LOVELAND MAGAZINE

News and Events from the Loveland, Ohio Area

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Since 2004

Tag: trauma

  • Browns Bipartisan legislation to support First Responders passes Senate

    Browns Bipartisan legislation to support First Responders passes Senate

    by David Miller

    Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) joined a bipartisan group of colleagues to applaud the unanimous Senate passage of his bipartisan legislation to help police, fire, emergency medical, and 911 personnel cope with the stresses of responding to crisis situations. The Fighting Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Act of 2023 would establish mental health programs for America’s first responders who often have long-term consequences from providing life-saving services in moments of crisis. Brown first introduced the Fighting Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Act in May 2022 and reintroduced it in January 2023.

    “Law enforcement officers and other first responders put their lives on the line each day, facing stressful and often dangerous situations, to protect Ohioans. This legislation will ensure that law enforcement professionals have access to the care they need to deal with the trauma they experience on the job, and keep our communities safer,” Brown said.

    U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown

    “Law enforcement personnel, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, and 911 dispatchers routinely encounter high-stress situations, putting them at risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which increases the risk of suicide,” according to Brown’s office. The Fighting Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Act would require the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to establish evidence-based treatment programs for first responders across the country. These programs would be similar to services already available to military personnel who develop PTSD or acute stress disorders. The bill requires the DOJ to consult with stakeholders, including public safety officer organizations, to develop the program, which would be available to serve first responders from communities of all sizes.

    The bill is cosponsored by Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) Chris Coons (D-DE), Todd Young (R-IN), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), John Kennedy (R-LA), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT).

    Text of the Fighting Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Act is available HERE.

  • Affidavits: More pregnant minors who were raped denied Ohio abortions

    Affidavits: More pregnant minors who were raped denied Ohio abortions

    Documents describe dozens of painful situations under Ohio abortion restrictions

    BY: MARTY SCHLADEN – Ohio Capital Journal

    At least two more minors made pregnant by sexual assault were forced to leave Ohio to avoid having their rapists’ babies, according to sworn affidavits filed by abortion providers.

    The affidavits were filed in Cincinnati as part of a lawsuit aimed at stopping enforcement of Ohio’s strict new abortion law, which it temporarily did last week. Originally paused for two weeks, on Tuesday the enforcement delay was extended to at least Oct. 14.

    If true, the affidavits show that a Columbus 10-year-old was not the only child or teen rape victim forced to leave the state. They also describe more than two dozen other instances in which the abortion law put women under extreme duress.

    The descriptions include those of three women who threatened suicide. They also include two women with cancer who couldn’t terminate their pregnancies and also couldn’t get cancer treatment while they were pregnant. 

    Another three examples were of women whose fetuses had severe abnormalities or other conditions that made a successful pregnancy impossible. Even so, they couldn’t get abortions in Ohio. 

    And in three cases, debilitating vomiting was caused by pregnancy — so bad in one case that a woman couldn’t get off the clinic floor. But neither could these women get abortions in Ohio, the affidavits said.

    The documents were filed in the case Preterm-Cleveland v (Ohio Attorney General) Dave Yost. Having already gotten a temporary order restraining enforcement of the abortion law — Senate Bill 23 — clinics across Ohio are now seeking a preliminary injunction.

    In doing so, they’re arguing that SB 23 is so onerous that it violates women’s due-process rights under the Ohio Constitution. 

    Disrupted clinics

    Gov. Mike DeWine signed the law in 2019, but it couldn’t be enforced until the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade on June 24. Many of the affidavits describe how, as soon as the decision overturning Roe was announced that Friday, work at Ohio clinics was thrown into chaos.

    Ohio law had allowed abortions until 20 weeks of pregnancy. Now, with only limited exceptions for the life and the health of the mother, no abortions were allowed after fetal cardiac activity could be detected by ultrasound.

    In the affidavits, clinic workers said that usually happens after five to six weeks of pregnancy — a point at which as many as a third of women and girls don’t know they’re pregnant.

    The new, much-earlier cutoff sent clinic workers scrambling.

