The Safe Horizon Victims’ advocacy program aims at moving victims who have been affected by any form of violence from the crisis impacted upon them towards confidence. The mission of the program is to ensure that it offers support, promotion of justice and violence prevention for the crime victims including their families. The program offers services against child abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault and rape, stalking, human trafficking, youth homelessness and victims who have been subjected to other forms of abuse. The program through its officials collaborates with other agencies in raising awareness in relation to different forms of abuse. The program also has a Facebook web page which it uses to raise awareness against any forms of criminal activities or abuse against people (Safe Horizon).
Another program is the Rape Victim Advocacy Program (RVAP) which is part of the University of Iowa. It is a sexual assault victim activist and deterrence education program. The program has its operations in most of the Iowa parts. The mission of the program is to ensure that it provides free, confidential, trauma-informed advocacy to all victims of sexual abuse. Its vision is to ensure that the community is free from any form of sexual abuse. In raising awareness about sexual violence, the program has in place the Iowa Sexual Abuse Hotline which ensures it serves all people who are victims of sexual assault including their loved ones (RVAP).
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The Safe Horizon Victims advocacy program was formed in 1978 and is the largest victim services NGO in the USA. It offers its services in more than 57 locations in New York and provides services to more than 250,000 victims who have been affected by violent criminal activities including the families annually. As such, with over four decades of operation, the program has been able to gather the relevant experience through which it offers its servicers (Safe Horizon). The RVAP does not only serve the University of Iowa students but rather other higher education and K-12 academic institutions in their service location. The program’s services offered are free, and it has in place trained professionals who offer the victims counseling, therapy and support 24 hours a day (RVAP). As such, the availability of skilled professionals indicates that the services they provide are of high quality and efficient.
The victims who benefit from the RVAP program are the sexual abuse victims. They also serve victims who have been indirectly and directly affected by sexual violence. The programs main area of focus is sexual abuse for its professionals can offer the victims counseling, therapy referrals, information and other relevant options. The Safe Horizon Domestic violence victims get the most benefits from the program. This is because Safe Horizon is the largest operator of domestic violence shelters in the USA. According to the program, one in every four and one in every seven women and men respectively are sufferers of domestic abuse or violence in the country (Safe Horizon).
When it comes to offering services to the victims, it is essential for the Safe Horizon program to take into account the health, perspectives, and safety of the victims. As such, using a victim’s centered approach will ensure the program focuses on its larger purposes. It will also help it in the reduction of re-traumatization among the victims. The RVAP program does not offer any counseling services to the perpetrators of sexual abuse acts. Sanders, (2009), however, despite them causing suffering to the victims and their loved ones, there is also need to offer some form of psychological therapy to the perpetrators. Such evaluations can be used in determining the motivators of sexual abuse which can be stopped in future.
The apt and profound reporting of the victims’ cases by the media at times is very useful. The coverage of cases such as child abuse and domestic violence lays down a foundation upon which effective public policies are implemented to stop such crimes (Newmark, 2004). The media can play a role towards the humanizing of a victim and their experiences when it focuses on the criminal justice system on how the offender is being handled. The media can also form a platform upon which victims of crime can advocate for social change once they speak about their experiences.
References
Newmark, L. C. (2004). Crime Victims’ Needs and VOCA-Funded Services: Findings and Recommendations from Two National Studies.
RVAP. (n.d.). Division of Student Life. University of Iowa . Retrieved May 23, 2017 from https://www.rvap.uiowa.edu
Safe Horizon. (n.d.).Domestic Violence. Retrieved May 23, 2017, from https://www.safehorizon.org/get-help/domestic-violence/
Safe Horizon. (n.d.). Moving Victims of violence from Crisis to Confidence. Safe Horizon Homepage. Retrieved May 23, 2017 from https://www.safehorizon.org/
Sanderson, C. (2009). Introduction to Counselling Survivors of Interpersonal Trauma . London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
