Victim Aid Becoming Full-Fledged Field

The field, highly suited for social workers, is growing rapidly.

A burgeoning field of employment often overlooked by social workers is in assisting people who suffer physical, emotional, mental health, social and financial devastation as a result of crime.

Fueled by federal funds from the Victims of Crime Act and a national emphasis on victims as well as perpetrators, the field of crime victims assistance has been "growing by leaps and bounds," according to Fran Danis, a researcher and lecturer at the University of Texas.

Social workers are particularly well suited through education, field placements and experience for crime victim assistance work and are missing opportunities through lack of knowledge about the field, said Danis and others in the field.

But training beyond the bachelor's or master's degree in social work is needed to effectively handle people in the trauma-charged aftermath of crime, say victim assistance experts.

With backing from a Justice Department grant, the NASW Texas Chapter and the University of Texas for a year have been working to pilot test in Texas a national demonstration project to raise awareness of the impacts of violent crime on adult victims and their families, to develop linkages between crime victim assistance professionals and social workers and to create a training workshop that introduces social workers to crime victims assistance and to the rights and services available to victims.

For instance, crime victims programs funded through the Department of Justice will pay for mental health services to crime victims in every state, but many social workers are unaware of this, said Danis.

It isn't easy to define exactly what the field of victims assistance is or who professionals in the field are. Probably all social workers in direct practice encounter victims of crime, especially those who deal with vulnerable minority populations or the mentally ill. Hospital social workers provide services often for those who are victims of sexual assault, drunk drivers, robberies or whose family members are victims of homicide. Certainly, those who work in shelters for battered women or in child protective services constantly deal with victims of crime, but may not identify themselves as victims-assistance professionals.

Others work directly in offices set up by local, state and federal governments to provide aid to those whose lives have been shattered by crime and identify themselves as victims-assistance professionals. For instance, Paul Furukawa, a retired Army social worker, helped set up a victims-assistance program at the San Antonio Police Department in which teams of social workers and police officers respond to incidents of violence after police have handled the 911 situations.

In addition to knowing about resources to help victims and having information about laws and protective orders, the teams often also deal with perpetrators of crime who may be out of jail and back home. Social workers, then, need skills to work with both victims and perpetrators if they want to resolve problems nonviolently, said Furukawa.

Furukawa, manager of San Antonio's crisis-response team, said the teams have worked so well there is now a staff of 30 people whose primary focus is victims services. In addition to crisis intervention and case management, they make educational presentations and do violence-prevention work. The system has worked so well that the City of Austin funds the positions out of its own budget.

Kathi West of Austin, Texas, is victim-assistance coordinator for the U.S. Attorney's Office for 40 counties in west Texas and furnishes assistance for victims of federal crimes like fraud, gun violations and kidnapping. Previously she did family-violence work with the Austin Policy Department, explaining protective orders, recommending shelters if appropriate, explaining the criminal justice system, and telling family members how to relocate or hide out if necessary.

The victims-assistance field began about 30 years ago with greater recognition of the prevalence of domestic violence and sexual assault. There was also recognition that victims were not coming forward, afraid they would be revictimized in the criminal justice process, said Danis.

In 1984, Congress passed the Victims of Crime Act, the funding mechanism for many victim-assistance and compensation programs throughout the country. Using money from federal fines and forfeitures, the Justice Department distributes about 90 percent of funds to states for victims-assistance programs. The funds to establish programs grew from $100 million in 1985 to $500 million in 1999.

In Texas, for instance, each prosecutor's office and each law enforcement agency is mandated to designate a crime victim coordinator or liaison. Every U.S. Attorney's Office and many federal agencies like the FBI, Secret Service, prisons and military bases have victim/witness coordinators. West said when she began work for the federal government seven years ago, there were about 60 victims-assistance professionals in the federal government, many of whom had other duties. Last February, she attended training for federal victims-assistance professionals in Washington, D.C., where 900 were present. "And that's not all of them," she said.

Because victims-assistance professionals work in so many settings, it is hard to get estimates of how many are performing the work. In the 1997 NASW Press book Who We Are, 2.3 percent of members identified the primary focus of their work as "violence-victims assistance."