    “In the days after S.B. 23 took effect, we had to cancel over 600 appointments,” Sharon Liner, medical director of Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio, said in her affidavit. “Many patients broke down in tears in our office. Many patients that we could not reach by phone who came to our health center expecting to have their appointment were extremely upset; some threatened to hurt themselves because they were so distraught.”

    Liner added, “We have had at least three patients threaten to commit suicide. Another patient said she would attempt to terminate her pregnancy by drinking bleach. Another asked how much Vitamin C she would need to take to terminate her pregnancy.”

    In July, 60% of patients at the clinic had to be turned away because fetal cardiac activity had been detected by the initial ultrasound, Liner said. 

    The Ohio law requires a 24-hour waiting period and a second negative ultrasound before an abortion can be performed. Because things are changing so quickly at that stage of development, another 16% of women who’s fetuses had no cardiac activity during the first exam were turned away in July because it was detected in the second, Liner said.

    The Ohio law requires a 24-hour waiting period and a second negative ultrasound before an abortion can be performed. Because things are changing so quickly at that stage of development, another 16% of women who’s fetuses had no cardiac activity during the first exam were turned away in July because it was detected in the second, Liner said.

    “When we tell patients we cannot help them, they are extremely distressed, and all we can offer them is resources, information and emotional support,” Liner said in her affidavit, which was taken while S.B. 23 was still being enforced.

    Ohio clinics have been referring patients who were ineligible for abortions here to clinics and hospitals in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Illinois and New York to get them. 

    Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio and other organizations have announced stepped-up assistance to help patients get to those states. But many — including at least one homeless woman — said problems with things like transportation, child care, poverty and getting time off work make the trips virtually impossible, according to the affidavits.

    Allegra Pierce, a medical assistant at Preterm-Cleveland, doubted that most women turned away at Ohio clinics during the 11 weeks S.B. 23 was enforced ever made it out of state.

    “The majority of patients I talk to say that they can’t travel out of state to access abortion care,” Pierce said in her affidavit. “Even though many patients can access sources of funding for seeking an abortion, there are so many barriers that make traveling out of state inaccessible for many of our patients, including the cost of travel, child-care responsibilities, and difficulty getting time off of work, just to name a few. Even those patients who are able to travel out of state often have a hard time getting an appointment due to increasingly long wait times at clinics in states where abortion is still legal.”

    More victims

    In July, when Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost was raising unfounded doubts about the existence of a 10-year-old rape victim, there were plenty of data indicating that the story was all too plausible.

    In 2021, Ohio’s Children’s Advocacy Centers saw 6,717 cases of sexual abuse against Ohioans between infancy and adulthood. And in 2020, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 571 girls aged 17 or younger received abortions in Ohio, according to the state department of health. Fifty-two of them — or one a week — were 14 or younger.

    Sadly, the affidavits filed in late August and early September by workers at abortion clinics provide further evidence that child and teen rape and subsequent pregnancy is a problem in Ohio. But so long as fetal cardiac activity is detected, S.B. 23 requires such victims to either have those babies or scramble out of state and try to find an abortion.

    Adarsh E. Krishen, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio, told of a minor who had been sexually assaulted and had to travel to Michigan for an abortion because of S.B. 23. Krishen’s organization operates clinics in Columbus and Cleveland.

    “This patient experienced immense trauma from the assault itself and then endured further trauma from a forensic interview alongside a physical exam to collect evidence for the ongoing police investigation,” Krishen said in his affidavit. “This trauma was further exacerbated by needing to wait over three weeks for her appointment. In each step of this process she felt the complete denial of bodily autonomy and safety, something all people, especially children, should unequivocally have at all times.”

    Another example shows how S.B. 23 makes police investigation of child and teen rapes more difficult.

    Aeran Trick, operations manager of Women’s Med Center of Dayton, told of “a 16-year-old girl living in Southwestern Ohio who had become pregnant after being sexually assaulted by a family member.”

    As with the 10-year-old from Columbus, Trick said this teenager was forced to go to Indianapolis for an abortion.

