Funding Continues to Help Victims of Crime

The governments of Nova Scotia and Canada renewed a key funding agreement today, April 26, that ensures more help for Nova Scotians who are victims of criminal acts.

The agreement will provide more than $2 million over five years, until 2015-16, for programs to assist victims of crime.

"This means more help and better services for Nova Scotians who fall victim to crimes," said Justice Minister Ross Landry. "The funding supports programs and pilot projects designed to modernize victims' services and find efficiencies."

"The government of Canada is committed to providing victims -- especially children -- with the services and support that they need." said federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson. "We will continue to ensure that resources and programs are in place to better respond to the needs of victims of crime in Nova Scotia and across Canada."

The agreement extends funding already in place for 10 ongoing programs, including one that provides travel support for crime victims so they can present victim impact statements in person and another to help victims collect restitution orders through civil court actions.

Also supported are an E-learning project that enables online training for victim services workers and a technology project that seeks efficiencies to free up human resources for more personalized services to clients.

The federal funding and the programs covered are in addition to a provincial commitment to victim services of about $3 million a year.

The provincial funding covers a wide range of direct services that include court preparation, special support for children, education and counselling.

The victim services unit of the provincial Department of Justice works with more than 6,000 new cases a year. Victim services officers are spread out to seven locations across the province, and each officer has about 200 cases. More information is available at www.gov.ns.ca/just .