VAU Presentation

Right. Hi, my name is christian flores and I interned

at the State Attorney's Office, victim advocate unit 17th circuit.

So some basic information about the agency.

Right? It's located at 16 South East 6th Street in

Court Lauderdale Florida.

It's right in front of the courthouse and the jail.

So it's right over there.

The phone number is listed.

The hours are from monday through friday eight a.m. To

five p.m. Those are when we provide our main services.

However, there are advocates, they're only about one or two

on saturday and sunday because there are always victims in

need on the weekend.

But primarily the hours of service are monday through friday.

But they do have those saturday and service ours as

well. They're just not, we just, they just don't provide

all the services on the weekend.

So the mission of the agency and the purpose of

the agency is essentially to just provide victims of crime

the opportunity to be present, heard and informed.

So that's the biggest thing of the agency, it's called

Marcie's Law And FS 9 60.

Let's take the whole mission is to ensure that victims

are receiving all of their rights as victims to be

present, heard and informed of all proceedings with in any

case. And that's the role of the victim advocate, victim

advocates act as liaisons and ensure victims understand all proceedings

of the case, meaning we will just kind of translate

or just really ensure that the victim understands everything that's

going on.

Like if they don't know what a magistrate hearing is

or the arraignment hearing is for or if they don't

understand the conditions of the of the bond or the

conditions of a release, we would just go ahead and

explain that to them.

So that way they fully understand everything and that they're

not getting further victimized by the judicial system after already

experiencing trauma.

That's the main purpose and the mission of the agency.

Yeah, so the fee structure is free.

So there is no no monetary amount charged ever.

Because victims rights isn't right, Everybody is entitled to victim

rights. So we don't charge for any services that we

provide. Um so that the structure is free and the

agency itself does not have a particular website um are

the only thing that we have where you can find

all of the information listed here is on the Broward

State Attorney's Office website.

You can find the 17th circuit there and it will

list the address, a phone number um that you could

reach the agency at.

So this is a public agency by the state of

florida. It is by the state Attorney's office, so they

work with the state attorney.

Um and that's kind of how they receive their cases

by the state attorney.

They act on behalf of the state attorney.

So they it's a public agency and the agency is

grant funded.

Its grant is it's funded by the Vocal Grant which

stands for victims of crime act.

Yeah, so that's where we receive all of our funding

every year and it has to be renewed um every

year and there are eligibility requirements that the agency needs

to meet in order to continue to receive funding for

the Vocal Grant.

Um Some of those eligibility things requirements are like ensuring

that you do go over everything with victims, ensuring that

you go over crimes compensation with victims, which just means

going over um this application that victims can fill out

to see if they are eligible for any financial compensation

because of any monetary loss.

Yeah, because due to their victimization or building like medical

bills that they have due to their victimization, they can

always fill out the application and that's something that we

are required to talk about with the victims.

So that's the basic information about the agency.

Now we can go on to our client population served.

Yeah. So we serve any victim of crime.

Any victim of crime is eligible because victims rights are

a right.

So we all are entitled to these victims rights, victims

however, can refuse services.

Therefore the services voluntary and interning at the agency.

I have seen several victims refuse services just because they

don't want to be involved with the judicial process whatsoever.

Um, they just don't want anything to do with this.

So there are victims that refuse services and that is

absolutely their right to do.

So if they don't want to be involved.

And there is also no waiting period.

As soon as an arrest is made, victims have access

to victim advocates.

So as soon as the agency receives that arrest report

or receives and intake sheet from a magistrate hearing, that

is when we make initial contact, that is when we

contact the victim.

So there is no waiting period.

As soon as we receive the information, we reach out

to them to make that contact.

So the agency uses several referral services such as women

in distress.

There are several services available to the victims depending on

the situation and what referral services would benefit them.

The most women in distress primarily focuses on victims of

domestic violence, not only women but also um but also

men. There there's kids in distress as well that focuses

more on Children.

There's the Nancy Jakob Hermann Center and the Pay Centre

for Girls that focus more on women and Children, women

and girls who have been victimized.

So, those are some examples of some referral services that

we use.

There is also Son Serve, which primarily focuses on LGBT

Um two Plus services.

So there's, there's several services that we use within the

agency. So the agency serves hundreds of victims and cases

remain open until the criminal case is closed.

So there's a lot of crimes happening all the time

and the agency has to, they handle all crimes within

Broward County, so they're getting a lot of crimes because

anyone who gets arrested in Broward County, they end up

being the advocate for those victims.

So there's always hundreds of open cases, so they're serving

hundreds of victims at a time.

That's it.

The tip okay, slowed for BSW would probably be around

10 victims a day because we're always calling victims throughout

the day.

Whenever there are new cases, we do have to call

each each one Or follow up with them.

So it probably be around 10 victims a day, but

not necessarily the same victims a day.

