Article: Capital Health + PEI Kids = Winning Team for Victims of Violence

Continued from newsletter…

It was only a few minutes into our meeting that we had the “eureka” moment… realizing that together we could offer meaningful and specialized support to help the entire family unit heal from the trauma of violent crime.

For PEI Kids, the VICTORY program was an incredible opportunity for partnership. CAYV Case Manager, Ariana Rodriguez, explained, “With this new partnership we can connect with potential clients sooner than we had been able to previously, especially in instances where a severe physical injury occurred. This partnership gives us the opportunity to reach out to potential clients within hours rather than days or weeks of an incident.”

Since March, we’ve been working collaboratively with Capital Health to address the impacts of victimization on the whole family. Both, the VICTORY program and our CAYV program, employ evidence-based trauma-informed practices; so there is great synergy as each family member begins to embark on their program of recovery. “By having the capacity to address family members’ unique needs with specialized, age-appropriate services, each person is able to focus on their healing confident that other members of their household are receiving similar quality support,” added Rodriguez.

Full article text

Working with crime victims isn’t just for law enforcement. In January, our team met with the specialists at Capital Health to better understand how they’re serving crime victims in our community.

In 2020, Capital Health was one of only four sites awarded funding by the NJ Office of the Attorney General to operate a new Trauma Recovery Center program serving victims of violence in Mercer County. The program, Violence Intervention for the Community Through Outreach Recovery, became known as the VICTORY program.

As it turns out, the VICTORY program is funded exclusively to serve adult victims of violence; while our Council Against Youth Violence (CAYV) program is funded exclusively to serve youth victims.

It was only a few minutes into our meeting that we had the “eureka” moment… realizing that together we could offer meaningful and specialized support to help the entire family unit heal from the trauma of violent crime.

For PEI Kids, the VICTORY program was an incredible opportunity for partnership. CAYV Case Manager, Ariana Rodriguez, explained, “With this new partnership we can connect with potential clients sooner than we had been able to previously, especially in instances where a severe physical injury occurred. This partnership gives us the opportunity to reach out to potential clients within hours rather than days or weeks of an incident.”

Since March, we’ve been working collaboratively with Capital Health to address the impacts of victimization on the whole family. Both, the VICTORY program and our CAYV program, employ evidence-based trauma-informed practices; so there is great synergy as each family member begins to embark on their program of recovery. “By having the capacity to address family members’ unique needs with specialized, age-appropriate services, each person is able to focus on their healing confident that other members of their household are receiving similar quality support,” added Rodriguez.