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Advancing Victims’ Rights: Past, Present, and Practice

"Advancing Victims’ Rights: Past, Present, and Practice" Webinar Training Series

Session 1: The History and Current Landscape of Victims’ Rights – April 20, 2026

Session 2: Confidentiality and Information Sharing When Collaborating: Focus on Ethics and Survivor Agency – April 24, 2026

Both sessions are from 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm

 

The Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) is pleased to announce that registration is now open for the “Advancing Victims' Rights: Past, Present, and Practice” webinar training series.

Participant Cost and Registration: This training is free for victim-serving professionals. Advanced registration is required. Please click here to register.

Who Should Attend: Law enforcement, prosecutors, victim advocates, and other allied professionals.

Session Descriptions:

The History and Current Landscape of Victims' Rights
The history of victim involvement in criminal justice is an important foundation for understanding the current landscape of victims' rights and for strategically choosing a path forward.  This session will describe the evolution of the modern victims' rights movement, including analyzing its goal of empowering victims.  Despite this, many victims continue to experience re-victimization when they interact with the criminal justice system.  This session will discuss what we can do to ensure victims' rights are meaningful and identify ways that each of us can empower victims to help them become survivors and thrivers.

Learning Objectives
By attending this training, participants will be able to:

  • Describe key milestones in the development of the victims’ rights movement and understand how these shaped current policies and practices.

  • Identify factors that contribute to re-victimization within the criminal justice system and evaluate strategies to make victims’ rights meaningful.

  • Develop actional methods to empower victims in their professional roles, fostering resilience, and long-term well-being.


Confidentiality & Information Sharing When Collaborating: Focus on Ethics & Survivor Agency
Crime victims encounter a maze of well-meaning service providers in the aftermath of their victimization. In this session the presenter will provide an overview of the fundamentals of privacy law, including privilege and confidentiality, as well as the unlawful practice of law.  With these foundations in place, we will identify the different obligations and norms to which various victim service professionals are bound, looking at how those can align and conflict.  We will then discuss how we can effectively and ethically collaborate across professional roles in support of victim survivor agencies. Case examples may be used.

Learning Objectives
By attending this training, participants will be able to:

  • Explain the key principles of privacy law, privilege, and confidentially, and recognize the boundaries that prevent unlawful practice of law.

  • Analyze how different professional norms and obligations intersect, align, or conflict when collaborating in victim services, and evaluate strategies to manage these challenges ethically.

  • Develop practical approaches for ethically sharing information across disciplines while maintaining survivor autonomy and empowerment.

 

Presenter:
Meg Garvin, MA, JD, MsT, is the Executive Director of the National Crime Victim Law Institute (NCVLI) and a Clinical Professor of Law at Lewis & Clark Law School. Professor Garvin is recognized as a leading expert on victims’ rights. She has testified before Congress, state legislatures and the Judicial Proceedings Panel on Sexual Assault in the Military. In her expert capacity she serves on the Defense Advisory Committee on Investigation, Prosecution and Defense of Sexual Assault in the Armed Forces, the Victims Advisory Group of the United States Sentencing Commission and is a Member of the Council on Criminal Justice.  She previously served on the Victim Services Subcommittee, of the Response Systems to Adult Sexual Assault Crime Panel of the United States Department of Defense, as co-chair of the American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section Victims Committee, co-chair of the Oregon Attorney General’s Crime Victims’ Rights Task Force and as a member of the Legislative & Public Policy Committee of the Oregon Attorney General’s Sexual Assault Task Force. She has received numerous awards in recognition of her work, including in 2012 Crime Victims First-Stewart Family Outstanding Community Service Award; in 2015 the John W. Gillis Leadership Award from National Parents of Murdered Children; in 2020, the American Bar Association Criminal Justice Section’s Frank Carrington Crime Victim Attorney Award, and in 2021, the Hardy Myers Victim Advocacy Award from the Oregon Crime Victims Law Center. Prior to joining NCVLI, Professor Garvin practiced law in Minneapolis, Minnesota and clerked for the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Puget Sound, her Master of Arts degree in communication studies from the University of Iowa, her JD from the University of Minnesota, and her Masters in International Human Rights Law from Oxford University.

DCJS Contact Information:
Tricia Everetts
Tricia.Everetts@dcjs.virginia.gov