From the Director’s Desk, November 14, 2024

DARYL FOX: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the November 14, 2024, installment of From the Director’s Desk. We’re glad you’re able join us today. All audio lines are muted, as this is a listen-only briefing. For reference, this recording will be posted tomorrow to the OVC website. 

At this time, it’s my pleasure to introduce Kristina Rose, OVC Director, for today’s briefing.

KRISTINA ROSE: Thank you so much, Daryl. I appreciate you. 

Welcome, everyone, to the November briefing. I’m joining you today from our new OVC offices, where the entire team is onsite for an all-staff meeting. This time, though, I literally mean all staff, because our remote staff are joining us from across the U.S.—Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, New Mexico, South Dakota, Puerto Rico, and Texas. We’re so glad to be together and to be participating in training exercises and team-building activities.

So, obviously the world has changed quite a bit since the October broadcast, and in January a new crew will be transitioning into the Department of Justice. My plan is to stay until January 20th, when the political appointees are required to offboard from DOJ. Until then, we will continue to work hard, and maybe take some time to take stock of the accomplishments that we’ve made since 2021. But I will have more to share in the December broadcast. 

And though it seems like eons ago, just a few weeks ago I traveled to Boston for the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference, where I presented to the Victim Services Committee. And I love this committee, I used to be a member of this committee, before I came back to the government. And it’s made up of police executives and law enforcement-based victim service professionals at the federal, state, and local levels. And this year, the discussions focused on, of course, the Crime Victims Fund, but also the need for more funding and more outreach around the importance and the value of law enforcement-based victim services. And of course there were numerous program and project updates. 

And then, from there, I was off to New Orleans for the National Funeral Directors Association Conference. And my colleagues and I presented on a panel called “The Impact of Vicarious Trauma on Funeral Directors.” And my colleagues were OVC Communications Director Emily Bauernfeind and Dr. Angela Moreland, Associate Director of the National Mass Violence Center. And she’s also a professor at the Medical University of South Carolina. 

So as you know we’ve been building our relationships with the funeral director profession. And we’ve learned that those who conduct funerals for families of homicide victims are often impacted by the trauma that they witness while working with the grieving family, or after responding to a mass violence event. So, this particular panel on vicarious trauma was very well received and it’s honestly not something that funeral directors think about very often. So, they were interested in what we had to say, and I’m looking forward to continuing the relationships with the funeral directors. I think that they are just extremely valuable partners for OVC.

And then, from there I flew to Saint Paul, Minnesota for a Zero Abuse Project training. And the Zero Abuse Project provides services and support for men and boys who have been victims of child sexual abuse. And this particular event was designed for bankruptcy litigators to learn more about trauma dynamics, the impact of trauma on clients, and effective strategies for collaborating with survivors. So I have to admit, I was intrigued when with--when Jeff Dion, who is the head of Zero Abuse, first asked if I would give remarks at this meeting. I’m not a lawyer, I don’t really speak the language of bankruptcy, thank goodness I guess. But as I learned more about the pivotal role that these lawyers play in the lives of adult survivors of child abuse, who are just trying to find justice, I made the connection and I was honored to tell them more about our work at OVC. 

Next week, I’ll be participating in OVW’s 19th Annual Government-to-Government Violence Against Women Tribal Consultation in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Principal Deputy Director from OVC Katherine Darke Schmitt will be joining me, and the SMART Director Helena Heath will also be there. These consultations are an opportunity to hear directly from Tribal leaders about their concerns, and in this case the focus is on the implementation of VAWA in Tribal communities. Because OVC provides funding through VOCA for responding to the crimes of domestic violence and sexual assault and other gender violence-based crimes in Tribal communities, these consultations are extremely valuable to us, and I am very much looking forward to hearing from our Tribal leaders. 

And then right before the consultation, I will be joining Liz Ryan who is the Administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, at their annual conference in DC to screen the documentary film Juvenile: Five Stories, and participate in a facilitated discussion afterwards on how experiencing childhood trauma can impact choices later in life. I get to present with one of my favorite people, Shimaine Holley, whose amazing story of strength and resilience is featured in the documentary. And I highly recommend this documentary. Again, it’s called Juvenile: Five Stories.

