Farías asks goal of new Crime Victims Assistance Program RFP

That's great.

You answered my next question, so I'm contracting.

What's the goal of the new RFP regarding the Crime Victims Assistance Program?

Absolutely.

I'll turn this to Commissioner Sethi for the details, but one thing that I will say is that we're really excited to have the Crime Victims Assistance Program, RFP, out.

We really encourage people to apply.

The Crime Victims Assistance Program ensures that we are embedding victims'advocates in every single...

Precinct across New York City and it is also focused on ensuring that we have crime victims advocates and community-based partners so that we can ensure that for victims who are not comfortable reporting to the police that they have a place where they can receive victim services.

We know that it is essential that there is universal active access to victim services

within NYPD precincts.

That's a core tenant of this work.

We intend to continue that going forward because we want to make sure that we are meeting victims wherever they are.

We're really excited to be able to expand that work so that we have additional access points in the community because unfortunately we know that so often victims don't report.

And those victims advocates will be there whether or not someone does report.

If they are interested in reporting, they will accompany that person to the police precinct to help them report if they wish.

Yeah, no, I agree.

And I think, you know, for me and for Angie,

I think our goals in this work and all of the work we do are really, really quite consistent and similar, right?

So one thing is always about increasing access, reducing barriers, increasing access to resources for survivors.

And I think this does that by, you know, keeping the precinct-based services, but also adding community-based, you know, touch points for these services, for advocacy, for potentially support for survivors that may be

afraid to walk into a precinct to do that with accompaniment, with a peer navigator.

That's a huge shift, right?

And I think, but an important one that is about increasing access for survivors.

And then the other thing, you know, I know that our office thinks about all the time is, you know, survivors'experiences are diverse.

There's a million different experiences of survivorship, and our provider community reflects that diversity and should continue to reflect that diversity, right?

We should have different providers for different survivors with different needs.

And so one of the other things, and not just in CVAP, but with our FJCs, with the contracting we've done over the years, is adding borough-based options allows us to diversify providers as well, right?

And we kind of have different providers doing the same work, which, again, is about, you know, making it easier for survivors to access what they need, where they need, and with an organization they feel most comfortable with.