1. General Essay Questions
2018/2019 VOCA
General Essay Questions

2. Q1: Describe what meaningful measures your organization has implemented to ensure victims have access to trauma-informed services through your agency. Also describe what future meaningful measures your organization will work to implement to ensure victims have access to trauma-informed services.
What has your use of the Trauma Informed Care manual been? Do you use it to train staff, provide ongoing training during staff meetings?
Did you participate in the TIP scale project? What were your results? What feedback were you given and what improvements to your program did you make based on that feedback?
Use of the Trauma Informed Roadmap – how can you use this tool to provide ongoing trauma focused services? How can you utilize the various components of the tool to develop ongoing training for staff?
Do you utilize Promising Practices? How have you used it to improve services? How do you utilize it to implement best practices? How do you use it to train staff to promote best practices and trauma informed services?
What types of survivor evaluations do you use? What is done with the results and how are changes/improvements made to programming based on those results? How consistently do you provide evaluations?

3. Q1: Describe what meaningful measures your organization has implemented to ensure victims have access to trauma-informed services through your agency. Also describe what future meaningful measures your organization will work to implement to ensure victims have access to trauma-informed services.
What types of training are provided to staff, how often is it provided and what topics are covered? What is your “on-boarding” process and how do new staff receive training on what it means to be trauma informed and provide trauma informed services? Do new staff members receive 40 hours of training?
Do you provide coaching to staff on how to address trauma responses when survivor behavior begins to reflect those trauma responses? If so, how and in what way?
In what ways do you work with survivors on understanding the effects of their trauma and how do you utilize trauma informed resources to work through these issues/responses with survivors?
Is secondary trauma addressed? If so, how?
Are child trauma issues/behaviors addressed? If so, by whom and how are those services provided? (ie. All staff, resident advocate, child advocate, therapist, etc)
Are survivors permitted to participate in decision making, feedback, services and program development? How do you include survivors and in what ways do they participate in these areas?

4. Q2: What is your organization doing to assist victims in healing not only the current victimizations, but possible long histories of victimizations? What tools/assessments, if any, is your organization using to assess the trauma a victim has experienced, and how they are used to determine a plan for the victim?
Do you use risk assessments, safety assessments, or lethality assessments? How are these utilized? Are they reviewed with survivors to really understand the outcomes?
Is therapy offered in house, in agency or in the community?
Is safety planning conducted for multiple stages of a survivor’s involvement in services? Are they updated with frequency? Are they survivor driven?
If/when these services are provided to survivors, what awareness, education or information is provided to help them understand trauma and healing?
What additional resources are used (or could be used) within your program, agency or community to assist survivors with understanding their trauma history and assist with healing? Do you offer in program services such as art therapy, yoga or other types of exercise, creative writing, poetry, art projects, cooking or baking projects or classes, salon nights such haircuts, color, nails, facials, etc.

5. Q3: What meaningful steps does your organization take to ensure that victims are safe, both within your organization and at home? How does your organization work to ensure a victim’s basic needs are met? Basic needs include access to food, clothing, shelter, etc.
Is safety planning conducted for multiple scenarios? (In shelter, when taking care of appointments in the community, if they are permitted overnight visits with friends/family members, once they secure independent housing, if they return home, if they are in the home and calling the crisis line, etc)
What services are survivors connected with whether they are at home, in shelter, or elsewhere? Are they provided advocacy in a variety of settings? Case management? Mobile advocacy? Referrals? If so, is there follow up with service providers to see if the survivor was fully served and their needs met?
What services and needs are provided directly, indirectly, through referral, case management or advocacy? (food, clothing, benefits, personal items, toiletries, education, employment, transportation, legal assistance, relocation assistance, housing, child care, related services such as counseling, substance abuse treatment, support groups, securing household items once housing is secured, etc.)
How do you connect survivors with these services if they are not provided directly by your program? How are survivors assured of receiving the services they need? Is there follow up? Ongoing advocacy and/or case management?