In the first week of December, OVC’s National Mass Violence Center is convening a listening session with multi-faith leaders in Detroit--not only in Detroit, we’re having the meeting in Detroit, who have been involved somehow in responding to mass violence events. And this idea came to me--we’d actually been thinking about it since we had the National Summit on Mass Violence in Pittsburgh this past summer, when we were so fortunate to hear from Reverend Eric Manning from Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and Rabbi Hazzan Jeffrey Myers from the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They talked about their roles in the mass violence responses in their communities and their messages had such a profound impact on me. So, at this listening session, we’ll be hearing from clergy of many different faiths about lessons learned, partnerships, and potential resources needed to help faith community leaders prepare and respond to these incidents. So this is another opportunity for OVC to engage in what we call nontraditional partners, and I am very much looking forward to it. 

So now I’m going to turn to the Crime Victims Fund. In September, criminal fines totaled $5.1 million, which is the second lowest total this year after August. And the deferred and non-deferred collections totaled $32,000 in September. Now, it was not a good month. The Crime Victims Fund balance now sits at $2.232 billion after the September obligations. But as you know, we still have the British American Tobacco and the Binance fines on hold due to the lawsuits, and the actual unencumbered balance is closer to $298 million. 

Now it’s worth noting that the Department of Justice announced in early October a plea arrangement with TD Bank, and that includes a fine of $1.43 billion to be paid by TD Bank to the Crime Victims Fund. In addition, the recently announced Department of Justice settlement with the Raytheon Corporation could result in as much as $380 million deposited into the CVF. So, we will get formal notice about these; this is what we have been told. We often wait until we see those deposits in the Fund to talk about them, but I thought it might be nice to hear some good news that we expect this money to be deposited in--probably around the end of this month and we will get notice of it in mid-December. 

So now for just a few announcements and reminders. Don’t forget to submit your Population Certification Form if you intend to apply for the noncompetitive FY25 Tribal Victim Services Set-Aside formula grant program. It’s open to federally recognized Tribes, authorized designees, and Tribal consortiums. And the forms are due by 11:59 p.m. Alaska time, on January 17th of 2025.

And there’s still time to register for the 18th National Indian Nations Conference, which is scheduled for December 10th through the 13th in Palm Springs, California. We recently posted the full agenda to the conference website and the workshop topics cover the intersection of Tribal justice and victim services, victims’ rights in Tribal courts, and supporting school-aged victims in Tribal school systems. So you can check out the full agenda and, you know, you may decide you want to go. And you can register right from that page on OVC’s website.  

And another plug for the Indian Nations Conference. Ahead of the opening ceremonies on the 10th, we’re going to be hosting a listening session for Tribal leaders and Tribal Victim Services Set-Aside Program grantees to share their thoughts, their ideas, and their recommendations about how we at OVC can improve the TVSSA Program. So if you’re interested, and you are planning to attend the conference, you can register for the listening session or, maybe this makes you want to attend the conference and the listening session. So, if you visit the TVSSA Program webpage on the OVC website you will get more information. 

Watch out--not watch out. Watch for the DOJ Program Plan which will soon be posted on the OJP website, and it will provide details about the upcoming funding opportunities from all of the DOJ grant-making components, including OVC, that we are expecting to release in 2025. 

And then, last, stay tuned for the release of two podcasts that are coming. I know I’ve mentioned these before, but I promise they really are coming. One episode features a conversation with veteran advocates about how the victim services field has evolved since the passage of VOCA, and the other features a conversation with members of the OVC-funded Youth Advocacy Corps about the future of victim services. So when they’re released, we’ll notify the field from the NewsFromOVC announcements, so make sure you’re subscribed to those. And you can visit our website, scroll to the very bottom, and you’ll find the link right there. 

So that’s all I have for today. I’ll be back next month to look back on the past few years and maybe share some parting thoughts with you. Once again, I want to thank you for all that you do to help victims find their justice. Take care. And I’ll talk to you soon.