The center is operated through collaboration between the California State University Long Beach (CSULB) Research Foundation Program and Dignity Health St. Mary Medical Center. According to the director, Dr. Bita Ghafoori, the center has been in operation since 2014 and is funded through a grant from the California Victim Compensation Program.
Lt. Steve Lauricella, who heads up the special-victims section at the Long Beach Police Department, said in a phone interview Tuesday that the department already has strong partners of victim advocacy throughout the community.
He added that what’s different about this particular collaboration is the proposal to co-locate a staff member from the center to meet with victims at the police department. Lauricella said that there used to be a victim advocate at the department readily available to speak to survivors of a crime when they talked to investigators about the case. He said that the department lost that co-located advocate group a couple of years ago and the department had been working without one during that time.
Lauricella was introduced to the new Trauma Recovery Center in 2014 and began working with them.
“I’m excited that we have the opportunity to work with Dr. Ghafoori and her organization, if the council approves this,” Lauricella said Tuesday, just before the council favored the plan later that night. “I look forward to that evolution in the relationship.”
According to a staff report, the police department will still handle the criminal investigation itself.
Ghafoori said the Trauma Recovery Center is one of only two centers in the state that offer a similar comprehensive program for victims.
[aesop_image imgwidth=”500px” img=”http://www.signaltribunenewspaper.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Screen-Shot-2015-12-04-at-10.32.56-AM.png” align=”right” lightbox=”on” caption=”Interval House, an assistance program for victims of domestic violence, offers some legal-aid services at the courthouse in Long Beach.” captionposition=”right”] “It’s different,” Ghafoori said of the center in a phone interview Tuesday, “because it provides no-cost comprehensive mental health services to victims of crime and violence, using the!latest knowledge with respect to how to treat individuals [who] experience these types of events.”
The grant to fund the center is for three years.
The police department does have other partners who offer other kinds of victim support services. Sharon Wie, program director of Interval House, a nonprofit organization that specializes in domestic-violence issues, said in a phone interview they also partner with the police department on those specific crimes. They provide both shelter and other services to survivors of domestic violence. Their services include shelter, counseling and legal aid. They utilize a space at the Governor George Deukmejian Courthouse in downtown Long Beach to offer assistance with filing for restraining orders.
She said that not all victims of domestic violence report to law enforcement.
“We certainly see many victims, primarily female victims,” Wie said, “but we do have male victims and also transgender and gender-non-conforming victims who may be less comfortable going to police and reporting their crimes.”
She added that it’s good for victims to have multiple places to seek help, rather than just seek one entity. Interval House also collaborates with The LGBTQ Center of Long Beach, which serves the gay community.
The need for victim-support services was highlighted this week during Wednesday’s tragic events in the Inland Empire. The police department was asked whether there were additional resources for victims if a mass shooting like the one in San Bernardino takes place in Long Beach.
In San Bernardino’s case, victims at the Inland Regional Center were evacuated and then directed to a location at the golf course across the street. Later they were transported to a second location, according to multiple media outlets on Thursday.
At some point during that process, they were assessed for injuries and debriefed by law enforcement. If the victims weren’t hurt and taken to the hospital, their relatives told news outlets that they could reunite with family members at that second location later that day.
Long Beach Police was asked if the department would follow a similar protocol or if the Department of Homeland Security or the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) would likely take the lead to offer support services in a situation like San Bernardino.
FEMA, the Department of Homeland Security and the Long Beach Police Department could not comment by press time.
