Self-Awareness and Self-Care

Development of some of the competencies in this section will require practice and experience. Thus, victim service providers should not be assessed for these competencies for several months, until they have had an opportunity to achieve competency.

COMPETENCY STANDARD 5.1: The victim assistance provider uses self-awareness to monitor and enhance his/her provision of services.

Elements include the ability to:

• Recognize one’s own personal and professional strengths and limitations.
• Recognize and apply strategies to separate one’s own cultural, racial, ethnic, gender, or other biases from one’s ability to provide competent, compassionate, and victim-centered services.
• Value the need for positive growth and change, both personally and professionally.
• Value the need for fair delivery of services to all people served.
• Identify resources available for professional development and self-improvement.
• Value the benefits of self-assessment and supervision for professional growth.
• Apply strategies for translating personal mistakes into learning experiences.

COMPETENCY STANDARD 5.2: The victim assistance provider competently responds to diverse and underserved victim/survivor populations.

Elements include the ability to:

• Treat all victims/survivors with dignity and respect.
• Work collaboratively with other service providers and with victims/survivors from diverse populations to minimize or eliminate barriers to services.
• Recognize major types of cultural differences that influence victimization rates and victim/survivor responses to crime, including age; race; color; national origin, including limited English proficiency; literacy; gender identity and expression; sexual orientation; disability; social class; economic status; education; marital status; familial status; religion; immigration status; and HIV status.
• Appreciate and respect the validity of multiple perspectives and diverse value systems.
• Describe relevant state, tribal, and federal policy and legislation that apply to diverse populations (e.g., federal legislation such as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Battered Immigrant Women Protection Act, the Prison Rape Elimination Act, the Age Discrimination Act, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the Violence Against Women Act, the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act, the Victims of Crime Act, the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, and Federal Agency Final Regulations Implementing Executive Order 13559: Fundamental Principles and Policy Making Criteria for Partnerships with Faith-Based and Other Neighborhood Associations).
• Describe service and referral options based on each victim’s individual needs.
• Value the need for ongoing training on diversity and cultural competency.
• Identify national, regional, and community resources for professional consultation on cultural and linguistic competence.
• Understand and implement program policies and procedures for accessing interpreters, translators, bilingual staff, and auxiliary aids and services.

COMPETENCY STANDARD 5.3: The victim assistance provider manages job-related stress.

Elements include the ability to:

• Understand the concepts of burnout, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma.
• Appreciate the benefits of stress-management and wellness programs for personal and professional well-being, self-care, workplace climate, and overall program functioning.
• Recognize job-related events and experiences that may be stressful for victim assistance providers.
• Recognize personal signs of stress, including physical, psychological, and social symptoms.
• Identify resources for learning about and accessing stress-management and wellness activities.
• Apply stress-management techniques appropriate to one’s own interests, values, and personal or professional demands.

Competencies for Directors and Administrators

COMPETENCY STANDARD 5.4: The director or administrator integrates general knowledge of organizational structure into program practices.

Elements include the ability to:

• Recognize ways that the goals and objectives of various victim movements have been shaped by perspectives on the causes of victimization (e.g., social and racial oppression and tolerance of violence, family dynamics, individual psychology, poverty).
• Recognize how the different ideologies and historical roots of victims movements may influence personal beliefs and how programs function.
• Recognize how management style and cultural beliefs can influence organizational structure.
• Apply strategies for maximizing collaborations to meet mutual goals and objectives.
• Apply strategies for refining the organizational structure to accomplish the program’s mission and meet communitywide service goals.

COMPETENCY STANDARD 5.5: The director or administrator engages in general administrative and managerial tasks.

Elements include the ability to:

• Develop goals, objectives, and plans appropriate to the victim service program.
• Identify resources for administrative problem solving and enhancement of general administrative skills (e.g., consultation or educational resources on bookkeeping).
• Apply marketing and educational strategies that are appropriate to the victims served, collaborative partners, and funding providers.
• Apply basic strategies for recruiting, assigning, and supervising staff (e.g., screening, communicating expectations, monitoring performance).
• Apply basic strategies for identifying the training and professional development needs of staff and volunteers.
• Institute procedures for managing relationships between the program director and the board or overarching agency.
• Exercise cultural competency in all aspects of organizational management, including ensuring community representation on boards and committees, and among all levels of organizational staff.
• Use conflict resolution skills to support positive change within the organization.
• Apply strategies for regularly engaging staff to identify and address burnout, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma.
• Apply strategies for ensuring that the organization operates in a survivor-informed manner by obtaining routine feedback from victims/survivors about the organization’s informal and formal practices and procedures, which may inadvertently re-traumatize victims/survivors.

COMPETENCY STANDARD 5.6: The director or administrator monitors and enhances program functioning through program evaluation.

Elements include the ability to:

• Respect program evaluation as an important component of program plans, goals, and outcomes.
• Appreciate the value of regularly collecting data on victims’ needs and the services provided, and institute procedures for routinely recording case-related information.
• Engage program staff and volunteers, victims/survivors, and community stakeholders in shaping program evaluation activities, including meaningful opportunities to participate in those activities and provide recommendations for program enhancement.
• Understand current professional literature relevant to service delivery.
• Identify program components that require descriptive analysis (e.g., people served, services provided, program expenditures).
• Apply methods for routinely and systematically documenting, analyzing, and reporting victims’ needs and the services provided to them.
• Identify sources with expertise in conducting evaluations to assist with the program’s evaluation activities.
• Cultivate relationships with individuals and organizations with research expertise to explore opportunities to participate in research to advance the victim services field.
• Identify program and community-service needs using recent statistical reports, interviews, victim/survivor input, and survey data collection.
• Synthesize evaluation findings to develop recommendations for program enhancement.
• Value the need to stay abreast of the most current research-informed or evidence-based practices in order to inform and improve systems and policy.

COMPETENCY STANDARD 5.7: The director or administrator secures and manages resources to carry out program goals.

Elements include, as appropriate within legal and agency guidelines, the ability to:

• Apply strategies for projecting resource needs and ordering and procuring resources.
• Analyze techniques for distributing resources (e.g., labor, office space, equipment) and monitoring usage and expenditures.
• Apply strategies for ensuring that adequate resources are devoted to required technology and data security (e.g., security software, technical support, auxiliary aids and services for persons with specific needs).
• Apply strategies for soliciting non-monetary resources from local businesses, major corporations, state and national organizations, and other sources.
• Apply strategies for identifying local, state, tribal, federal, and private funding sources.
• Acquire the skills needed to write effective grant proposals.
• Appreciate the value of collaborating with other organizations to secure funding and deliver services, in order to enhance a coordinated community response to victimization.