Download to read PDF documents. Foreign Language Translator

OVC program funding for assisting and enhancing the field of victim services has resulted in useful educational and informational materials. Many of these materials are produced by the grantees themselves, and are featured in this OVC area designated as Grantee Publications. To order or inquire about these materials, please contact the organizations directly.

Child Physical and Sexual Abuse: Guidelines for Treatment (Revised Report: April 2004)
Developed by the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center at the Medical University of South Carolina and the Center for Sexual Assault and Traumatic Stress at the Harborview Medical Center, University of Washington, with funding by OVC, these new guidelines recommend specific mental health treatment protocols—based on sound theory and clinical-anecdotal literature—to improve the treatment of child physical and sexual abuse. This document is available electronically from the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center Web site. PDF (430 kb)

Elder Abuse Fatality Review Teams: A Replication Manual (June 2005)
Developed by the American Bar Association and funded by OVC, this publication provides guidance to communities interested in establishing similar teams. Elder abuse fatality review teams review deaths caused by or related to elder abuse and can improve the response of community agencies to elder abuse victims. This document is available electronically from ABA's Commission on Law and Aging. PDF (3 mb)

Helping Sexual Assault Survivors with Multiple Victimizations and Needs: A Guide for Agencies Serving Sexual Assault Survivors (July 2007)
Developed under an OVC grant to the University of Iowa's School of Social Work, this publication strives to identify issues and considerations unique to survivors who have experienced multiple victimizations and outlines what advocacy might be appropriate for them. Developed for advocates in rape crisis centers and in criminal justice system agencies, the Guide offers practical strategies for assessing and enhancing responses to this specific population.  This document is available electronically.
PDF (1 mb)

Identifying and Responding to Domestic Violence: Consensus Recommendations For Child and Adolescent Health (September 2002)
This document (NCJ 197220) is designed to assist health care providers from the pediatric and family health settings in addressing adult domestic violence victimization and childhood exposure to domestic violence through screening, assessment, documentation, intervention, and referrals. This OVC grantee-developed document is available electronically from the Family Violence Prevention Fund's Web site. PDF (1 mb)

Reaching and Serving Teen Victims: A Practical Handbook (September 2005)
This handbook provides guidance for working more effectively with teenage victims of crime and understanding the way that victimization affects teens uniquely. It is designed for victim advocates, law enforcement officers, educators, counselors, youth workers, and other professionals who come into contact with teen crime victims. Produced as part of the YOVA project, a partnership between the National Crime Prevention Council and the National Center for Victims of Crime, funded by the Office for Victims of Crime, to support youth-adult teams in designing and implementing youth-led outreach campaigns on teen victimization topics. Available in PDF (1 mb) and in print from McGruff's Bookshelf at NCPC.org, 1-800-627-2911.

Responding to People Who Have Been Victimized by Individuals with Mental Illnesses (PDF 540 kb; September 2008). “Not guilty by reason of insanity” may pose challenges to implementing and enforcing crime victims’ rights. This issue brief reports on these and other barriers, current policies and practices, and the action items that policymakers, advocates, mental health professional and others can take to protect the rights and safety of these crime victims. A companion Guide explores the possible responses to address the adaptations to crime victims’ policies in Mental Health Courts that are contributing factors limiting victims’ rights. See A Guide to the Role of Crime Victims in Mental Health Courts (PDF 635 kb; September 2008).

The Council of State Governments Justice Center wrote these two guides with a grant from the Office for Victims of Crime and is making them available off their Consensus Project on Criminal Justice and Mental Health Web site.

Standards for Victim Assistance Programs and Providers Standards Kit (May 2003)
This kit, compiled by the National Victim Assistance Standards Consortium, includes program, competency, and ethical standards for victim assistance providers; a compendium of promising practices in professional development; directories of credentialing programs and related standards; and a list of professional development resources. For printed copies, contact The Center for Child & Family Studies.

Victims' Rights Laws in the States
Print and Online Statutory Guide (2006)
This guidebook, published by National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) with funding support from OVC, describes laws related to crime victims' rights in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa through 2004.  The online statutory guide offers all of the guide’s content, charts, tables, state summaries, in a searchable web-based format.

NCSL, with funding from OVC, worked on the State Legislators' Victim Education project and produced resources on victims’ rights and services, primarily for state legislators, but also useful for victim advocates, criminal justice practitioners, and other allied professionals. See also the Victims' Rights and Services: An Overview for New Legislators Audio CD.

Victims' Rights and Services: An Overview for New Legislators Audio CD (May 2007)
This audio program from the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) highlights key areas of victims' rights and services law and how actions of state legislatures continue to improve, expand and enforce these laws.  It provides members new to criminal justice or judiciary committees—and others—with the basic tenets of victims' law.  It draws from the discussions of legislators, agency heads and other criminal justice system officials at various NCSL forums, as well as from NCSL research, to describe basic victims' measures in the states.
Online version of audio program (available in multiple mp3 files)
PDF version of the CD booklet (430 kb)

NCSL, with funding from OVC, worked on the State Legislators' Victim Education project and produced resources on victims’ rights and services, primarily for state legislators, but also useful for victim advocates, criminal justice practitioners, and other allied professionals. See also the statutory guide on Victims' Rights Laws in the States.