Training Schedule Workshop Descriptions

OVC offers a series of workshops twice a year through its Training Schedule for Victim Service Providers.

NOTE: OVC workshops include training activities and examples that are best suited to individuals working with victims of crime in the United States. Though OVC welcomes all participants, workshops are based on the U.S. Justice System and the needs of U.S. service providers.

Basics of Strategic Planning
Capacity Building Fundamentals for Tribal Victim Service Programs
Compassion Fatigue/Vicarious Trauma
Curriculum Design for Victim Service Providers
Enforcing Victims’ Rights  
Identity Theft: Supporting Victims' Financial and Emotional Recovery
Leadership in Victim Services
Mental Health Response to Mass Violence and Terrorism
Professional Development Institute
Program Evaluation
Providing Cultural Competent Services to Victims of Crime
Responding to School Violence  
Sexual Assault Advocate/Counselor Training
Strategic Planning for Victim Service Leaders
Supporting Children Living with Grief and Trauma: A Multidisciplinary Approach  
The Ultimate Trainer
Working with Victims with Disabilities  

Acknowledgments

Return to previous page

Basics of Strategic Planning

The goal of this training is to address the importance of using strategic planning to establish and maintain a sense of direction and support for organizations or programs. The training is designed for program managers and supervisors who want to enhance their performance in managing their services, resources, and staff through effective strategic planning. Workshop participants will learn to:

• Avoid common pitfalls of strategic planning
• Identify the five basic steps of strategic planning
• Articulate an organization's values, mission, and vision
• Set goals and develop objectives

Capacity Building Fundamentals for Tribal Victim Service Programs

The training is intended primarily for tribal victim service providers and advocates as well as social workers, tribal judges, treatment providers, and tribal leaders. The goal is to guide participants through an assessment of the fundamentals needed to assure program sustainability and help them examine their organization's capacity for development and long-term growth. Each module addresses four aspects of capacity building: interpersonal, organizational, community, and political. The training will adhere to Native American adult learning principles, and each topic area will address the unique situations of program development and capacity building in Indian Country.

Compassion Fatigue/Vicarious Trauma

This workshop provides an overview of the definitions and symptoms of Compassion Fatigue, Burnout, Vicarious Trauma, and Secondary Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and will include an interactive exploration of self-care techniques, strategies for recognizing symptoms of compassion fatigue, and strategies supervisors can use to ensure balance and self care for those they supervise. Topics include:

• Understanding the prevalence and symptoms of Compassion Fatigue and Vicarious Trauma.
• The impact of traumatic stress and fear on victim service professionals.
• How to develop healthy coping strategies and build resiliency.
• How to develop an agency self care plan and a personal self care plan.
• Ways supervisors can ensure a healthy environment for staff, as well as recognize the signs of Compassion Fatigue in those they supervise.

Curriculum Design for Victim Service Providers

This training is for victim service providers involved in training design and development. Participants may also include those who design and deliver curricula; who are involved in the planning, development, and delivery of training; or who have some background in either adult education or instructional design. This interactive workshop builds skills to create skill-based trainings for victim service providers. Applying adult learning principles, participants will develop an actual training module that they may be asked to create at their organization. Participants are encouraged to bring their organization's training materials to the workshop. In addition, participants will:

• Learn to apply effective training techniques that appeal to different adult learning styles.
• Develop a simple training needs assessment plan.
• Create an outline for one training course module, including goals, objectives, and lesson plans.
• Prepare a brief presentation that illustrates the five core components of effective communication.
• Learn to facilitate training and work effectively with challenging participants.
• Identify four levels of training evaluation.

Enforcing Victims’ Rights  

Enforcing Victims' Rights is designed for victim advocates with at least 2 years of experience working in the victims' field who want to expand the depth and breadth of their knowledge and skills regarding the legal rights of crime victims. This training provides theoretical concepts, historical and legal perspectives, practical guidelines, and a breakdown of the laws to help you support the consistent enforcement of crime victims' rights.

Identity Theft: Supporting Victims' Financial and Emotional Recovery

This workshop will help advocates learn how to assist victims in self-advocacy and how and when to intervene effectively in the recovery process. Topics include:

• 20 types of identity theft and the special needs of each situation.
• Assisting victims in dealing with emotional impact and crime ramifications.
• Helping victims understand how an identity theft case proceeds through the system.
• Assisting victims with reading and understanding their credit reports.
• Identifying the "players" (i.e., who to turn to for help) and applicable laws.
• Helping victims understand and complete an Identity Theft Complaint Form.

Leadership in Victim Services

This workshop is designed for victim service providers in leadership positions. Using case studies and examples from inside and outside the field of victim services, this workshop focuses on the qualities, attitudes, styles, and strategies of true leaders in victim services. Participants will:

• Explore the source of leadership qualities and common myths about leadership.
• Increase their understanding of how one's past experiences contribute to the ongoing and dynamic process of becoming a leader.
• Identify core leadership strategies for victim assistance and justice organizations.
• Recognize challenges to ethical leadership.
• Learn to approach problems as opportunities and use cooperative communication skills.
• Develop a checklist for successful collaboration.
• Examine factors affecting change, such as threats and resistance to change, and use change as a driving force for promoting and advocating victims' rights and enhancing services.