So, is the agency client centered?

Yes, the agency is victim centred.

The whole purpose of the agency is to ensure that

victims are being treated with all of the rights.

So, like I said, the mission and the purpose of

the agency is to ensure victims are receiving those rights,

and victims are always treated with unconditional positive regard.

And this is particularly true this agency because, you know,

they are dealing with victims of severe crimes, you know,

they've been severely traumatized and it's very, very important to

always treat them with unconditional positive regard to that.

We were not, you know, victimizing more and traumatizing more

and when they're already in such, you know, a delicate

state. So it's very, very important for us to do

that. The agency do clients have a grievance procedure.

So dealing with victims of crime, there are a lot

of victims who have unfortunately lost somebody, for example, like

in traffic homicide cases.

A lot of the times the victim is somebody who

has lost somebody who's in the car with them.

So there's always those cases where the there is grievance

procedures and the agency deals with the victim's next of

kin. Often a lot.

Um, but victims are always told that they can express

grief. They're always welcome to, you know, show whatever groups

that they would like because we're there to support them

and help them through the process.

But at the agency, we focus on all rights of

the victims, including their grievance procedures, whatever that they want

to do.

Okay, mm.

All right.

So, the interventions provided we do intakes whenever initial contact

is made with a victim.

So whenever we first make that contact or whenever we

first reached out to the victim, we go over all

of the information that we need to go over.

We introduce ourselves and the agency.

We tell them the mission and the purpose.

So that way they know why we're calling and what,

you know, what we're trying to accomplish in the phone

call. And we try to build reports.

So that way they know about us and you know,

they're more welcoming and they feel more comfortable speaking to

us. And during that introduction were also assessing the needs

of the victim.

So we're, you know, determining if we need to create

a safety plan with if we need to, what referral

services will be best suited for them.

And we're just taking down notes as well.

So we refer victims whenever they can benefit from another

agency. And the agency offers educational groups for victims and

primarily focuses on individual counseling like going on one with

the victim and then advocate interventions can take place at

the courthouse, at the agency or over the phone right

now to the pandemic, it is primarily all over the

phone. The courthouse is also closed.

So is the agency, they're not allowing any victims to

currently come into the office, so everything is done over

the phone.

The agency does not provide transportation unfortunately and the length

of treatment varies from months to years.

It depends on the length of the criminal proceedings.

As long as the case is open, we will continue

to make contact with the victims whenever there is any

updates. And the only way that we can measure victim

improvement is asking the victim how they are doing and

asking them if they would like any resources.

We can also ensure that they have safety plans in

place in case of emergencies.

So at this particular agency we don't provide like therapy.

We only really provide support.

Um, we're not we're never really going to go into

depth with the victim were only ever discussing the case.

All right.

So follow up procedures.

Once the case is closed, there are not any more

follow ups.

The agency assist victims of crime.

And if they have any questions, they can reach out

though after termination of services, after termination of services are

still needed.

We can provide the victim of resources so that they

can receive services.

Yeah. So once the case is closed, we're not actively

going back and calling the victim to see if you

know how, how they are, how they're doing just because

the amount of cases that they always get, there's always

going to be new victims that you know, that they

need to be.

Yeah. Uh following up with instead.

Yeah. Okay, context that shaped practice with the pandemic, the

way victims received services has changed drastically.

Technology now plays a huge role in how we provide

services. The agency is grant funded so we can only

stay open and politicians give us enough funding.

This also affects the quality of service that we can

provide. All the advocates have learned to adapt to technology

to provide services, victim advocates, lobby and advocate for better

victims rights.

So that's kind of how we can accomplish those things.

We have to advocate and lobby and advocate and advocate

for better victims.

Right. Yeah.

Mhm. All right.

And then the summary and evaluation to strengthen the agency

are the adaptability of the service that we can provide.

This allowed the agency to transition to completely contact this

method to providing service.

Another strength is the knowledge of all the advocates.

There's so much knowledge necessary to advocate for victims, all

the legal jargon and everything that you need to learn.

So that way you can effectively help the victims through

this process.

Two weaknesses that I found working at the agency our

cohesion. Uh everyone does everything which made it difficult to

follow along and to learn, especially in the beginning because

they've all they all are so knowledgeable.

They just do everything so naturally.

So it's just hard to follow up.

Another weakness is the services that we can provide.

We are not providing therapy services.

We only refer victims for services.

Some recommendations.

I would recommend expanding services that we offer by encourage,

by encouraging staff to become L.

C. S.

W. S and offering supervision.

This would allow us to perform therapy.

It would also need to advocate for higher grants to

accomplish this.

I would also recommend a simple way of organizing tasks.

This could be accomplished by digitizing the task so that

everyone can see what they need to accomplish and who

has done what.

All right, And then that's it.

Thank you.

VAU Presentation

Chapters

Audio TranscriptAuto-generated