Introduction

Victim service professionals recognize that victims of crime are coping with a complex set of needs best met by a multidisciplinary response. Victim services education, designed specifically for a multidisciplinary audience of various cultural backgrounds and lifestyles, can be a powerful tool in support of more coordinated, skillful responses. Although jobs are often organized into discrete specializations, people's lives are not. A crime victim struggles with multiple issues: The victim may be a deaf covictim of a drunk driving fatality who needs services specifically tailored for victims with disabilities or a survivor of child sexual abuse who needs financial assistance to help pay for counseling. It takes the collaborative effort of a wide range of allied disciplines to get victims of crime the help they need in a timely and sensitive manner. A comprehensive, basic-level victim assistance curriculum made available locally to victim service providers and allied professionals could greatly enhance efforts to serve victims of crime in a more coordinated manner.

The advent of the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC)-funded State Victim Assistance Academies (SVAAs) in 34 states is one way OVC supports advancing the knowledge and skills of victim service professionals. An SVAA is traditionally a weeklong, intensive foundation course of study in victimology and victims' rights and services for victim assistance providers, victim advocates, criminal justice personnel, and allied professionals who routinely assist crime victims. SVAAs are modeled after OVC's National Victim Assistance Academy but are tailored to reflect the laws and practices of individual states.

Developing an SVAA features several core tasks, including—

• Forming a diverse planning/steering committee.



• Planning implementation using a combination of federal, state, and local funding.



• Curriculum review, adaptation, and design.



• Academy presentation.



• Project evaluation.

Each of these major tasks demands a planning approach that supports a high degree of collaboration among partners that may not have a history of creating and implementing projects in a victim-centered environment. Any state undertaking development of an SVAA faces the challenge of creating a process that sustains relationships and can eventually institutionalize new partnerships.

OVC promotes the development of educational resources for the victim services field through such efforts as the OVC National Victim Assistance Academy, training delivered via the OVC Training and Technical Assistance Center (TTAC), and other discretionary grant projects. These efforts are intended to complement training offered by state agencies, statewide victim coalitions, and national victim organizations. As OVC continues to expand its SVAA program, it envisions the development of an SVAA in every state. If properly planned and executed, SVAAs can enhance the skills and knowledge of victim advocates and allied professionals who serve victims of crime; improve the practice of victim services; and integrate information about victimology, victim services, and victims' rights into course offerings at institutions of higher learning throughout the country, which is a long-term goal for OVC.

This bulletin provides information, ideas, and resources to support the successful creation of an SVAA by describing the development of Vermont's Victim Assistance Academy (VVAA) under the auspices of the Victim Services 2000 (VS2000) Grant described below. Strategies that strengthened the collaborative design and implementation of the VVAA are highlighted because VS2000's collaborative building strategies laid the foundation for the state academy project in Vermont.