February/March 1996

                        Police Practice
                    Assisting Senior Victims

                         By Lynne Bliss
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Ms. Bliss serves as a reserve police officer with the Colorado
Springs, Colorado, Police Department.
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On a warm spring evening, an elderly couple purchases several
graduation gifts for their grandchildren. As they return to their
car in the store parking lot, a small truck carrying two young
men abruptly pulls up beside them. The truck's passenger throws
open the door, which strikes the woman and knocks her to the
ground. While the startled husband rushes to help his wife, the
youth snatches the scattered packages and the woman's purse from
the ground and throws them into the back of the truck. In
seconds, the robbers drive off, leaving the victims badly shaken
but unharmed.

The police officer who responds to the scene takes a report,
getting descriptions of the robbers, their vehicle, and the
stolen merchandise. For the officer, it is time to move on to the
next call for service, but he is reluctant to leave the couple
because they are distraught and seem to need further assistance.
Often, older citizens require specialized assistance when they
are the victims of a robbery or involved in an auto accident.
They might be unfamiliar with how to resolve their problem
through the criminal justice system. In the mid-1980s, the
Colorado Springs, Colorado, Police Department created the Senior
Victim Assistance Team (SVAT), to respond  to this need.
This police practice describes how the Senior Victim Assistance
Team, which is staffed by volunteers, works in Colorado Springs.
Police administrators who want to establish similar programs in
their own departments can take similar measures to ensure
positive results.

Team Structure

The team is headed by the casework coordinator, a volunteer who
coordinates the team's duties and files reports with the
volunteer coordinator. This volunteer coordinator manages the
SVAT.

Other committees of team members contribute to SVAT operations.
For example, the training committee arranges initial instruction
for new members, while the program committee plans monthly
training programs. The team also has a social committee to
organize informal get-togethers to enhance team cooperation. All
committee chairs, as well as the casework coordinator, are
nominated by the nominating committee and elected annually by the
team's membership.

Duties

The team's duties are broadly defined as crisis intervention and
referral. Specifically, SVAT exists primarily to aid the senior
and to allow the responding officer to get to the next call for
service in a timely manner. 

SVAT members have assisted at car accident scenes, listened to
the fears and frustrations of robbery victims, transported
domestic violence victims to a safehouse, and referred seniors to
other appropriate agencies, such as a legal aid society or a
local senior assistance group. Following the homicide of a
58-year-old tourist, a team member provided emotional support to
the bereaved widow until she was able to return home to her
family.

Training

The initial training for new SVAT members lasts 40 hours over a
12-week period. New team members then are paired with an
experienced member for two weeks.
This comprehensive training provides SVAT members with a basic
understanding of community resources. For example, the police
department arranges for psychologists to discuss basic counseling
and communication skills, a geriatric specialist to describe the
aging process, and a social worker to speak on domestic violence.
Police department personnel provide instruction on law
enforcement matters, such as how to use police radios and how the
judicial process functions.

Programs at monthly meetings provide ongoing training and updated
information for all SVAT members. The local Better Business
Bureau, for instance, provides guidance on how to spot scams that
target seniors, and a representative from the district attorney's
office informs the team about how the Victim Compensation Fund
works.

In addition, community agencies that cater to the needs of
seniors share their expertise with SVAT members. The phone
numbers and contact persons for these agencies have been compiled
into a directory that all team members carry with them. In
Colorado Springs, this includes phone numbers for hospital
emergency rooms, the domestic violence safehouse, the local
social security office, crisis hotlines, local senior assistance
agencies, the State's department of social services, and many
others. Other communities should have their own sets of resources
from which to draw.

Member Obligations

To be effective, the department expects team members to fulfill a
few basic obligations. They must be willing to be on call for a
week at a time, around the clock, on a rotating basis. Because of
this commitment, members must balance personal schedules with
SVAT duties. Most volunteers are retired or have made special
arrangements with their employers. With 26 members on the team,
this week-long obligation only comes up every 3 months.
The casework coordinator manages the oncall rotation schedules
and arranges for backup members to be available to respond. Both
the primary and backup members respond to all calls to guard
against claims of impropriety.

Initially, SVAT members used their own vehicles to respond to
calls. Now, however, the department provides two police vehicles
for the team to use. The oncall and backup members also have
pagers for immediate contact and police radios for communicating
with the dispatcher. The team prides itself on a response time of
20 minutes or less.

Those members who are not on call go to police headquarters to
review reports on auto accidents that involve seniors. The
casework coordinator also assigns this responsibility on a
rotating basis. SVAT members phone the victims to advise them of
Colorado's report filing requirements and to ask if they need
help preparing the reports.