6. Q4: In many cases, victims have complex issues that require services from multiple organizations. What protocols does your organization have in place to ensure that there is coordination of services between the many agencies a victim may be receiving services from? If you provide a referral to another services provider, how does your organization ensure that the victim received appropriate services from the agency to which you referred?
What is your resource/referral process? Who is responsible for providing resources and referrals? Are all staff familiar with relevant and most frequently utilized resources? How is this information provided to staff? How do you ensure that survivors receive as many resources and referrals to meet their needs as possible? Do you review with staff on a regular basis the services available in your community and what services each agency is able to offer to survivors?
Are collaboration boards utilized to coordinate/provide services or referrals? How is this done within this platform? How is survivor information protected? How are releases managed, updated and terminated upon expiration? Are releases of information survivor driven? If a survivor declines to sign a release, how would you continue to coordinate services to assure their individual and family needs were still met?
What kind of follow up is done, if any, to see if the service was provided and if the survivor received all necessary (or desired) services? To ensure that the survivor was treated fairly, with respect and dignity? Do advocates attend appointments with survivors when possible? If a survivor prefers to conduct business/appointments on their own, how would you ensure they are being treated respectfully to ensure trauma informed services? Do you ever provide training to other service providers to provide education and awareness about survivor trauma, responses and challenges? Do you have individual relationships and contacts with people at these agencies that you trust when providing referrals? Are your collaboration board members well informed and educated on trauma and do you connect survivors with those individuals whenever possible?

7. Q5: In 2017, Ohio voters passed Marsy’s Law
Q5: In 2017, Ohio voters passed Marsy’s Law. The law will work to ensure crime victims in Ohio have specific rights in the criminal justice process. Describe how your organization ensures that victims are aware of their rights during the criminal justice process. If you refer victims to other services providers for information about their rights, detail that process.
What actions do advocates perform when notifying victims of their rights? Is this information discussed so that survivors fully understand their rights? Are information packets provided and reviewed fully with survivors? How do you account for the various literacy levels of survivors to assure understanding? Are referrals made, and if so, how are these provided? Is there follow up? Do you fully explain why the referral is made and what the referral agency can assist the survivor with?
How frequently, and at what various stages, is this information reviewed with the survivor? Every court hearing or appointment? Only at the beginning? Only at the end of a case or legal issue? Do you explain the various rights that are assured to survivors at the various stages of a case as they become relevant? Or do you explain all rights at the beginning of the case or when a survivor accesses services? How are survivors served if they don’t wish to be part of services, court advocacy, the court process, etc? How do advocates continue to advocate on behalf of the survivors to law enforcement, attorneys, etc. when the survivor doesn’t wish to be part of the legal process?
Outline what information is discussed on crisis lines, at intake, during case management, at court or through advocacy and explain the process of referral or information dissemination. Explain how survivors are educated about their rights and how you determine if the survivor understands the rights as explained to them.

8. Q6: Victim services providers experience high levels of vicarious trauma, and thus organizations experience high turnover and burnout of staff. Describe any on-going efforts by your organization to provide and/or encourage self-care amongst staff members experiencing vicarious trauma. What efforts does your organization plan for the future to ensure staff members are utilizing self-care?
As a program, what is done for individual staff members? As a team? For yourself?
What “official” incentives does your program or agency offer to staff members (days off, bonuses, gift cards, raises, etc.) and what do you provide as a program or director more informally? (lunches, ice cream, activities, outings, special programming for staff, hours or days off, team activities and or staff processing)
When bigger crises occur and staff are caring for survivors and managing the emotions and well- being of others, what is done to assist staff to manage, adjust, decompress and process? How do you encourage staff to practice self-care after one of these major incidents? How will you build this component into one of these events in the future if you currently have nothing more formal?
What kinds of activities, projects or incentives might you begin to incorporate and promote from this point forward for individuals, the staffing team, management and administrators?
Do you encourage staff to take moments throughout the day to practice self-care, visit the self- care corner on the ODVN website? (more to come on this) Do you model self-care for your staff and if so, how? If you don’t currently (as Directors, it is all too common to make sure the care of others is addressed while neglecting our own care) how might you begin to model self-care for staff in the future? Do you encourage team self-care? If not, how might you incorporate this into your future team planning?