Continuing Education for Professionals

Currently continuing education classes for professionals are on hold! 

Please feel free to contact Leslie McPherson at  leslie@VictimSupportServices.org with any questions.

Victim Support Services Informational Session – Free

This short presentation provides professionals a firm understanding of Victim Support Services’ role in supporting crime victims on their road to recovery and through the criminal justice process once a suspect has been arrested.

Core Victim Services Academy – $275 ($250 for students)

This 40-hour training qualifies participants to provide direct services to victims of crime in Washington state. Additionally, through the National Advocate Credentialing Program, our academy makes participants eligible to be credentialed nationally on four levels – provisional, basic, intermediate, and advanced.

The Core Academy educates participants in seven tracts which include: professionalism, victim rights, victim trauma, communication skills, resources, cultural and spiritual advocacy, and the legal system (both criminal and civil). Once participants complete the training, they have a solid foundation of information, skills, and tools to provide advocacy and support services to victims of all crime types.

System Based and Community Based Advocacy 

This class provides a complete overview of the fundamental differences and similarities in the two types of advocacy services. A firm understanding of how each type of advocate can assist victims of the crime will result in victims getting comprehensive, wrap-around services that meet all their complex needs. When system and community advocates work in harmony, victims are more likely to participate in the criminal justice process effectively and find a new normal after the devastating effects of victimization.

First Response: Law Enforcement Training

This class is specifically geared toward law enforcement personnel. The class will provide an overview of victim service agencies and how they can effectively partner with law enforcement to support victims and educate them around the investigatory process. Law enforcement personnel will also learn about how trauma affects the brain and memory abilities of victims.

Victims: A Primer for Helping Professionals – 2 hour class

This class for social service, medical, mental health, and first responder providers, is designed to assist these helping professionals in understanding the effects of trauma, crisis, and victimization on the clients they serve. Working with crime victims in a social service, medical, or mental health setting creates additional challenges, and adds complex dynamics to processes and solutions to comprehensive care.

Companioning Through Grief – Two Days

Through the use of the Companioning Model for grief support, participants will learn how they can effectively support individuals in grief with special attention being paid to the survivors of homicide.

Emotional Wellness and the Helping Professional

This class is specifically geared toward helping professionals understand stress, chronic stress, vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, and clinical burnout. Professionals will learn how these work place maladies develop and how to prevent them. 
Participants will learn in an interactive and fun environment how to take care of themselves during their work-day. 

Resources for Advocates

One of the biggest challenges that victim advocates face on a daily basis is finding adequate, appropriate, and successful resources for the clients they serve. Resources exist but can be hard to find. This class will teach victim advocates about existing resources, both local and national, how to uncover hard-to-find specific resources, and how to do effective web-based searches for resources.

Suicide Assessment

This class is designed to assist advocates with assessing risk, providing the skills to intervene, and resources that can connect suicidal to further support.