| Summary: | <p>The Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) created a new demonstration grant program, the OVC Wraparound Victim Legal Assistance Network Demonstration Project, to address the wide range of legal needs victims of crime have in relation to the victimization they experienced. The original four-year demonstration, which was increased to six years, included two phases: (1) a 15-month phase for planning, designing a new service delivery model in collaboration with local partners, and conducting a needs assessment, and (2) a second phase for grantees to implement the model as designed. The program originally funded six sites to plan and implement a new model of legal assistance for victims:</p> <p><ol> <li>Alaska Immigrant Justice Center (entire state of Alaska)</li> <li>Council on Crime and Justice (entire state of Minnesota)</li> <li>Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (Los Angeles County, California)</li> <li>Lone Star Legal Aid (72 counties in East Texas)</li> <li>Metropolitan Family Services' Legal Aid Society (Cook County, Illinois)</li> <li>Rocky Mountain Victim Law Center (City of Denver, Colorado)</li> </ol></p> <p>The new wraparound service delivery models were expected to facilitate the implementation of wraparound pro bono legal assistance networks to provide legal services to victims. Because victims often receive legal services from a variety of uncoordinated organizations (e.g., victim legal clinics for help with enforcing rights, and legal aid offices or law school clinics for help with other specific civil legal needs), integrated networks may be better able to provide a wide array of legal services from a single, coordinated system. The demonstration grant requirements included: creating and actively engaging a steering committee, working cooperatively with technical assistance provider(s) as needed, and employing a local research partner to help perform the needs assessment and work closely with the evaluation team.</p>
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