Why Do Crime Victim Assistance Providers Need Certification?
• Practitioners should have appropriate and tangible recognition for the specialized work they perform, the level of training required for their service and the level of experience they have attained. • Victim service practitioners and programs are competing for funding which require basic levels of service and accountability. • Practitioners should be perceived as having equal status as allied professions and colleagues. (All other related professionals in social work, criminal justice, law enforcement, mental health, law, education, nursing, and medicine require a level of professional competency.) • Victims and survivors expect a level of competency which would not further traumatize them. Survivors deserve a way to determine the qualifications of a caregiver. 4. Who developed the certification plan? A multidisciplinary committee representing various victim serving programs and levels of experience met for the first time in May of l994 to determine basic training and professional de
