Supporting Rural, Remote, and Underserved Survivors: The Need for Mobile Victim Advocacy Units

Abstract

Through this fellowship, Victim Witness Services (VWS) of Coconino County and Northern Arizona University (NAU) plan to work toward increasing services available to rural, underserved victims of crime in Northern Arizona. Geographically, Coconino County is the second largest county in the United States consisting of many remote towns and the Navajo, Hopi, Hualapai, and Havasupai tribal nations. Victim Witness Services would like to build their mobile advocacy efforts to better serve remotely located victims but are lacking data on the victimization and service needs in these areas. The NAU/VWS partnership plans to develop and implement a needs assessment aimed at understanding the kinds of victimization, barriers experienced, and service needs of rural, underserved populations, including Native Americans who experience victimization off tribal lands. A data-driven understanding of the issues facing these victims will assist Victim Witness in obtaining future resources and funding to support their mobile advocacy program which serves some of our most vulnerable victims. [CVRL Note: The Center for Victim Research (CVR) funds and supports local-level Research-and-Practice (R/P) Fellowships. This partnership was part of the 2019 cohort.] (Author Text)