began her career in 1982, as the Founder of the Victim/Witness Division of the Greene County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office in Xenia, Ohio at a time when there were few other prosecutor-based victim assistance programs in rural communities. She stood up a comprehensive victim service program to address the core victimization needs of safety, healing, access, justice and reparations and the program became a model throughout the state. 

Ms. Adkins built collaborations with the law enforcement community to enhance support for victims of crime as she served as a Special Deputy with the Greene County Sheriff’s Office from 1983 until 1998. She is a Past President of both the Ohio Victim Witness Association and the National Organization for Victim Assistance Board of Directors. Ms. Adkins led the Greene County Victim/Witness Division until 2004, when she was appointed as the Executive Director of the National Organization for Victim Assistance (NOVA), where she served as until 2006. 

Ms. Adkins rejoined the Greene County Prosecutor’s Office as the Administrator and served as the Executive Director of Michael’s House Child Advocacy Center until her retirement in December 2014. 

Ms. Adkins served as a reviewer on the OVC’s National Victim Assistance Standards Consortium from 2000-2001 and led the development of a groundbreaking credentialing program, the National Advocate Credentialing Program (NACP)® in 2003. Under her leadership as its current Chair, NACP has credentialed close to 10,000 victim assistance professionals to date, and remains the only national credentialing body for volunteer and paid victim assistance professionals. 

In 2012, Ms. Adkins helped develop a program for the Department of Defense’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office that upholds the highest standards for victim care, training, and ethical guidelines for military advocates in the DoD Sexual Assault Advocate Certification Program. 

Ms. Adkins co-founded the Ohio Crisis Response Team in 1996. In her nearly 25 years of involvement, Ms. Adkins helped grow the program to a 125+ member statewide team of NOVA-trained crisis responders and personally responding to notable mass casualty incidents such as the Oklahoma City bombing and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. 

Ms. Adkins was appointed to the National Advisory Committee on Violence Against Women in 2006 and she served two terms on the Ohio Governor’s Task Force on the Investigation and Prosecution of Child Sexual Abuse and over 21 years on the Ohio Attorney General’s Victim Advisory Board. She wrote The ABCs of Crime Victim Advocacy for victim assistance professionals; and two books for child victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence.