Instead of leaving victims to shoulder the overwhelming burden of seeking justice on their own, the compassionate victim services professionals serving in our state’s 28 accredited Children’s Advocacy Centers (CACs) step in to provide support.
Due to the nature of VOCA and its unpredictable funding sources –fines, settlements from federal criminal prosecutions, and forfeited bonds– the available funds have been drying up for years. With each year that the fund shrinks, the services at Ohio CACs suffer that impact. The uncertainty prevents organizations like our local CAC, CARE House, from doing the type of strategic long-term planning that would allow us to serve more victims in more meaningful ways.
This year VOCA grants saw a $600 million slash and across the board, causing the nation’s nearly 1,000 CACs to consider making cuts or shuttering their doors. In our communities, this means less financial support for victims of violent crimes, depleted legal resources in the pursuit of justice, and fewer victims’ rights advocates. While Ohio CAC’s receive a small amount of state funding, most have largely depended on VOCA funding and local fundraising to operate.
Here in Montgomery County, Dayton Children’s Hospital and our CAC, CARE House, are facing a 43% cut to VOCA funding, jeopardizing the critical services they provide to child abuse victims. Here, healthcare professionals, victim service providers, law enforcement, and prosecutors collaborate as a team. We have found it to be essential that these partners work together to best protect the children who find themselves in such vulnerable positions.
Together, Dayton Children’s and CARE House work to provide services to children to meet their needs. Dayton Children’s specifically addresses any pediatric medical evaluations and treatment services as required. CARE House offers investigative and victim advocacy services designed to distance the children forced to enter our care from further trauma.
Our teams know that children benefit from the expertise of specialized medical providers and social workers within a personalized, child-centered environment.
All of these services are critical to the best outcome for so many child abuse victims and their families and these services are at risk of reduction due to the repeated cuts to the Crime Victims Fund.
Before the underlying flaw in funding the Crime Victims Fund can finally be addressed, we must first stop the bleeding from these cuts that directly impact victims and survivors now. And that is what the Crime Victims Fund Stabilization Act of 2024, sponsored by Congresswoman Ann Wagner (MO), proposes to do. This critical bill will infuse desperately needed dollars from the False Claims Act into the Crime Victims Fund to throw the VOCA program a lifeline. Until a more permanent remedy can buoy this crucial support system, we need to lend our voices to these young victims, speak up to our Congressional leaders, and do our part to ensure this bill becomes law.
To end or curtail services for these young crime victims would be to abandon them. We owe crime victims more than that.
We should all rally around CARE House and the families who seek services there while we continue to provide the best support possible. We look to Congress to quickly pass the Crime Victims Fund Stabilization Act of 2024 to help us continue to support the people who need it most this year and beyond.
Deborah A. Feldman, President and CEO, Dayton Children’s Hospital
Mathias H. Heck, Jr., Montgomery County Prosecuting Attorney