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PROGRAM OVERVIEW
The Victims of Violence
(VOV) Program of Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) was co-founded
in 1984 by Mary Harvey, PhD (Director) and Judith Herman, MD (Director
of Training) with startup funding from the City of Cambridge. Established
as a clinical training program of Harvard Medical School in 1985,
VOV received its first Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) award from the
MA Victim Witness Assistance Board in 1986. In 1988, VOV received
the American Psychiatry Association's Gold Award for innovative
hospital and community service. That same year, with increased VOCA
support, VOV initiated the Commonwealth's first publicly funded
Community Crisis Response Team (CCRT) and began providing low profile,
confidential services to urban communities affected by violent crime.
In 2000, VOCA funding
enabled VOV to launch the Victim Advocacy and Support Team (VAST)
extending hospital-based, alliance-wide victim advocacy and support
to crime victims and their families. In 2002, VOV received additional
VOCA funding to launch our new Center for Homicide Bereavement,
providing counseling, support and advocacy to individuals and families
bereaved by homicide. Also in 2002, VOV was awarded an Antiterrorism
Supplemental VOCA (ATSG) grant to extend mental health and victim
advocacy services to families bereaved by the terrorist attacks
of September 11, 2001 and to first responders to those tragic events.
Today, VOV is a unique clinical resource for victims, a valued training
context for graduate and post-graduate clinical trainees, a setting
for clinical and community research, a consultation and training
resource of national and international significance and a participant
in world-wide anti-violence efforts.
MISSION STATEMENT
AND SERVICE PHILOSOPHY
VOV recognizes the prevalence
and psychological harmfulness of violence in American society and
around the world, the value of community-based social action to
prevent violence, and the importance of competence-building, empowering
care. VOV's mission in the hospital, the CHA health care network,
and the larger community is to develop comprehensive mental health
services for crime victims and crime victimized communities. Because
victims often experience psychiatric intervention as stigmatizing
and intrusive, VOV emphasizes clinical care that can facilitate
mastery, mobilize resiliency and promote renewed hope and restored
self-esteem. Group treatment informed by these themes offers the
promise of reduced isolation, opportunities to form new attachments
and new avenues to community. VAST extends empowering information
and support to crime victims and their families at a time of crisis.
Homicide bereavement services ensure timely, compassionate response
to families devastated by traumatic loss. And, through the CCRT,
VOV offers interventions designed to mobilize the healing, health-promoting
capacities of communities impacted by violent crime.
VOV SERVICES
- Crisis intervention
and response (initial crisis assessment, treatment planning
and episodic or time-limited crisis-focused psychotherapy) for
acutely traumatized crime victims and their families
- Hospital-based
and system-wide victim advocacy and support
- Longer term clinical
care (psychological assessment, treatment planning and psychotherapy)
for adult survivors of physical and sexual violence
- Homicide bereavement
counseling and support
- A wide array of
groups, (including groups for adult survivors of childhood
abuse and domestic violence and groups for parents, partners,
siblings and children of murdered family members)
- Community crisis
response to urban communities affected by violent crime
- Clinical and support
services to witnesses, family members and others affected by crime
victimization. Through our ATSG funding we are able to extend
these services free of charge to families bereaved by and first
respondents impacted by the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.
- Work within CHA
to promote sensitive and skillful domestic violence prevention,
detection, and response and participate in a wide variety
of training, consultation, and public and professional educational
efforts
VOV FUNDING
VOCA support for VAST,
the CCRT and the Center for Homicide Bereavement and ATSG funding
are vital to VOV's ability to extend these free-of-charge services
to crime victims and crime victimized communities. VOCA funding
is augmented by matching funds from CHA and by volunteer participation
in the CCRT and Center for Homicide Bereavement. CHA fully funds
the clinical services of VOV. Other VOV initiatives are supported
by other program resources, including grant and foundation awards,
consultation and training fees and private donations. These sources
of support enable VOV to extend consultation to and conduct specialized
training programs for local, national, and international audiences
and visitors, to conduct research on recovery and resiliency in
trauma survivors, and to participate in community-wide efforts to
address and reduce domestic violence in the City of Cambridge and
surrounding communities.
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Victims of
Violence Program
Central Street
Health Center
26
Central Street
Somerville, MA 02143
617-591-6360
Barbara Hamm,
PsyD, Director
Judith L. Herman,
MD, Director of Training
Jayme A. Shorin,
LICSW, Associate Dir, Clinical Services
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