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VICTIMS OF CRIME ACT VICTIM ASSISTANCE GRANT PROGRAM 2002 MICHIGAN STATE WIDE ASSISTANCE REPORT Prepared By: Michigan Crime Victim Services Commission 320 South Walnut Street Lansing, MI 48913-0000 tel: (517)334-9941
STATE FUNDING INFORMATION
A. THE ANNUAL AMOUNT ALLOCATED TO THE VICTIM ASSISTANCE PROJECTS: 1. Appropriations $ 0 2. Criminal Fines and Penalities $ 0 3. Assessments $ 7,693,000 4. Other $ 0 TOTAL:$ 7,693,000
B. TOTAL NUMBER OF AGENCIES FUNDED FROM THE FEDERAL GRANT: 90
C. NUMBER OF SUBGRANTS FUNDED FROM THIS FEDERAL GRANT: 92
VICTIM STATISTICS
A. THE NUMBER OF VICTIMS SERVED BY TYPE OF VICTIMIZATION:
NO. OF NO. OF VICTIMS SERVED VICTIMS SERVED 1,213 1. Child Physical Abuse 1,209 7. Adults Molested as Children 10,828 2. Child Sexual Abuse 14,418 8. Survivors of Homicide Victims 1,508 3. DUI/DWI Crashes 3,967 9. Robbery 71,433 4. Domestic Violence 15,025 10. Assualt 4,085 5. Adult Sexual Assault 470 11. Other 431 6. Elder Abuse TOTAL: 124,587
B. THE NUMBER OF VICTIMS WHO RECEIVED THE FOLLOWING SERVICES:
NO. OF VICTIMS SERVED 31,981 1. Crisis Counseling 42,477 2. Followup 6,638 3. Therapy 8,409 4. Group Treatment/Support 0 5. Shelter/Safehouse 50,273 6. Information/Referral (in-person) 32,889 7. Criminal Justice Support/Advocacy 2,239 8. Emergency Financial Assistance 11,268 9. Emergency Legal Advocacy 8,730 10. Assistance in filing Compensation Claims 18,099 11. Personal Advocacy 68,245 12. Telephone contact Informational/Referral 23,556 13. Other TOTAL: 304,804
A. EFFORTS TO PROMOTE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE AID TO CRIME VICTIMS: VOCA Victim Assistance funds provide victims with much needed crisis intervention and support, counseling, criminal justice support, legal advocacy and assistance with compensation at agencies within their communities. The programs funded are recognized victim service agencies within their communities, have support from both law enforcement and prosecutors, and provide along with state funded victim advocates in the prosecutor=s office, the victim support system in Michigan. VOCA Victim Assistance funds awarded in the State of Michigan for the project periods of October 1, 2001 to September 30, 2002 provided staff and volunteers who served over 120,000 victims. Over 9,700 volunteers provided in excess of 318,000 volunteer hours during the fiscal year. This is an equivalent to over 152 full time employees. VOCA funding allows many agencies to maintain on-call crisis response to victims of these crimes on a 24-hour basis. Examples include: A local community sexual assault coordinating council consisting of hospital, police department, prosecutor's office and other local service representatives developed a volunteer on-call response program for victims of sexual assault. The volunteers participate in a 40-hour multidisciplinary training by community experts. Officers contact the on-call teams when responding to a sexual assault call. Virtually all victims of sexual assault seen by the police receive an on-call response team contact. The VOCA Victim Assistance funds also provide the most stable funding source for sexual assault services in the state. VOCA Victim Assistance funds support programs providing services to child sexual assault victims modeled after the Children's Advocacy Center national model. Local non-profits are providing victims with crisis intervention and Emergency Legal Advocacy by providing assistance with Personal Protection Orders and follow up criminal justice support and advocacy in the court clerk's office. Project staff working in the local court provide assistance to crime victims with Personal Protection Orders. Many of the victims filing Personal Protection Orders in Michigan receive support from VOCA funded staff or project volunteers. VINE Victim Notification System. Progress continues with statewide installation continues.
B. EFFORTS TAKEN TO SERVE FEDERAL CRIME VICTIMS: Tribal grantees had grant funds available for staff travel to attend the U.S. Attorney's Great Lakes Native American Conference and other staff development conferences. VOCA Administrator meets periodically with Tribal programs.
