vicarious trauma

The Office of Justice Programs (OJP) Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) has developed a comprehensive toolkit to support professionals in the field of trauma services who are consistently exposed to the traumatic experiences of others – known as vicarious trauma. The Vicarious Trauma Toolkit includes tools and resources to support organizations in addressing vicarious trauma within their organizations and occupations.

On March 13, 2021, NCVS and Lisa Tieszen hosted a 4-hour team-building session with the credible messenger’s team. The objectives of this session were to: Understand the value of the group, Explore working in teams, and Strengthen communication.

Over the past year and a half, Lisa Liezen, Resilience Works, has been conducting ongoing TTA support with GA-N’s credible messenger team. On March 7, 2021, NCVC and Lisa Lieszen met with the credible messenger’s team for a 1-hour long TTA session to introduce the forthcoming team building session.

The Project Safe Neighborhoods Training and Technical Assistance team hosted an 8-hour online training for 60 attendees focused on understanding the importance of trauma-informed policing and vicarious trauma, and also bringing awareness to self-care and resiliency. This training will be led by the National Center for Victims of Crime.

This virtual training was a follow-up to an earlier training for GA-N's credible messenger team that focused on vicarious trauma. This training had the goal of providing the credible messengers with the tolls necessary to continuously train themselves and new messengers on vicarious trauma.

Vicarious trauma training for GA-N credible messengers, which is a program developed through GA-N's PSN strategy. A follow-up "train the trainer" training will be conducted virtually in March 2020 focusing on self care, team building, boundaries. A third training (date and method of delivery TBD) will be delivered on anger replacement and cognitive behavioral therapy.

The Office of Justice Programs’ Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) Training and Technical Assistance Center (TTAC) recently added two new special focus areas — mass violence and terrorism and vicarious trauma.