    “The local Ohio law-enforcement agency — which was already involved at the time the clinic was contacted about the patient — had to drive to our Indianapolis clinic to retrieve the tissue for crime lab testing related to the sexual assault investigation,” Trick’s affidavit says. “I am concerned that Ohio’s ban and the need to travel increasingly far distances to obtain abortion care not only causes unimaginable harm to these young victims, but could also hamper law enforcement’s ability to investigate and prosecute these cases in the future.”

    Cornered by cancer

    The affidavits filed as part of the effort to stop S.B. 23 describe two cancer patients put in the most impossible of situations by the law. 

    Both seem to illustrate doctors’ reluctance to terminate pregnancies despite the law’s exceptions for maternal health — exceptions that doctors say are woefully ill-defined. With potential penalties that include felony charges and the loss of professional licenses, some doctors have refused to terminate even though their patients’ health is at risk.

    In the days after S.B. 23 took effect, a pregnant 25-year-old went to a clinic operated by Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio, said Liner, the medical director there. The patient had recurrent cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy when she learned that she was pregnant.

    Chemotherapy is dangerous during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy and this patient had already skipped one treatment. But when the clinic determined that she was eight weeks pregnant, workers there said they couldn’t perform an abortion, Liner said.

    “Due to the patient having cancer while pregnant, we sought documentation to support a medical exception to S.B. 23 for this patient,” Liner said in her affidavit. “Her provider of care did not feel comfortable providing this and the patient had to travel out of state for an abortion to resume her cancer treatment, which caused further delay.”

    The effect of delaying chemotherapy on the patient’s health might be hard to determine, but it seems unlikely that it was good.

    Just three days after S.B. 23 took effect, a 37-year-old suffering stage III melanoma went to Women’s Med Center in Dayton, Trick, the operations manager there, said. The woman was told by her doctors that she had to terminate her pregnancy before they could treat her, so she, too, would have to leave the state, Trick said. 

    “Upon learning that she would need to travel out of state to have her abortion, the patient broke down and cried inconsolably despite the attempts of multiple staff members, including myself, to console her,” Trick said in her sworn affidavit.

    Other illnesses

    In addition to those cases, women with conditions that made successful pregnancies impossible had problems getting doctors outside the clinics to treat them, David Burkons, medical director of Northeast Ohio Women’s Center said. Two patients at the clinic said they had tubal, or “ectopic,” pregnancies “but the doctors (at emergency rooms) were afraid to treat them without being absolutely certain there was no intrauterine pregnancy,” Burkons wrote in his affidavit.

    “In one case, the patient’s fallopian tube ruptured, and surgery (was needed) rather than medical management, which would have been possible if they had acted sooner,” he said. “In the other, my nurse intervened to convince a physician to treat the patient, but only several days later, which was emotionally wrenching for the patient.”

    The affidavits also detail cases of fetal abnormalities and other problems so severe that pregnancies can’t result in a successful birth. One patient at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Southwest Ohio had a fetus with abnormalities including “a lack of lower extremities and the contents of the fetus’s abdomen, including possibly the heart, protruding through a defect in the abdominal wall,” Liner, a doctor, said in her sworn statement.

    Because S.B. 23 doesn’t allow women in such cases to abort their pregnancies if they don’t pose an imminent threat to their health, they either have to leave the state for an abortion or carry the fetus to term — even though that “can be extremely distressing for patients,” Liner said.

    In another case, this one in Dayton, a woman was 13 weeks pregnant but had no amniotic fluid, prompting her doctor to tell her the pregnancy was “nonviable.”

    “However, because the fetus still had fetal heart tones, the physician discharged her with instructions to call the office if she developed a fever,” Trick said in her affidavit. “The patient was very distressed and expressed to (clinic) staff that she felt abandoned by her physician during an incredibly difficult experience. I’m concerned that confusion over the meaning of S.B. 23’s health exceptions has led physicians to avoid providing medically necessary care out of caution, and I worry about patients in similar positions who aren’t able to independently find an accessible abortion provider without their physician’s help.”

    Clinic workers also reported cases of incessant vomiting caused by pregnancy, including in a high-school senior who found it impossible to attend class and finish her diploma. 

    Another girl, 16, had vomited so much that she lost 20 pounds, Trick, of the Dayton clinic, reported. The girl’s mother didn’t have a reliable car, so she had to rent one to take her daughter to Indianapolis for an abortion, Trick said.

