VICTIM SUPPORT
Contact details:
hssupport@victimsupport.org.uk
Victim Support National Homicide Service is funded by the Ministry of Justice providing specialist trauma informed caseworker support to bereaved family members, Children and Young People as well direct eyewitness to Homicide.
You can refer yourself to the service, or ask your Family Liaison Officer to refer you.
We provide confidential support, information, signposting, practical, and emotional support to families and individuals. We are professionally trained bereavement support Caseworkers and we are available 9am-5pm Monday-Friday.
Outside normal working hours, we have a specialist out of hours National support line.
Bereavement Support for Families and individuals:
We provide face to face in your home, online and telephone support to bereaved individuals. We do have an eligibility criteria for accessing the service, but if we can’t support you directly we will help you to find support from others.
We tailor our support based on your assessed needs. You will have a dedicated Homicide Family Caseworker who will be your support for as long as is needed.
We provide support with the Criminal Justice System including support for trial attendance.
We have a range of commissioned services we can refer you to if needed such as trauma therapy, housing support, and specialist organisations such as One Hundred Families.
Bereavement support/Eyewitness to Homicide for Children and Young People
The CYP service offers direct support for children and young people from 3 years – 18 years old. Support is offered digitally, face to face (usually in an Educational establishment), and on the telephone.
Support sessions cover a range of topics that may be affecting the Child or Young person, and the CYP caseworker will assess and work to identify needs. Sessions are typically for 1 hour and for 12 sessions. We also offer Children and Young peoples peer support.
The CYP service also offers direct support to CYP eyewitnesses, parents and guardians.
Outreach (Community):
When a young person is killed in a community, the impact can be felt widely. Our outreach service aims to identify CYP who, may not be referred into our support service via the routes above. We offer emotional wellbeing support directly to individuals and small groups, normally within 3 sessions.
Outreach Trauma Support for Schools
We offer support for schools of CYP where the deceased attended. We can support teaching and academic staff to upskill in trauma and the effects/signs and support a wide range of CYP who may be struggling with the affects.
