In Washington State, high claim rates and low reimbursement rates for practitioners continue to be persistent problems during 2007-2008. Washington State supplements CVC funding with state funding, and benefits are distributed through the state department of Labor and Industries (L&I). In past year's the Office of Crime Victims Advocacy, the WA Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs and L&I discovered the CVC denial rates had exceeded 30% in every crime category. Historically, denial rates in the state seem to have been approximately 8 to 10%. This problem has been attributed in part to issues of non-compliance and staff not giving enough weight to victim's experiences when deciding whether to award compensation benefits.





In addition to high denial rates, reimbursement rates for service providers remained low. The compensation program lowered reimbursement rates to match that of Medicaid. Many community mental health providers expressed how difficult it had been for them to accept crime victim compensation due to the disparity between costs and reimbursement. This disparity created a significant disincentive for mental health providers to accept crime victim compensation. Although the compensation program has since increased the reimbursement rate in response to an outcry from community mental health providers, there does not seem to be a return of providers. The shift in reimbursement rates may have had the effect of rendering the compensation program unreliable and unstable. 





Another overarching challenge of the currently structured compensation program is its budget management which spans both state and federal fiscal years. For example, summer months tend to be a peak time for compensation claims, yet the state fiscal year ends at the beginning of the peak. As a result, money is turned back at state fiscal year-end. Subsequently, budget requests made in anticipation of the upcoming state fiscal year may not reflect the highest need. There is currently no established mechanism to enable funds to be carried over between state and federal fiscal years.





Lack of reimbursement for towing expenses and loss of personal property continue to be a burdensome statute for victims of vehicular and burglary crimes.





These are just some of the reasons that it is difficult for local victim assistance programs to feel confident the compensation program is a viable option for expenses related to crime victimization.





Although many challenges exist with the compensation program, there are positive steps being taken to increase the program's focus to include victim centered services. Staff at the Crime Victims Compensation program has been actively involved in the Human Trafficking Task Force. With input from OCVA, and other stakeholders statewide, CVC has made internal procedure changes to improve access to CVC benefits for victim/survivors of human trafficking.

Domestic Violence Shelters, Community Sexual Assault Programs (CSAPs), and Crime Victim Service Centers all receive VOCA funding to support outreach and awareness activities. These activities include presentations to a wide range of organizations and businesses from both the public and private sector.

In September 2008, OCVA contracted with human trafficking subject matter experts from Denver, Colorado to provide two regional two day trainings for at least one advocate from every Crime Victim Service Center program in Washington State. One of these trainings was held in SeaTac, WA, the other in Ellensburg, WA. Approximately 45 advocates completed this training on reaching victims, assessing immediate health and safety concerns, and fundamental advocacy principals for working with victims of human trafficking. Now OCVA is working with the advocates who completed this training to develop coordinated direct outreach strategies to reach victims of human trafficking statewide.





OCVA has been working with the City of Seattle Human Services Division to develop a local shelter response for youth who identify as victims of commercial sexual abuse and/or human trafficking. This effort has involved coordination with 65 stakeholders including representatives from United Way of King County, Juvenile Program Services, Seattle City Council, Washington State Institute for Public Policy, and dozens of community-based and faith-based organizations serving youth and homeless youth populations. 

Beginning in 2008-09, domestic violence shelter programs are collecting two (2) specific outcome measures from program participants.  These two outcomes are required by the federal Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (FVPSA) grant and are part of a larger effort at encouraging subgrantees to engage in comprehensive program evaluation.  Local programs received training and will continue to receive technical assistance on program evaluation generally, and the two outcomes specifically.  

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Economic instability and hostile funding climates are affecting many of the organizations OCVA funds. This, consequently, has the potential to dramatically decrease the availability of services to victims of crime. The Washington State general fund budget has, historically, supported services to victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, and other crimes. With a lot of uncertainty around state funding levels, and immediate drops in other funding sources, nonprofit organizations are already reducing direct service staff and altering the menu of services available to victims of crime in order to keep their doors open.

Generally administrative funds support program development, technical assistance and oversight of sexual assault, domestic violence and crime victim service center programs. This year specifically, funds have also been used to provide training and to increase coordination amongst Crime Victim Service Center advocates statewide.





Administrative funds have provided the needed staff capacity to further implement a major component of services to crime victims, regional crime victim service centers. This concept will enhance services to victims of crime such as burglary, assault, child abuse, kidnapping, homicide, identity theft, drunk and drugged driving, hate crimes and property crimes.