 Today's happened to everyone. He sat me down and said, your son has been killed. It hits me like a tidal wave. The realization that I've been raped and left to die. I was just angry, mad, upset. One day you walk in and the next day you're in the chair. My dad tried to hit my mom and his hand went through the wall. When you reach out to victims, you have the opportunity to have a powerful impact on their lives. Effective communication is one of the most important skills for anyone who assists victims of crime. I'm Anne Seymour from the National Victim Assistance Academy, sponsored by Valor and the U.S. Department of Justice Office for Victims of Crime. In this videotape, you'll hear from victims of crime and victim assistance practitioners about how good communication can make a positive difference. You'll learn some helpful techniques to improve your response to victims, including how to help victims regain control of their lives, how to help victims speak about their experiences, and how to listen with compassion. You'll learn about what effect trauma has on the reactions and emotions of victims in crisis. You'll learn some techniques for gaining the trust of victims and you'll learn about how awareness of cultural nuances can help you reach victims in underserved communities. Finally, you'll gain understanding that in all the work you do, it's important that you respect a victim's need for privacy, confidentiality, and safety. Recognizing these needs and using the skills you will learn, you can establish a better rapport with crime victims and help them overcome their fears and confusion when facing the criminal or juvenile justice system. My daughter-in-law looked through the glass and her eyes showed horror, and she said, Nana, what's happened to you? And I said, I've been raped. I am dead. A rape kills your, takes your soul and kills your spirit. They're looking for safety. They're looking for support. They're looking for you to take the bad guy away. When you had your control stripped away from you through the course of some criminal victimization, and then that's exacerbated by people asking you questions and very often being thrust into a criminal or civil justice system that can be very confusing at the best of times. They were most cruel. They put women through terrible things when they went to court. Embarrassing them, all this kind of garbage. Unfortunately, a lot of times how we present ourselves may or may not help that victim with those needs. Good communication skills are like anything else. Now, there are a few terrific people who seem to be born with it, but the vast majority of us have to learn it. If you can think about the words that you're going to say and think about how that victim might understand or take your words. Are you aware of why I'm here today? Sort of. Sort of? Okay. Why do you think I'm here? My mom and dad were fighting. That would go a long way towards using the types of effective communication that's going to help for that particular point in time. He turned and jumped into the car on top of my husband. He said, I have a gun. Give me your money, old man. I was so scared that I couldn't say anything. I couldn't do anything. And the thought went through my mind, this is it. It's over for us. Crime victims, as part of their own healing, somewhere sometime need to be able to tell their story over and over and over. It was just a tragic event in the parking lot that should have never happened. When you talk to a victim, you certainly can be empathetic and listen and let them know that you're an understanding individual that's there to help meet their needs, whatever those are. We can sort of reflect back what we hear people say, where we identify the feelings behind some of the things that they say. You must have been really scared when that happened. What you learn is not to interrupt when you're talking to victims, is to let them have that free flow of information. You're asking them to recall difficult and traumatic events. A lot of times that victim doesn't want to go there. Open-ended questions are helpful because it allows the victim to respond in their own way. And so you came home and, Mom, this whole time, that was a frame of day. I had imagined it was. That whatever they say to you is okay, and that's fine. And that you're not going to react, that you're going to be very accepting in whatever it is they have to say. Well, the help that we got from the counselor was excellent. She put us at ease. She made us have a positive outlook on life to go on with our lives. And I don't think there was anything else that they could have done at that point because from then on the healing had to be with ourselves. A car pulled up, someone called my name. He walked toward the car and shot him twice with a shotgun and four times with a .38 caliber. That had to be the most devastating time in my life and my family's life. When you see somebody who's been hurt by a crime, there's a real tendency for you to want to take the pain away or to take the hurt away. People say, oh, I understand. I know just how you feel. Even people who perhaps have had a similar victimization may sort of presume that they have more understanding than they really do. When my son was murdered, I cried. And I do now at times. Someone tried to explain grief to me at one time. The grief that they were trying to explain to me was not as devastating as what I was feeling, so I could not match them up. Everybody comes to their victimization with their own set of life experiences. So you can take two people who seem very similar, who have had very similar victimizations and their reactions are going to be entirely different. And I started crying and shaking and I didn't know what to do with myself. I had a fear. How much anger did I have in me? I had no channeling. I had no control. There are trauma reactions that are common experiences among many crime victims, and that includes terror, high anxiety, fear, just disbelief, can't believe that it happened. It's always more difficult to talk with somebody when they're having an extreme emotional reaction. It's really true. A lot of victims literally think that they're going crazy because of some of the reactions and feelings that they have. The more excited or the more anxious the victim is and the more calm you should be, the more relaxed. Letting them know that they're safe, letting them know that you're sorry for what happened and letting them know what's going to happen next will go a long way to sort of defusing and calming the situation. The person that was talking to me at that point was just made me feel dirty, made me feel that it was my fault. I need to be assurance. I need it to be told that it's going to be okay, that it's not your fault. It's important to let victims know prior to you interacting with them why it is that you're obtaining the information that you're trying to obtain. If you don't mind talking to me about what happened and how I can help you. They might be mistrustful of you. They might be wondering what is your agenda for them that day. I'm a big proponent of just telling the truth, saying, you know, we're going to have to go over some material here that may make you uncomfortable. I can tell you it's going to make me uncomfortable. Here's the purpose. Are you comfortable talking about this with me? If you can let them know that you're there for support and that they can trust you, then they'll be better able to respond to you. At this point, what would you like to do? When a woman is finally ready to ask for help, it's very important that she finds somebody that's willing to listen, that has empathy, not sympathy. Giving people control back, even in really small ways, can be really, really empowering to people. She was shaking and crying and the victim asked for an interpreter and the police officer said, well, it'll just take forever. Can we just write notes? And she said no. She was shaking. She couldn't write. She was shaking so bad. People should be able, when they're victimized, to go to whatever is most natural for them to get services and that all of those natural points of entry should be linked in some way. Sometimes that means taking services outside of our walls and sometimes it means partnering or collaborating with people that we haven't yet worked with. But that's really the way to get services to people in a place where they can really use them. There needs to be those that have been working with those communities share what really works, share what doesn't work. Your culture is something that is a part of everything that you do so if you are victimized, you have cultural patterns and responses to that and part of your culture is where you feel comfortable, where you get your support, how you communicate the language that you speak. I think clearly one of the things that is important is to have staff that reflects the communities that are being served but I do think we need to be a little careful about over reliance on that particular strategy. I would like to see the crime victims feel that people are appreciated in terms of their cultural history, their ethnic backgrounds and that all victim providers have a general awareness of those and to see them as individuals within a cultural group, not just the cultural group but as individual persons within a cultural group and ethnic background. It's starting to realize that there are no cookie cutter approaches. What's happening is that it's a much more balanced picture. It's much more representative of what's really going on in communities and what demographically our country really looks like and I think that's a sign of hope and a really exciting challenge for us to take as victim service providers to take that to the next step. Over the past two decades, a number of studies have identified three factors that affect victim satisfaction and victim reconstruction of their lives following a crime, acknowledgement, respect and information. These factors can validate victims' experiences and help them regain control. Effective communication with victims forms the very foundation of victim assistance. We hope that the experiences and suggestions you've just heard will give you some ideas about how you can deepen your connection with victims at a vulnerable time in their lives.