My handbook aims to direct people affected by violent crime to all that is best and known from my research and experience. It encourages people to strive to be assertive and not trapped and typecast living as permanent ‘victims’.
domestic violence, support for abuse victims, criminal justice, support for victims of violent crimes, crime victim rights, crime victim advocacy, criminal injury compensation, personal injury, victim support
It covers matters like trauma, death, disability, the media, the police, going to court and services. It explains how to confidently seek help and if necessary how to pursue a formal complaint. This handbook will be periodically revised to remain up to date with policy, legal and community changes and to include or exclude agencies. It explains the complex, expensive, often degrading and drawn-out CICA compensation process combining easy references and directory listings for selecting the best experts of trauma specialists and solicitors across England, Scotland and Wales. It has three main areas 1) the personal survivor needs, 2) the complex legal CICA process and compensation issues and 3) social / government policy, why, as a wealthy nation we treat victims as we do, and suggest community and national empowerment proposals for the future like setting-up small and regional groups. This handbook aims to break and confront the anguished silent isolation a survivor of violent crime is often placed in by institutions, and an ambivalent society. An inclusive guide has never been achieved before. Others have written with a minimal cluster of précised points and telephone numbers, or a detached often academic perspective, or kept the obvious and common sense parts of a person’s life fragmented - never treating a person as a whole. Instead, referring to people’s needs like shattered glass keeping inter-connected parts of a person’s life isolated. This handbook weaves current political, policy and social issues affecting us all as citizens - especially people affected by violent crime. It is about the important obvious common sense matters people need to know that makes this handbook inclusive. This is a small contribution to the huge struggle for justice
