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2017 Annual Meeting

September 12–14, 2017

Aurora, Colorado

The links below contained detailed information for the upcoming 2017 Safe States Alliance Annual Meeting, taking place September 12-14, 2017 in Aurora, Colorado.

Please note:

Linking Systems of Care for Children and Youth

Thursday, September 14, 2017 at 8:00 AM–9:15 AM MDT
Aurora Ballroom 4
Learning Objectives
  1. Identify the ways systems interface with children and youth.
  2. Learn strategies used by two states - Montana and Virginia - to bring these systems together to develop statewide plans.
  3. Become familiar with innovative approaches to serving children and families.
  4. Learn challenges and successes experienced with implementing the program.
Statement of Purpose

In 2014, the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) funded a new demonstration project, Vision 21 Linking Systems of Care for Children and Youth, to learn what it takes for states to bring together all of the relevant child and family serving organizations and determine ways to collectively identify and serve young victims and their families. Research tells us that children and youth are disproportionately affected by crime and abuse, yet many crimes go unreported and these victims unidentified. The effects of these experiences manifest in many ways – physical illness, educational struggles, substance abuse, delinquency, and many others. The systems that encounter these children and youth – health education, child welfare, juvenile justice – have the potential to identify these young victims and get them connected to timely assessment and intervention. 

Methods/Approach

This demonstration initiative is done in collaboration with the Office for Victims of Crime, National Institute of Justice, ICF, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, and demonstration project sites in Montanan and Virginia. These participants have spent time with community and statewide service providers to discover the challenges systems face when serving children and youth exposed to crime and their caregivers and have used information provided to develop tools and training to be implemented statewide to improve prevention, and provide comprehensive service provision to families with children affected by crime. 

Results

This presentation will provide information to systems serving child victims of crime how to interface with children and youth, development of statewide plans to screen for child and youth victims in systems and provide information on holistic and collaborative services provision.

The National Institute of Justice and ICF are the evaluative component of this grant project. They will provide information on research and their plans for evaluating the project.

Conclusions & Significance to the Field

The ways in which the proposed workshop will meet its goals and objectives are via the demonstration initiative’s planning and implementation phases by sharing lessons learned, challenges, and successes for future statewide initiatives that want to bring together many of the family and youth serving organizations that operate in their perspective states by:

Presenters

Michele Robinson, National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges
Biography

Michele Robinson is a Senior Program Manager with the Family Violence and Domestic Relations Department of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ).  Michele works with the OVC Vision 21: Linking Systems of Care for Children and Youth Project, the OVW Justice for Families: Supervised Visitation and Safe Exchange Grant Program, as well as other projects.  Ms. Robinson provides training and technical assistance to individuals, professionals, and OVW grantees throughout the country on issues of domestic violence, child custody and child protection, and supervised visitation and safe exchange.  Ms. Robinson is a community volunteer for a local domestic violence organization and annually organizes a community awareness event for domestic violence awareness month.

Ms. Robinson holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Human Development and Family Studies.  To contact Ms. Robinson please email: mrobinson@ncjfcj.org or call 775-507-4845. 

Nicole Camp, Montana Board of Crime Control
Biography

Nicole Camp is employed by the Montana Board of Crime Control as the Program Director for the Vision 21: Linking Systems of Care for Children in Montana, a statewide demonstration project with the Office of Victims of Crime. Nicole is working with numerous agencies, child service providers, and families across Montana to conduct a needs assessment of the current Systems of Care for Children.

Nicole received a Bachelors in Sociology/Criminology from The University of Montana and will be completing her Master’s in Sociology this fall. She has worked in research for the previous four years and was the recipient of a two-year research scholarship. Nicole has presented to numerous audiences in the university setting and at national and international conferences.

Bethany Case
Biography

Bethany Case is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker hailing from Louisiana and has been working at the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) in Washington, DC, since the fall of 2008. Her work experience prior to moving to DC includes: Forensic Interviewer at a Children’s Advocacy Center, Mental Health Provider in a high school setting, and State Child Protection Investigator. Bethany now applies her direct services experience with children and families in the context of a larger system—the Federal Government. She works on a variety of government-wide related efforts and initiatives, including: Attorney General Holder’s Defending Childhood Initiative, the Federal Task Force on Drug Endangered Children, the Federal Interagency Workgroup on Child Abuse and Neglect, and the National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction workgroup. Bethany’s portfolio at OVC includes: OVC’s Vision 21 initiative, Linking Systems of Care for Children and Youth, supporting young male survivors of violence, services to American Indian and Alaska Native victims, and programs to support communities in the wake of mass violence and terrorism.

Dr. Mary Spooner, Ph.D., ICF
Biography

Dr. Spooner has more than 12 years of experience in developing research designs and evaluating programs in children’s mental health, juvenile justice, and child welfare. In the role of senior manager, Dr. Spooner serves as project lead on the national evaluation of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA’s) Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children and Their Families Program and SAMHSA’s Safe Schools Healthy Students multi-site evaluation which attempts to reduce gun violence and promote safe school climates. Dr. Spooner also provided technical expertise in the implementation and evaluation of the Healthy Transition Initiative, a multi-site longitudinal study of outcomes of transition-age youth with serious mental health conditions. She has served as principal investigator (PI)/Lead Evaluator of one of SAMHSA’s systems of care sites, with responsibility for managing the collection and analysis of longitudinal study data and designing and implementing the site’s system of care evaluation. She has evaluated projects for the Department of Children and Family Services and the Department of Mental Health in the State of Illinois and on behalf of mental health boards and nonprofit agencies serving children and youth, as well as adults and families. Dr. Spooner has extensive expertise in developing training curricula and providing technical assistance and training. She is skilled in developing and implementing quantitative and qualitative research designs and database design and management, as well as implementing and managing Continuous Quality Improvement and outcomes processes. She is also a content expert on poverty, gender and development, micro-financing, and family violence having worked in these fields internationally, particularly in developing countries.

Laurie Crawford, Virginia Department of Social Services
Biography

Laurie K. Crawford, MPA, is Project Manager for Virginia’s Vision 21: Linking Systems of Care for Children and Youth (LSC) State Demonstration Project, a state-level initiative supported by the Office for Victims of Crime which aims to develop a coordinated and trauma-informed response to identifying and linking services to children and youth who have experienced crime.  Prior to taking this position at the Department of Social Services, Laurie was a Program Manager at the Virginia Department of Health for over nine years.  She implemented the Project RADAR and Project Connect initiatives at VDH and was responsible for statewide policy, training, and public awareness initiatives to improve the public health response to sexual and intimate partner violence, working predominantly with family planning and home visiting programs.  She earned a BA in Psychology from the University of Virginia and a Master of Public Administration from Virginia Commonwealth University and has also served as Assistant Director of the Charlottesville Victim/Witness Assistance Program, Domestic Violence Services Coordinator for the Henrico County Division of Police, and weekend manager at a domestic violence program.

 

Co-Authors

Primary Contact

Michele Robinson, National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges
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