Improving National VICtim services through Transnational Unity and Strategy

ongoing

A large body of work has been delivered through previous projects in which partners have participated. These initiatives identified a number of issues in the implementation of the EU Victims' Rights Directive. INVICTUS was consequently designed to ensure better functioning of national victim support frameworks in BG, HR, FR, IT, PT and SE to the advantage of all victims of all crimes in those countries. The work will be methodologically supported by Victim Support Europe and Slacthofferhulp, the Dutch national victim support provider. The INVICTUS project will develop tools that will be made available to other MSs, therefore coming with the potential to improve position of victims across the EU. The starting point of the project is the Victims’ Rights Directive, but the project will also take into account the implementation of any amendments to the Directive. The project will achieve this through a robust methodology which is based on consultations with stakeholders, collaborative work to identify gaps and solutions, by means of a community needs assessment and mapping exercise of existing services. Results of these consultations will be converted into action plans in the six countries, which will be implemented through project, but also will set a foundation for future work of the partner organisations. Action plan will foresee a number of tools for the improvement of victims' experiences and the reduction of secondary victimisation, which will be primarily based on advancing the provision of information to victims through effective communication, improvement of the individual needs assessment for protection and/or support and enhancing referral of victims to appropriate services. Advocacy and awareness raising campaign will also be put into place to ensure that the work of the project is not only known to stakeholders and the general public, but also that the change for victims is happening on a systemic level, through improving national victim support frameworks.