VAYA (Victim Assistance, Youth Accountability)
Overview
This innovative program is based on the principles of restorative justice: that crime creates harm, and that it is the responsibility of the community to work toward addressing the needs of the victims, offenders, and community in order to right that harm. Our newly re-designed victim offender program (click here to see improvements made in 2008) known as VAYA or Victim Assistance, Youth Accountability, encompasses these principles and provides support services to victims of crime, their youth offenders, and the community. VAYA acts to address the individual needs of victims; provides opportunities for youth to be accountable for their actions, and helps youth to connect with a community support system that will reduce recidivism and encourage personal responsibility. The program is offered once a month, year-round. See what crime victims and youth offenders are saying about VAYA.
Volunteers
The program is delivered through carefully selected and highly trained volunteers who must first complete a five-day training program. They are then carefully supervised and coached by the Program Director. Each month volunteers are assigned to cases referred to us by the Juvenile Division of Jackson County Community Justice.
Victims of Crimes
First, our volunteers meet with and support the victims of crime. This meeting provides victims with a direct, meaningful voice in identifying the harms done by offenders and identifying what might be done to address those harms. As supporters, our goal is to listen, provide information, and when appropriate to offer victims an opportunity to meet directly with their offender in a dialogue designed to meet their needs in working towards healing and closure.
Youth Offenders
Concurrently, the youth offenders participate in a series of six classes over one month, designed to encourage accountability for their actions, explore how those actions have impacted their victims and the community, organize ongoing support for the personal change they envision, and hold the youth accountable by providing opportunities to address their harm in meaningful ways. Our classes develop responsibility through requiring the youth to tell the story of their actions in a way that does not minimize or excuse their choices. We then ask the youth to tell the same story from the victim’s perspective in order to encourage empathy. The classes are also preparing the youth for a face-to-face dialogue with their victim.
Mentors
The youth are required, with their parent’s guidance and approval, to select an adult from outside their household to act as a support and mentor to the youth for one year following the program. This adult is then asked to attend the third class with the youth where they are encouraged to develop a productive and supportive mentoring relationship. This way the youth is supported in the changes they make after the completion of the program.
Community Service
In the classes, the youth are also asked to explore how they might give back to their community in a way that enhances the community’s safety and well being. We want the youth to develop a broader perspective of their role in their social environment and the range of choices available to them to fulfill their community service requirements as required by Community Justice.
Face-to-Face Dialogues
When it serves the victim, and we determine it is appropriate and safe, the youth meet face-to-face with their victim in order to fulfill the obligations created through their harmful actions.
Through the victim offender dialogues, victims have the opportunity to share the impact that the youth’s actions have had on them, to ask any questions that are still unanswered, and to discuss what they need in order to move forward in processing the experience. Youth are given the opportunity to be responsible to their victims, hear directly about the impact their actions had, and to address their victim’s needs. Dialogues enable relationships to be restored and youth to be accepted back as pro-social members of their community. When the direct victim is not willing or available to participate in a face-to-face dialogue, then a community member, who has previously been a crime victim, serves as a surrogate victim.
Completion
After completion of the class and face-to-face dialogue, Mediation Works and the Juvenile Division of Jackson County Community Justice work together, along with the youth’s mentor, to make sure that the youth offenders keep their commitments. It is through this program, that victims’ emotional and financial needs are supported, youth are held accountable, and both the victim and offender are able to continue their journey in the community with a renewed sense of support, healing, and restoration.
Staff Director
Cara Walsh is the Director of Restorative Justice Programs at Mediation Works. She holds a Masters Degree in Adventure Education with a focus on Adolescent Development and Rites of Passage. The root of her professional and educational experience is grounded in her passion for creating social change through empowering and supporting youth. She has over 9 years of experience working with at-risk youth in residential, outpatient, and experiential settings. She recently developed a new community based initiative for Jackson County Juvenile Justice which provides a network of restorative community service placement sites for youth offenders.
Further Information
Contact Cara Walsh at (541) 770-2468 Ext. 305.