    At the same clinic, another patient was “so sick she was lying on the floor vomiting into a bucket,” Trick wrote. 

    The woman wasn’t only afraid that her condition would prevent her from making it to Indianapolis, Trick said. The woman had four kids to care for and she was the manager of a large retail store.

    “She was concerned that she was going to lose her job because of all the time she had to take off to travel to and from the clinic for abortion care in addition to her repeated absences due to being hospitalized for her condition,” Trick wrote.

    Undermining its own purpose

    Proponents of S.B. 23 meant to dramatically curtail the number of abortions in Ohio. But the clinic workers said that for some patients, it’s having the perverse effect of rushing them to terminate pregnancies before they’ve had a chance to decide whether that’s what they really want.

    Pierce of Preterm-Cleveland said that at five to six weeks, “these patients are very early on in their pregnancies and many of them have not had a chance to wrap their minds around the fact they are pregnant. A number of patients have told me that they wish they had more time to think about whether to continue the pregnancy.

    “For example, I recently spoke with a patient with a young baby at home who had become pregnant again only months after giving birth,” Pierce’s affidavit continues. “She had experienced many postpartum health issues, and she was not sure if she was physically or mentally ready to go through a pregnancy again so soon. She wanted time to work through this decision but was terrified that if she waited she would no longer be able to have an abortion.”

    In their lawsuit, the abortion clinics seem to be contending that in forcing such an early decision, S.B 23 denied that woman’s due-process rights under the Ohio Constitution. They seem to be asserting the same rights for the other women they describe in the affidavits as being injured by S.B. 23.

    Whether Ohio’s court system agrees will be decided in the coming months.

    Follow Marty Schladen on Twitter.

  • Should courts limit jury awards for child rape victims? Supreme Court weighs arguments

    Should courts limit jury awards for child rape victims? Supreme Court weighs arguments

    Photo Courtesy of the Ohio Supreme Court

    BY: JAKE ZUCKERMAN – Ohio Capital Journal

    Columbus, Ohio – Lawyers for a woman who was repeatedly raped and sexually abused as a child argued Wednesday the Ohio Supreme Court should overturn or at least pare down a law that limits millions in damages a jury awarded her.

    In 2005, Ohio lawmakers passed a “tort reform” law that among other provisions, sets a limit of $250,000 on non-economic damages, which are awarded to victims to cover more intangible harms like pain, suffering, stress, anxiety, etc.

    Amanda Brandt was awarded $34 million in noneconomic damages after Roy Pompa, her friend’s father, abused her repeatedly over 18 months starting when she was 11. Court records show he would drug and rape her and record the abuse. Brandt won full damages for abuse that occurred before the tort reform law passed ($14 million), though the other $20 million in punitive damages for abuse after the law passed was cut down to $250,000.

    She still won $100 million in punitive damages — which are only available because Pompa was convicted of a felony (17 counts of rape, five counts of kidnapping, 55 counts of pandering sexually oriented material involving a minor, and 21 counts of gross sexual imposition).

    The Supreme Court has previously denied an effort to nix damage caps as they were applied to another child who was raped by her priest in Delaware County. Her $3.5 million in noneconomic caps was reduced to $350,000 (the law also creates a formula that can provide up to $350,000 pending economic damages like missed days of work and medical bills).

    Brandt’s attorneys asked the court for one of two remedies. The justices could overturn the damage caps outright and restore juries with the power to set damage maximums, as opposed to state lawmakers. Or, the justices could determine that the trauma Brandt sustained should apply to an exception to the damage caps within the law available to people who become deformed or disabled by an injury.

    “These kinds of injuries meet the same level,” said Robert Peck, an attorney representing Brandt.

    Damage caps, he said, infringe on the U.S. Constitution’s right to trial by jury. It’s a jury that hears the facts of a case and decides what kind of penalty is appropriate.

    “With a cap, you’re saying that that cap overrides that jury decision,” he said.

