Mission

The Center for Victim & Survivor Services’ (CVSS) mission is to promote safety, healing, and justice for victims and survivors of crime by meeting their individualized needs, upholding victims’ rights, and enhancing community and national responses to harm. We achieve our mission by building programs that focus on direct services, consultation, training, collaborative partnerships, and developing innovative solutions to meet the needs of individuals who experience crime.

Goals

  • Provide survivor-centered direct services that empower and support individuals who have experienced harm.
  • Leverage subject matter expertise to provide consultation that is grounded by evidence-based and promising practices. 
  • Develop impactful partnerships that enhance community response, streamline systems of care, and support collaboration of services.
  • Educate the community, service providers, law enforcement, ourselves, and others to improve service delivery and survivor support. 
  • Passionately advocate for national system change that amplifies survivor’s voice and improves survivor’s experiences within the criminal justice system and beyond.

Programs

Hotline Programs

The Center for Victim & Survivor Services’ has operated two hotlines since 2015, VictimConnect Resource Center and the DC Victim Hotline. Both programs provide phone, chat, and text-based services to all victims of crime. Visitors to the hotline can receive strength-based and trauma-informed services and referrals in over 200 languages.

All NCVC’s Victim Assistance Specialists receive extensive training and mentoring to provide emotional support, information, and referrals with a goal of empowering visitors as they navigate the physical, emotional, legal, and financial consequences of crime.

The National Hotline Consortium

The National Hotline Consortium (NHC) is led by the National Center for Victims of Crime’s Center for Victim & Survivor Services. It was formed in 2015 by a group of leading national victim services and crisis intervention hotlines seeking to work collectively to provide accessible high-quality survivor-centered services that are trauma- and culturally informed.

Services for Organizations

Direct Services
In addition the hotline programs listed above, CVSS leverages hotline knowledge and infrastructure to support smaller organizations provide week-day or 24/7 hotline services, intakes, or dispatch.
Additionally, CVSS can help jurisdictions craft hotline services based on their individualized needs. Direct Service programs can also include short-term follow-up services and emergency assistance funds for specific survivor populations.

Consultation & Training
 CVSS provides consultation and training in their areas of expertise. This includes, but is not limited to, human trafficking, crime victims’ rights, child sexual exploitation, victim services, hotline services, and trauma. CVSS can provide short-term and long-term services based on organizational needs.

Currently, CVSS provide ongoing consultation to the Human Trafficking Capacity Building Center, funded by the Office of Victims of Crime (HTCBC) and FINRA, who are partnered with the National Center for Victims of Crime.

Human Trafficking Capacity Building Center
CVSS supports the HTCBC by providing subject matter expertise to Human Trafficking organizations. Through the HTCPC, CVSS provides 90-min one-on-one coaching sessions, monthly office hours, and 4-week-long cohorts to build sustainability skills. To learn more or get access to sustainment services, please connect with HTCPC at htcbc.ovc.ojp.gov.

FINRA Investor Education Foundation
The NCVC Center for Victim Service Professionals supports the FINRA Investors Education Foundation by delivering trainings to advocates and other service providers so they can better meet the needs of clients experiencing financial fraud. The Center for Victim & Survivor Services consults with FINRA and CFS, leveraging their direct service knowledge. In addition, hotline staff are well trained to support callers of financial fraud.