Mental Health Response to Mass Violence and Terrorism

This course provides "the basics" of what mental health providers, crime victim assistance professionals, faith-based counselors, chaplains, and others in direct contact with victims need to know to provide appropriate mental health support following incidents involving criminal mass victimization. The training includes the following chapters:

• Human Responses to Mass Violence and Terrorism
• Mental Health Intervention
• Organizational Response to Mass Violence and Terrorism and the Mental Health Role
• Stress Prevention, Management, and Intervention.

Professional Development Institute

PDI is designed for new and future program managers who want to learn and practice advanced management and leadership skills. This two and one-half day interactive program provides theoretical concepts and practical guidelines for leadership, strategic planning, program evaluation, human resource development, and action planning and implementation. Participants will:

• Learn to distinguish between leadership and management.
• Discuss what makes effective and successful leaders.
• Assess their leadership skills.
• Learn the five steps of strategic planning.
• Discuss program evaluation and how it can be carried out realistically and practically to enhance and sustain their victim assistance programs.
• Explore four primary value orientations of employees, their interdependence in fostering a harmonious workplace, and their contribution to an organization's performance.
• Further their understanding of ways that change can affect behavior in organizations.
• Develop an action plan for applying the skills learned in the training to their own work.

Program Evaluation

This workshop presents program evaluation as a tool that managers can use to determine whether or not their basic programs are achieving their stated goals and objectives. This user-friendly, interactive training provides victim service agencies the information, skills, and tools needed to participate in the planning and implementation of the ongoing evaluation of their programs and services. Key topics include:

• Selecting the appropriate type of program evaluation to meet your needs.
• Developing logic models that identify data sources, measures, and program outcomes.
• Conducting basic analysis of your evaluation data.
• Using evaluation results to monitor progress, make midcourse changes, and document program success.

Providing Cultural Competent Services to Victims of Crime

This workshop provides an interactive exploration of issues in providing culturally competent services to victims of crime. Through a series of activities and case studies, the training explores the challenges and benefits of providing culturally competent care for victims and how services can be more effective when they are delivered within the most relevant and meaningful cultural, gender-specific, and age-appropriate context. Also included is a review of provider competencies (i.e., knowledge, skills, attitudes, interpersonal decision-making) that are critical to effectively serving victims of crime from diverse populations. Key topics include:

• What is cultural competence?
• Stereotyping; cross-cultural communication; and language and interpreter bias.
• Barriers to effective victim assistance.
• Envisioning a culturally competent victim service program.

Responding to School Violence  

This training explores strategies to create a culture of nonviolence within schools, strategies to intervene and prevent potential school attacks, immediate, short- and long-term strategies to respond to a violent episode, and strategies to address reactions to violent episodes.

Sexual Assault Advocate/Counselor Training

This training is intended primarily for sexual assault advocates, counselors, volunteers, or staff at rape crisis centers. However, nurses, including sexual assault nurse examiners (SANEs), physicians, law enforcement officers, and mental health practitioners who assist sexual assault victims may also benefit from this training. With a focus on crisis intervention rather than long-term counseling, this training helps you deepen your understanding of the problem of sexual assault and the major roles of an advocate/counselor. Through case studies, role-playing, and other interactive exercises, participants will gain real-world skills to assist sexual assault victims effectively and sensitively. Participants will:

• Examine the physical and emotional impact of sexual assault.
• Learn how to respond to a crisis call reporting recent sexual assault.
• Develop a "toolkit" of crisis intervention techniques to support recovery from sexual assault.
• Learn to identify possible cases of drug-facilitated sexual assault.
• Formulate a personalized self-care plan to prevent burnout.

Strategic Planning for Victim Service Leaders  

This workshop will expand upon the Basics of Strategic Planning training to provide participants with hands-on experience developing a strategic plan for their organization. The training will draw from the information contained in OVC’s Strategic Planning Toolkit. Following this training, participants would be invited to request specialize technical assistance from OVC TTAC to help them implement their comprehensive strategic plan.

Supporting Children Living with Grief and Trauma: A Multidisciplinary Approach  

This training will focus on the needs of children who experience grief and trauma as a result of homicide and how victim service providers, mental health professionals, and law enforcement can work together to best serve these children.  Topics include:

• The signs of grief and trauma in children affected by a homicidal death and the unique challenges surrounding this experience.
• Appropriate intervention strategies with children experiencing grief and trauma in order to make referrals.
• Strategies to enhance multidisciplinary responses to the special needs of children who experience grief and trauma.

The Ultimate Trainer

This course is designed for victim service providers and allied professionals who develop and deliver training but do not have a formal background or extensive experience in adult education or instructional design. This interactive training helps participants build the knowledge and practical skills they need to plan, develop, implement, and evaluate quality-training programs. During the training, participants will apply new concepts and skills by developing a lesson plan for a training for their agency. In this training, participants will:

• Learn the basic principles of adult learning.
• Explore a range of training techniques and activities that meet the needs of those with different learning styles.
• Prepare a lesson plan for a one-day training course that includes goals, objectives, a content outline, and an outline of activities.
• Hone presentation skills by learning how to organize lectures and apply five principles of effective communication.
• Examine ways to facilitate training, create a positive learning environment, and ensure productive group activities.

Working with Victims with Disabilities  

This workshop will help participants learn how agencies can be compliant with legal requirements like the Americans with Disabilities Act, techniques for conducting appropriate needs assessments and outreach activities, and best practices in providing direct services to accommodate individuals with disabilities. Through case studies, role plays, and small group discussions, participants will examine the varied types of physical and mental disabilities faced by the victims they serve. Skill-building activities and the development of strategies to better serve victims with disabilities will also be included.