Reference no: EM133332424
Assume that you are a relatively new victim advocate working for Podunksville, NY. It's a very small village located roughly 80 miles from New York City. You work under the supervision of Amie, who is a lifelong resident of this village.
As is common in many small towns, most of the residents know a lot about each other's personal business. But this could be a problem because of a young woman who came to town yesterday.
Unfortunately, Amie has been on vacation this week. Because the village is so small and usually nothing much happens, except for Cooper's weekend bouts of excessive drinking and swearing, Amie did not give you any particular advice for minding the shop, so to speak, while she's away, except to remind you about the New York State Office of Victim Services (OVS) Resource Connect (https://ovs.ny.concerncenter.com/) website. An injured (with both fresh and resolving bruises) and emotionally distressed woman who appears to not understand English arrived in Podunksville yesterday. Wearing only a torn t-shirt, jeans and sneakers, along with a bracelet that appears to be of Native American design, she refused to give her name. She had no purse, wallet, phone, or anything else that could definitively identify her.
Because of the small-town dynamics, the town preacher (Demetri) heard about her, and came over to see if he could help. The woman was still quite anxious during his visit, but Demetri was able to glance at the bracelet before leaving the room to allow the woman to try to relax. Based on his upbringing in Oklahoma, Demetri thought that it might be of Caddoan or Pawnee design.
The best that you have been able to glean from her is that something bad happened to her in New York City, and that she got on a bus there and arrived here. While wandering around Podunksville for a little while, the woman might have been assaulted by Cooper, who had been in his weekly drunken fit. But you're not really sure.
Normally, Cooper is only loud and drunk, not violent. However, the village police just told you that yesterday Cooper appeared to have been more aggressive and he travelled further than usual. He admitted to having killed a chicken by running it over with his car. This happened on a farm along the highway near the bus stop located a few miles from town. It also seems that Cooper might have blacked out; he doesn't remember anything else until the officer woke him up while he slept on a park bench. Cooper is now sleeping in the Podunksville Jail, which is only two rooms away, in the Village Police Department and Community Center, in which your office also is located. This visiting woman obviously needs help, but she is frightened, confused, hurt, and not cooperating with anyone.
Now that the immediate crisis of the visiting unidentified woman is past you, the Podunksville mayor recognizes that emergencies can come to even little villages. As a result of this new awareness, she has asked that you and Aimee, who is now back from vacation, write a written report that summarizes:(a) what resources that Podunksville has to help victims, (b) what resources it still needs, and (c) an initial assessment of whether the village might need to partner with other governmental or non-governmental organizations in order to access some of the still-needed resources.