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Community Crisis Response

NCJ Number
184921
Date Published
August 1999
Length
2 pages
Annotation
The Federal Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) funds services to communities that have suffered crimes with multiple victimizations or community-wide trauma; OVC is coordinating with nationally recognized mental health and emergency preparedness experts to devise a strategy to help States develop and implement their own centralized crisis response plans.
Abstract
In the past, OVC's goal was to provide short-term training and technical assistance to communities in crisis; however, experience has shown that every community would benefit greatly by having its own extensive community-based response plan. Today, OVC is working with States and communities to accomplish this by helping them prepare crisis response plans that include local and State-based emergency counseling and intervention, as well as long-term mental health services for victims and surviving family members. Many States and communities already have the personnel, resources, and teams to effectively respond to major crises, so OVC is encouraging them to develop or enhance their own integrated response plans to ensure victims are provided long-term services. Through training and technical assistance, OVC can help local teams mobilize. OVC plans to conduct a series of regional seminars and training courses to instruct local crisis response teams about responding to needs in their communities. States and local communities are encouraged to formulate and perform test-runs of crisis response plans similar to those for natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, fires, and hurricanes. States and communities should identify mental health experts within each community and coordinate as much information as possible to maximize access to resources in a crisis.