Office for Victims of Crime
Community-level Replication Guide
 September 2012 Text size: decrease font size increase font size   Send e-mail icon

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Step 7. Sustaining the Momentum


The advisory committee is critical to sustainability. It’s about forming, maintaining, and improving those relationships. It feels like we’re working together on a project that’s going to be beyond the lifetime of this grant.
—Meg London
Family Crisis Services, Portland, Maine


Every step of this project is designed to change the response of your agency and other service providers in a permanent way. If you followed each step—

  • You are now connected with people and agencies in your community who are invested in improving services for crime victims with disabilities.
  • You have heard from and responded to persons with disabilities and other stakeholders about what changes need to be made in your agency and other agencies.
  • You made a plan based on the needs of your particular community, including—
    • Tracking crimes against persons with disabilities.
    • Changing agency policies and practices that are barriers to crime victims with disabilities.
    • Providing education and training for persons with disabilities, your own staff and volunteers, partner agencies, disability service providers, law enforcement, and others.

The three pilot sites that took on this project did not stop here. They know how important this work is and are invested in continuing to improve services for crime victims with disabilities in their communities.

To keep their momentum going, they took some of the following steps: