“Faith, Healing, and Partnership: Strengthening Victim Services Through Spiritual Care and Community Collaboration”
Webinar Training Series
Session 1 – “Spiritual Health Matters: Honoring the Role of Spirituality and Faith in Survivor-Centered Advocacy”
September 22, 2026, from 1:00 pm–2:30 pm
Session 2 – “Building Bridges: Partnering with Faith Communities to Strengthen Victim Services”
September 28, 2026, from 1:00 pm–2:30 pm
The Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) is pleased to announce that registration is now open for the “Faith, Healing, and Partnership: Strengthening Victim Services Through Spiritual Care and Community Collaboration” webinar training series.
Participant Registration and Cost: This training series is free. Participants need to register in advance for the training. Please visit here to register. You only need to register once for both sessions.
Webinar Series Description: Survivors of violence bring their whole selves into the healing process, including their beliefs, values, spirituality, and faith traditions. Yet many victim service professionals report feeling uncertain about how to respectfully engage these aspects of a survivor's experience or how to effectively collaborate with faith communities. This two-part webinar series explores both the interpersonal and systems-level opportunities for integrating faith and spirituality into trauma-informed victim services. Participants will learn practical strategies for honoring survivors' spiritual identities while also building meaningful partnerships with faith-based organizations to strengthen community responses and expand support for survivors. The series draws upon trauma-informed, survivor-centered, and collaborative approaches to healing.
Session 1: "Spiritual Health Matters: Honoring the Role of Spirituality and Faith in Survivor-Centered Advocacy"
Healing from violence extends beyond physical and emotional recovery. For many survivors of violence, spirituality, faith, meaning, and purpose are essential components of resilience and healing. This webinar explores spiritual health as an often-overlooked dimension of wellness and examines how victim advocates can respectfully assess, acknowledge, and support survivors' spiritual strengths without imposing personal beliefs or engaging in religious counseling.
Participants will learn practical approaches to creating space for conversations about spirituality and promoting spiritual well-being as part of holistic, survivor-centered care.
Objectives: By the end of this webinar, participants will be able to:
• Describe spiritual health as a dimension of holistic wellness and explain its role in trauma recovery and survivor resilience.
• Differentiate spirituality from religion and recognize the diversity of survivors' spiritual beliefs, practices, and experiences.
• Apply survivor-centered strategies for respectfully assessing and supporting spiritual health while maintaining professional boundaries and honoring personal agency.
• Identify practical ways victim advocates can foster hope, meaning, and spiritual well-being for both survivors and themselves.
Session 2: “Building Bridges: Partnering with Faith Communities to Strengthen Victim Services”
No single organization can meet every need of survivors of violence. Faith communities are often trusted institutions that provide emotional, spiritual, social, and practical support, making them important partners in a coordinated community response. This webinar explores how victim service organizations can develop authentic, survivor-centered partnerships with faith-based organizations that enhance survivor safety, increase access to services, and promote violence prevention.
Participants will examine common barriers to collaboration, strategies for building trust across sectors, and opportunities to leverage faith communities as allies in supporting survivors and creating safer communities.
Objectives: By the end of this webinar, participants will be able to:
• Explain the value of engaging faith communities as partners in supporting survivors and strengthening coordinated community responses.
• Recognize opportunities and challenges that influence collaboration between victim service organizations and faith-based communities.
• Apply relationship-centered strategies for engaging faith leaders and faith communities.
• Identify practical partnership opportunities that expand survivor support, increase community awareness, and promote shared responsibility for ending violence.
Presenter:
Dr. Ghia Kelly is a dynamic leader, facilitator, trainer, and national subject matter expert with extensive experience in systems change, maternal and child health, intimate partner violence, leadership development, faith-based partnerships, and mental health and wellness. As a strategic change agent and systems thinker, Dr. Kelly is recognized for successfully implementing and overseeing national, state-level, and place-based initiatives that improve systems, strengthen cross-sector collaboration, advance equity, amplify the voices of communities and people with lived experience, and enhance outcomes for children and families.
She advocated on behalf of survivors of domestic and sexual violence and their children for nearly a decade at both the community level and within state coalitions, further grounding her work in deep commitment to safety, support, and survivor-centered change. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Public Management, a Master of Clinical Social Work, and a Doctorate in Transformational Leadership.
Questions? Contact Tricia Everetts, Victims Services Training and Communication Coordinator, at tricia.everetts@dcjs.virginia.gov