Hello all! OVS Training and Outreach is working to craft an awareness campaign for OVS services, and we need your help! In this thread, can you please let us know how victims in your county self-identify? What terminology do they use? What resonates with them? For example: survivor vs victim, etc. Please response with your county, as well as terms that are used in your area.
Thank you for your help with this important initiative!
Tagging @Lindsey Crusan-Muse, @Karen Ziegler (she/hers) and @Christopher Bromson to get the ball rolling!
#Victim #Identify #IdentifyingVictims #Survivors #Locate #Awareness #Visibility
Sorry that I'm late to the party, all! Everything that @Christopher Bromson and @Karen Ziegler (she/hers) have said I would second. We let the patient/client/participant in services make that determination as to how they identify (victim vs. survivor), and we never assign this for them. When I do outreach presentations or in other statements (such as our mission statement), we use victim/survivor to include both.
It's also challenging because within our own programs there is a variety with terminology - for example, our Forensic Examiner Program uses the term "patient" to describe the person they are providing services to (because they are coming from a nursing/medical model) while our Support and Advocacy Program uses "client" (or even "participant" if we're talking about support groups!). Mostly, we want the person to be the driver of all of this.