Tell Us About It: Victim Research Convos

Dr. Lauren Cattaneo and Dr. Amanda Stylianou discuss their work to measure the impact of a survivor-centered approach to victim services at Safe Horizon in New York City. Drs. Cattaneo and Stylianou discuss the nature of survivor-centered practice with victims of intimate partner violence, the measures used to determine the effect of that approach, and how data was gathered in the course of victim services. This project revealed that using a survivor-centered approach had a measurable impact on victims' sense of safety-related empowerment—even after a single session.

Janine Zweig of the Urban Institute and Chad Sniffen of the National Sexual Violence Resource Center share how they worked with Uber Technologies to better understand sexual misconduct in the ridesharing industry. Janine and Chad share the process to define sexual assault, harassment, and other misconduct and then set up a system to track complaints. This new taxonomy and data collection will provide a more complete understanding of the problem of sexual misconduct, providing direction for prevention and response. See the report on this project: https://www.urban.org/research/publication/examining-ubers-use-sexual-misconduct-and-violence-taxonomy-and-development-ubers-united-states-safety-report More information is also available in this Urban blog post: https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/three-lessons-businesses-can-learn-ubers-collecting-and-reporting-sexual-assault-data

Marian Liu, an assistant professor at Purdue University, and Mariah Freark of the Massachusetts Disabled Persons Protection Commission join Susan to discuss how the National Adult Protective Services Association (NAPSA) uses data and research to study adult victimization. Marian and Mariah's relationship through the Research to Practice Interest Group brings practitioners and researchers together to better understand and more fully comprehend the various aspects of -- and how to improve -- adult protective services.

Join Brittany Jeffers, the victim services specialist and unit coordinator of the Saginaw Police Department, and Dr. James Bowers, a criminal justice professor at Saginaw Valley State University, as they share their experience in conducting and using research to inform the development of law enforcement-based victim services. They also discuss the elements that have contributed to their long-term successful partnership.

In this episode, we talk to Bridgette Stumpf and Lindsey Silverberg of the Network for Victim Recovery of DC. They share NVRDC's experience in becoming a data-informed champion for victims, from the steps they’ve taken to promote data collection and quality to their use of data for advocacy and programming.