Officium - 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

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 supportMy 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 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 supportdomestic 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

accessing public services

It is enshrined in various statutes of law that public services must mitigate the effects of distress and illness. Too many of these public services offer, at best, a token or sub-standard service, if any. If, any government led policies are to improve and succeed in improving the quality services for crime victims and witnesses, they must ensure weaved into all aspects of service delivery is nationally universal, a high standard, genuine multi-agency partnerships, integrated and diverse services that place crime victims constructively into statutory provisions. A form of seamless accessibility for all concerned. My handbook provides a national framework for government to adopt and is workable.

Crime victims and witnesses are advised to have the best available advocacy and access to legal expertise at the earliest point possible. Increasingly, individuals and families are forced to take extra-ordinary measures to secure ordinary access to services. This 'service lottery' places a secondary institutional layer of distress and pressure upon individuals that compounds their suffering. It is why a seamless framework for national provision is the logical way forward.

People succeed because of a single-minded focus for justice and a refusal to be placed in the status of perpetual victim. It requires huge stamina of those directly affected and exacts an enormous economic and personal toll.

There have been outstanding citizens who have refused to have their injustice trivialised by cynical public institutions. The case of the murder of Stephen Lawrence, the families affected by the Marchioness Disaster, the Menson family, the wrongful imprisonment of Stephen Downing are examples where individuals had to fight for years every gruelling inch of their way for justice to be evidenced. In some cases this required fighting for even the most basic of public services to be provided. In the main, they are also examples of the media working well in the genuine public interest.

My handbook explains how to request or, if necessary, demand access to public services such as a general practitioner, social and hospital services and how these services are set-up using flowcharts. It includes examples of how to prepare letters or, as a last resort, lodge complaints about access, standards and quality of these services.