Victim Support Service Inc. (VSS) is a community based, not-for-profit organisation operating from eight offices across South Australia. Qualified professional staff provide a comprehensive range of services including Victims of Crime Compensation for people who have suffered as a result of a criminal offence. This includes individual victims of crime, their families, friends and the wider community.
Services
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Adelaide Office at Halifax Street |
Victim Support Service is hosting a one-day seminar by the internationally acclaimed clinician, researcher and teacher - Dr Bessel van der Kolk.
Bessel van der Kolk is the (founding) Medical Director of the Trauma Centre at HRI Hospital in Brookline, Massachusetts. The primary focus of the Trauma Centre is the treatment of tramatised adults and children, the training of practitioners and research into the impact of trauma on the mind and the body. The Trauma Centre is a member of the Justice Resource Institute.
Dr van der Kolk will be presenting on recent developments in treating trauma especially when working with people who have complex trauma presentations. His focus will be to explore the impact of trauma over the life span.
He will also be providing an overview of the relative treatment efficacy of several prevailing interventions.
Dr van der Kolk has been asked to explore the challenges ahead for working with traumatised people and to discourse on the issue of Vicarious Traumatisation and self care for workers.
Further information can be found on our flyer and those wishing to attend the seminar should complete the registration form.
Dear Sir
The Victims of Crime Fund now holds $32m according to your article (The Advertiser 30 Jan 2010, p34)- which is nearly double the amount in the Fund in 2008-09 (Auditor General Annual Report of 2009). Certainly compensation payments should be increased if needed by victims of crime, however it is also important to consider how accessible and adequate are the much needed services and support.
Victim Support Service, the only service in the State working with the broad range of crime victims, has only one centrally based office in Adelaide for all of metropolitan Adelaide – with only 7.4 FTE support/counselling staff. Of seven country staff covering the rest of South Australia, all are part time except one, and any outreach service to remote areas is only possible by telephone.
For three years government grants to Victim Support Service have been almost static while rising costs have necessitated reducing staffing by 0.6 of a Counsellor.
Demand from victims for services has dramatically increased in recent years – especially from those people severely traumatised by such violent crimes as home invasion, armed hold-up, sexual assault, family violence, attempted murder and murder.
These services are desperately needed in victims’ local communities – i.e. Northern, Southern and Western suburbs of Adelaide’s long ribbon of population development, and in high crime areas in rural and remote areas such as the Eyre and Yorke Peninsulas and the Far North of the State. We can resolve this lack of access with additional funds to increase staff to avoid waiting lists or diversion to less specialised services.
With such a large sum in the Victims of Crime Fund, we hope a small proportion of it can be allocated to improving long term access to services without compromising payments to deserving individual victims - even one tenth of the above sum would make a significant difference to the accessibility and localisation of outreach services for many victims now and in the future. There is clearly enough money to keep a balance of payments and services and continue to ensure that SA again leads the world in services to victims of crime .
Yours sincerely
Michael Dawson
Chief Executive
For six months, commencing in February 2009, Victim Support Service published a monthly article in the “Whyalla News”. Each month introduced a different ‘victims of crime’ related topic to readers. We hope to have these articles reproduced in other country newspapers across South Australia. See below for copies of published articles.
Victim Support Services Available in Country Areas (published 19 February 2009)
Common Reactions after a Crime (published 19 March 2009)
Community Costs of Crime (published 16 April 2009)
Should I Report to Police? (published 21 May 2009)
Court Support (published 18 June 2009)
Providing Support for Victims of Crime (published 23 July 2009)
The following documents are new to our website:
2010 Pre-Election Issues Paper
Press Release - Victims Get 30 Years
