On Tuesday 4th September 2018, Victim Support Europe and VSE member organisations, working on the ‘116006 helpline’ and those providing distance support services, participated in an online meeting in order to discuss priorities for the future and to prepare for the upcoming Centre of Excellence workshop that will be held in Mainz, Germany on 5-7 December 2018.
As we work together to ensure that every victim in Europe is able to access information and support services in the aftermath of crime, regardless of where the victim lives or where the crime took place, we continue to make improvements to grow individually and collectively and to become more active in every aspect of our thee currently functioning centres of excellence:
- Centre for excellence in distance support
- Centre for excellence in helplines
- Centre for excellence in the implementation of the EU Victims’ Rights Directive
The participants agreed to merge the two workshops on ‘116006’ and ‘Support at a Distance’ as they both raise the same challenges and discussion. Moreover, the members of the Centres of Excellence exchanged the ideas on how to work in future in order to advance these services to the benefit of all victims of crimes. As a result, their future activities will focus on 4 priorities:
– outreach and awareness raising,
– cross border victims,
– victims with disabilities,
– and data collection and protection.
Our Centres of excellence provide unique opportunities to VSE member organisations to work together on a specific topic, to share best practices and tackle challenges in their work and in general towards better serving victims of crime.
All VSE members are welcome to join the Centre of excellence on Victims’ Rights Directive and all those who provide or intend to do so in the near future, the 116 or distance support, are welcome to join these two respective Centres. Get in touch with our Secretariat if you want to know more about how to get involved.