People connected with the field say it is growing rapidly at all levels of government and at private agencies and is moving from what was once largely a volunteer task toward standards and professionalization, a shift that is causing annoyance among old-time volunteers in the field. "There is a lot of desire to see that there are standards and training so victims get consistently high-quality responses," said Kathryn Turman, a social worker who is director of the Justice Department's Office for Victims of Crime.

There is not a lot of formal training in victimology by universities, said Turman, which is why the Justice Department is eager to cooperate with educational institutions so people in medicine, law and social work can get training. "Social work is a particularly good place to start because their orientation to helping people is more like that of victims-assistance professionals than some other professions'," she said.

"That's why we want to get the program started in Texas and see how it works. We want to provide information to other states. The program in Texas could be a great model, particularly because of the network of NASW to get the training and model out there," said Turman. "There is a lot of interest in other parts of the country."

With an $80,000 grant from the Department of Justice's Office for Victims of Crime, the NASW chapter and the university have developed a number of products to help professional social workers respond effectively and empathetically to the immediate and long-term needs of crime victims and their families. Products and materials from the project can be replicated nationally and by other NASW chapters.

In addition to the 90-minute workshop, which will be staged in the chapter's 21 regions, products will include: a competency-based curriculum; a practitioner's guide to responding to the needs of crime victims; a World Wide Web page for social workers about crime victims; a report on continuing education needs for the field; and surveys of social work practitioners and victims-assistance training in Texas schools of social work.

There seems to be broad agreement that social workers are ideally suited for victims-assistance work. "Social work education provides a good knowledge and skill base for social workers who want to move into the field," said Danis.

In a survey by the Texas Crime Victims Institute, victims said the number-one service they needed was mental health counseling, which includes crisis intervention and long-term counseling, she said.

"Along with employee assistance, this is a growth area where there is clearly a future at both the BSW and MSW levels," said Furukawa. "I would love to see social work programs begin to set up sequences and concentrations in this area. It would give them a leg up in employment opportunities."

"Victims assistance is growing in San Antonio and at the federal level. Other disciplines recognize this, and I don't think social work needs to take a back seat," he said. Social workers "already have the skills, values and knowledge base."

"One thing we learned when we started bringing in social workers was how useful their case management skills were — people who could manage victims and make sure they were getting services they needed and could cope when trial came, and with the training to recognize when victims need more significant mental health services," said Turman.

Training beyond BSW and MSW degrees is needed for effective victims-assistance work and to obtain jobs, say those in the field. "Like substance abuse, health and mental health settings, this area requires additional knowledge, skills and abilities — to take the BSW and MSW training and polish it for this type of work," said Furukawa.

Many of the people landing jobs in the federal system are paralegals and secretaries, because their bosses want to promote them, said West. "They don't know that if people have training, they will get a much better product."

Social workers desiring jobs in the field should position themselves by taking any available academic or continuing education courses and by doing internships or volunteering at places that assist crime victims, like battered women's programs, rape-crisis programs or law enforcement victims-assistance programs, said West.

They should then be aggressive in going to agencies, passing out resumes and talking with those who do the work, because turnover is high and "there are always openings," she said. "At the federal level, they need to get the [federal application] paperwork in and check the Web pages often for openings."

The Justice Department sponsors the National Victim Assistance Academy, an intensive, weeklong victims-assistance training program at six universities around the country each summer that is ideal for professionals and prospective workers to learn about sound practices for working with crime victims, said Turman. The department is also helping states develop their own victims-assistance academies.

Sam Houston State University in Texas is going to offer bachelor's and master's programs in victim-services administration next year, said Danis.

Victims assistance isn't for everyone because of the exposure to human cruelty and the aftermath of violence to adults and children. Those who choose the field need to learn to take care of themselves and avoid vicarious traumatization, the phenomenon of unduly assuming the pain of those they assist, said Turman, who was in direct service before working at the Justice Department.

"This field can be depressing because you see the worst things that people can do to each other and, in some settings, see more violence than the police, working homicide cases and attempted suicides" said West. "Some take on the grief and horror of what happened."

"It can be very exciting, but it can be depressing and trying. I feel it is an honor to work with people at the worst times of their lives, when they are extremely devastated."

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Copyright NASW Press, 1998