For other cases, such as robbery or assault, volunteers might
assist with paperwork or guide victims through the court process.
If necessary, SVAT members will follow up later to make sure that
the seniors are getting the kind of community or family support
necessary to normalize their lives. Frequently, volunteers simply
provide some consolation and a sympathetic ear.

To help administer the program, team members must record the
mileage of the car they use, tally the hours they donate, and
file incident reports with the casework coordinator. With this
information, adjustments can be made to improve the team's
responsiveness and effectiveness. For example, the SVAT used
mileage records to document the need for a second team vehicle.

Starting a Senior Victim Assistance Team

A team such as this can form the beginning of a police volunteer
program or be incorporated into an existing one. In either case,
once police administrators have decided that their departments
need to provide further assistance to the community's elderly
citizens, they should take several steps.

Administrators first should outline the department's needs and
expectations to determine exactly what team members will do. A
good way to start is by reviewing complaints and comments from
seniors who have used the department's services or have been
through the court system. What needs have they expressed? How
could a volunteer facilitate their interaction with the
department?

Second, the department must be both willing and able to provide
the resources necessary to make the team a success. Department
staff members will have to plan and implement training classes,
produce guides to community agencies, and secure radios and
pagers for the team's use. Although unnecessary in the beginning
stages, cars marked with the department's logo eventually might
be desirable for team members to use.

Once the team's duties have been established and the resources to
support it have been acquired, the department must describe the
qualifications for team membership. While most of the Colorado
Springs' volunteers are retired, this is not a prerequisite. More
important are the desire and commitment to help seniors and the
willingness to go through training. SVAT volunteers must have a
valid driver's license and be able to communicate clearly and
effectively.

Next, the department must recruit volunteers. Members can be
recruited from the families of police officers, referrals by
department personnel, and from local senior agencies or groups.
The number of volunteers needed depends on how often they will be
used. To estimate this figure, administrators can question patrol
officers to determine how often they would refer a senior citizen
to the team. Colorado Springs, a town of 350,000 citizens,
averages one call per day. In addition, the team averages 90
monthly follow-up calls to check on the progress and/or recovery
of the victim. Twenty-six team members handle the work load.

Once the team is in place, members need to nominate and elect a
casework coordinator and a chairperson for each of the various
committees. Department personnel should make themselves available
to answer questions and provide assistance as the team gets
started, develops its training, and establishes its procedures
and schedules. In addition, administrators should advise patrol
officers of the role the team will play and ask for their help in
using the team.

Finally, the team's activities should be monitored through status
reports and periodic meetings. Department administrators should
be open to making changes and improvements as needed.

Cautions

Not all senior citizens need or want an extensive amount of
assistance. Some elderly victims only need to be pointed in the
right direction, while others prefer more direct assistance. For
those who do, SVAT is there to help. Within reason, SVAT
volunteers will do as much or as little as the senior requires.
The team's experience also has shown the impor- tance of
protecting the volunteers' privacy. Team members are strongly
advised not to take victims home with them or to give victims
their home phone numbers. If seniors need to contact volunteers,
they can use the police dispatch number.

Benefits

In addition to helping elderly crime victims and freeing patrol
officers to respond to other calls for service, the Senior Victim
Assistance Team increases the department's interaction with the
community. At a time when law enforcement agencies nationwide are
emphasizing community involvement, SVAT provides one more avenue
for developing positive relationships with citizens and enhancing
the department's efficiency.

Members of the team also stand to gain from their involvement in
this program. They benefit from the knowledge that they provide
an important service and make a difference in the lives of people
experiencing a crisis. Many members of the Colorado Springs team
are retired and/or disabled; they have a genuine empathy for the
plight of other elderly people who might be unfamiliar with the
judicial process.

SVAT volunteers also become well informed about their community
and its resources. This knowledge increases their sense of
belonging and their confidence in dealing with people in need.

Conclusion

The Colorado Springs Senior Victim Assistance Team has been
recognized for its achievements. In December 1992, President
George Bush honored the team with the 973rd Daily Point of Light,
a program the President created to recognize outstanding
volunteer groups. The framed medal hangs on a red, white, and
blue ribbon in the volunteer services area of the police
operations center. It serves as a daily reminder that the police
department and volunteers can work together to provide vital
services and improve the life of the community.

It does not matter whether a municipality has a modest population
of mature citizens or an abundance; they will welcome and use a
Senior Victim Assistance Team. Police departments can increase
their efficiency and simultaneously provide senior citizens with
another avenue for assistance.

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For more information on the Colorado Springs program, contact
Ruth Myers, Coordinator of Volunteers, Police Operations Center,
P.O. Box 2169, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80901-2169.
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