Byrne community project funds will help meet the staffing and equipment needs for a family justice center in the city of oxnard opening in 2024

The U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs (OJP) awarded the County of Ventura a $640,000 Project Grant under the Congressionally Recommended Awards (CFDA #16.753) program. The grant funding will help establish a new Family Justice Center in the City of Oxnard, California, scheduled to open in 2024. The center will increase accessibility of victim services for the large, underserved population in the greater Oxnard Plains area by hiring bilingual staff and providing an integrated network of services coordinated by victim navigators. Grant funds will be used for staffing, equipment, and facility upgrades to enhance the delivery of services for victims of child abuse, sexual assault, elder abuse, domestic violence, and human trafficking. This new location will reduce the impacts of trauma for victims residing in or near the Oxnard Plains through on-site, in-person access to critical support services.

Opening this site will increase the accessibility of victim services to residents of the greater oxnard plains area. Through the hiring of bilingual staff to work at this location and having services now available in this geographic region, the large, underserved population of victims residing there, will have unprecedented access to services exponentially multiplying the options that were heretofore theoretically available but not practically accessible at the FJC in another part of the county. Grant funds will be used to establish a more accessible family justice center that will provide victims with face-to-face contact in the form of a bilingual navigator whose sole purpose is to SIT down with victims via walk-in or scheduled appointments and work with them to conduct an assessment and services plan. The navigator will then provide a warm handoff to onsite service providers. At this new, larger location, there will be increased space available for use by partners, which will increase access to additional services. Funds not used for staffing will be used to purchase equipment to make the space useable for victims, staff, and partners. Offering a new location to provide an integrated network of services coordinated by navigators for victims of child abuse, sexual assault, elder abuse, domestic violence and human trafficking will reduce the impacts of trauma for victims residing within or nearby the greater oxnard plains.