| PROGRAM
OVERVIEW
The
Victims of Violence (VOV) Program of Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA)
was co-founded in 1984 by Mary Harvey, PhD (Director) and Judith
Herman, MD (Director of Training) with startup funding from the
City of Cambridge. Established as a clinical training program of
Harvard Medical School in 1985, VOV received its first Victims of
Crime Act (VOCA) award from the MA Victim Witness Assistance Board
in 1986. In 1988, VOV received the American Psychiatry Association's
Gold Award for innovative hospital and community service. That same
year, with increased VOCA support, VOV initiated the Commonwealth's
first publicly funded Community Crisis Response Team (CCRT) and
began providing low profile, confidential services to urban communities
affected by violent crime.
In
2000, VOCA funding enabled VOV to launch the Victim Advocacy and
Support Team (VAST) extending hospital-based, alliance-wide victim
advocacy and support to crime victims and their families. In 2002,
VOV received additional VOCA funding to launch our new Center for
Homicide Bereavement, providing counseling, support and advocacy
to individuals and families bereaved by homicide. Also in 2002,
VOV was awarded an Antiterrorism Supplemental VOCA (ATSG) grant
to extend mental health and victim advocacy services to families
bereaved by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and to first
responders to those tragic events. Today, VOV is a unique clinical
resource for victims, a valued training context for graduate and
post-graduate clinical trainees, a setting for clinical and community
research, a consultation and training resource of national and international
significance and a participant in world-wide anti-violence efforts.
MISSION
STATEMENT AND SERVICE PHILOSOPHY
VOV
recognizes the prevalence and psychological harmfulness of violence
in American society and around the world, the value of community-based
social action to prevent violence, and the importance of competence-building,
empowering care. VOV's mission in the hospital, the CHA health care
network, and the larger community is to develop comprehensive mental
health services for crime victims and crime victimized communities.
Because victims often experience psychiatric intervention as stigmatizing
and intrusive, VOV emphasizes clinical care that can facilitate
mastery, mobilize resiliency and promote renewed hope and restored
self-esteem. Group treatment informed by these themes offers the
promise of reduced isolation, opportunities to form new attachments
and new avenues to community. VAST extends empowering information
and support to crime victims and their families at a time of crisis.
Homicide bereavement services ensure timely, compassionate response
to families devastated by traumatic loss. And, through the CCRT,
VOV offers interventions designed to mobilize the healing, health-promoting
capacities of communities impacted by violent crime.
VOV
SERVICES
- Crisis
intervention and response (initial crisis assessment, treatment
planning and episodic or time-limited crisis-focused psychotherapy)
for acutely traumatized crime victims and their families
- Hospital-based
and system-wide victim advocacy and support
- Longer
term clinical care (psychological assessment, treatment planning
and psychotherapy) for adult survivors of physical and sexual
violence
- Homicide
bereavement counseling and support
- A
wide array of groups, (including groups for adult survivors
of childhood abuse and domestic violence and groups for parents,
partners, siblings and children of murdered family members)
- Community
crisis response to urban communities affected by violent crime
- Clinical
and support services to witnesses, family members and others affected
by crime victimization. Through our ATSG funding we are able
to extend these services free of charge to families bereaved by
and first respondents impacted by the terror attacks of September
11, 2001.
- Work
within CHA to promote sensitive and skillful domestic violence
prevention, detection, and response and participate in a wide
variety of training, consultation, and public and professional
educational efforts
VOV
FUNDING
VOCA
support for VAST, the CCRT and the Center for Homicide Bereavement
and ATSG funding are vital to VOV's ability to extend these free-of-charge
services to crime victims and crime victimized communities. VOCA
funding is augmented by matching funds from CHA and by volunteer
participation in the CCRT and Center for Homicide Bereavement. CHA
fully funds the clinical services of VOV. Other VOV initiatives
are supported by other program resources, including grant and foundation
awards, consultation and training fees and private donations. These
sources of support enable VOV to extend consultation to and conduct
specialized training programs for local, national, and international
audiences and visitors, to conduct research on recovery and resiliency
in trauma survivors, and to participate in community-wide efforts
to address and reduce domestic violence in the City of Cambridge
and surrounding communities.
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Victims
of Violence Program
Central
Street Health Center
26
Central Street
Somerville, MA 02143
617-591-6360
Barbara
Hamm, PsyD, Interim Director
Judith
L. Herman, MD, Director of Training
Jayme
A. Shorin, LICSW, Associate Dir, Clinical Services
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