C. ACTIVITIES TO IMPROVE THE DELIVERY OF VICTIM SERVICES: Skills Development Training. The State of Michigan granted virtually all funds to local public and private agencies to support staff providing services to crime victims. Grant funds supported attendance at training conferences for VOCA funded and volunteer staff used as match. These trainings were regional, statewide and national conferences and do not include the volunteer in-service training objectives outlined in sub-grants. Staff funded under VOCA grants are required to attend 24-hours of skills development training per year. MVAA State Academy and Advanced Training. With financial support from VOCA training funds from the CVSC, the 2002 fifth annual Michigan Victim Assistance Academy (MVAA) took place on June 9-14, 2002. The Academy successfully met its program goals and objectives. The 45-hour course on victimology, victim's rights and victim services was considered a success by all involved. The Academy was a six-day program covering more than 20 topics ranging from Child Victimization to Working with the Media. Visit: http://www.cj.msu.edu/~outreach/mvaa/. Fourty-one participants attended the week-long 2002 Academy and benefited from the intense instruction and interaction. Nine individuals took the MVAA for either graduate or undergraduate credit. The MVAA was modeled after the general structure of the NVAA but included topics, articles and faculty to reflect issues relevant to Michigan. A goal of the Academy was to recruit community-based teams of victim service providers (e.g. prosecutor's victim advocate, police officer, and local victim advocates) to participate. The curriculum included team building as an objective. Evaluations reflected that the Academy was considered by 94% to be very good or excellent. Thirty-six Academy Graduates attended the two Advanced Training Seminars. The seminars were a day and a half training focusing on Critical Incident Response and Recovery and Enhancing Communication Skills. Evaluations reflected that 89% of the attendees felt the Advanced Training was considered very good or excellent. The State of Michigan utilized FFY 01 TRAINING FUNDS in the amount of $58,710 for the Academy and the Advanced Trainings for FY 2001-2002. Evaluation Training. During the fiscal year ending 9/30/2002, the CVSC conducted three one-day training workshops on evaluation. The training efforts focused on how to develop outcome evaluation tools while protecting the confidentiality and safety of survivors; how to be respectful to clients when gathering and using the information; and how to address issues of diversity in the evaluation plan. The workbooks and the evaluation training workshops were developed to meet the needs of victim service agencies providing services in tribal, public or private non-profit organizations. Feedback from the workshop indicated that training participants rated these trainings useful. The workshops were rated useful or very useful by 98% of the participants. Grant Compliance. During the fiscal year ending 9/30/2002, Grant Compliance Review & Needs Assessment site reviews were performed at twenty-five VOCA sub-grantees. The site reviews averaged between six and eight hours. All agencies visited were in compliance with VOCA. Interagency Collaborations. The VOCA state administrator and the CVSC Director serve on numerous working groups and task forces related to victim services. We continue to publish a newsletter twice a year for victim service agencies statewide. All items listed in Section D are part of collaborative efforts between the CVSC, state prosecutors, state departments, and outside partnerships with coalitions and universities.
D. WAYS VOCA FUNDS HAVE BEEN USED TO ASSIST CRIME VICTIMS: This Performance Report covers grants awarded for fiscal year period of 10/1/2001 to 9/30/2002 and reflects funds from the FFY 1999, 2000, and 2001 grant awards. The funding has allowed the State of Michigan to stabilize victim service funding, reach new victim populations, expand existing services, and improve the quality of services by substantially increasing training support and salaries and benefits of direct service providers. We used training dollars to sponsor the fifth year of the nation's first State Victim Assistance Academy and continuing a web based media training course for victim advocates and service providers.
E. ISSUES OR TRENDS IMPACTING CRIME VICTIM SERVICES: We urge the federal officials to increase the cap on the Victims of Crime Act Fund beyond what is currently proposed in the FY 2003 budget. We seek an increase in the VOCA spending limit to $750 million. Allocation of these additional funds will prevent what amounts to a cut in funding for direct victim assistance service programs from FY 2002. Raising the cap will assure life-saving assistance to crime victims throughout the country without costing taxpayers a single cent. If the cap on the Crime Victims Fund is not increased we anticipate that there will be a substantial reduction in the amount of grant funds available to local programs to support crime victim services.
F. USE OF VOCA ADMINISTRATIVE FUNDS: The State of Michigan utilized Administrative funds. These funds were used to support a secretary to provide clerical support to the program, support the Grant Compliance Review and Needs Assessment Site Reviews at 20 agencies, and to support the Program Evaluation Training and Manual for VOCA Grantees, on-line grant reporting development, publication of two newsletters, and to cover in-direct costs.