    Pompa, via attorney Marion Little, said it’s untrue that anyone was denied a right to trial by jury. Brandt still won $114 million. The intent of tort reform, he argued, was to create more legal predictability and consistency, which it accomplished without infringing on anyone’s rights.

    As for the reduced non-economic damages, Little said the evidence suggests Brandt has recovered. She still requires counseling, but she has a family, a job and stability and should be “applauded for her success” moving forward.

    In court filings supporting Brandt, lawyers with the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence criticized this line of thinking.

    “[It] puts Ohio judges in the unenviable and morally fraught position of holding against child abuse victims the moments in their life where they have made progress — where they have taken the most basic steps to achieve normalcy despite the abuse they suffered,” wrote attorney Camille Crary in a brief.

    Outside interests 

    Overturning Ohio’s noneconomic damage would significantly reshape Ohio’s legal climate in favor plaintiffs. It applies far beyond the narrow realm of child sex abuse and into products liability and other genres of lawsuits that can result in huge payouts, often from large corporations and institutions.

    As such, the case generated tremendous outside interest. Attorney General Dave Yost argued the law should be upheld. He said it’s perhaps surprising — “some might even say callous” — that Ohio law limits available damages for a child victim of sexual abuse. But “foolish policy” is not necessarily unconstitutional, he argued. He urged lawmakers, as some have tried to do, to lift damage caps in claims against rapists. But that change should come from the legislature, not the Supreme Court, he said.

    The Chamber of Commerce, which represents business interests, said the unpredictability of “runaway” jury awards creates huge risks for businesses. Ohio’s damage caps, its lawyers argued, are reasonable and within the mainstream compared with other states.

    “The extremely sympathetic facts of this case should not blind this Court to the enormous consequences of that invitation: Invalidating the law or opening the door to a vague new exception will expose businesses, nonprofits, and others to unlimited and unpredictable awards and excessive settlement demands in personal injury lawsuits when no more than negligence is alleged,” its lawyers wrote.

    The Product Liability Advisory Council — an association representing large car, tobacco, chemical, firearms, pharmaceutical and other companies — filed arguments in the case supporting the noneconomic damage caps and emphasizing Brandt’s current jury award.

    One mystery in the case, homed in on briefly during oral arguments, is whether Pompa can even pay the $114 million judgement — let alone the additional $20 million if the court overturns the damage cap. Peck, during arguments, said the plaintiffs have not yet sought to collect from him until the court finalizes the issue.

    In an interview after oral arguments, Little said there’s no evidence in the record suggesting Pompa can pay either $114 million or $134 million. He said the plaintiffs’ target is more likely the law and precedent than the specific case at hand.

    Little — a prominent defense attorney currently working on high-profile, white collar cases — declined to answer whether Pompa is paying for his legal services.

    “I think that the, as a practical matter, the plaintiff does not have a financial stake in the results of this case,” he said. “There may be others outside the case, such as the plaintiff’s bar, that have interest in this.”

    Organizations representing trial attorneys argued the right to trial by jury and that jury’s autonomy to set awards for plaintiffs who have been harmed are inextricably tied. Juries, they wrote, are the fact finders in court cases — not policy makers.

    “The General Assembly has not demonstrated a willingness to protect the right to trial by jury, nor is it the role of legislators to draw boundaries around the legislative power,” they wrote. “As a result, it falls on this Court to jealously safeguard that right and protect all Ohioans, not just those with the most lobbying power.”

  • Support their right to have some control over what largely feels like something happening TO them, not just IN them.

    Support their right to have some control over what largely feels like something happening TO them, not just IN them.

    “If you can’t bring yourself to do that, then please, try to listen a little longer, and seek to somehow, in some way, understand.”

    by Stefanie Badders Laufersweiler

    I’ve been pregnant 7 times. Four progressed successfully; three did not. 

    Half of the times I’ve been in the ultrasound room, the news was bad. The first time, a heartbeat was no longer detectable at 10 weeks, but my body didn’t naturally miscarry, so ultimately I opted for a D&C, where my OB removed the fetus. The few weeks that I waited for natural miscarriage were traumatic and sad. I was 28.

    The second time I got pregnant, I went in for an ultrasound and a very slow heartbeat was detected—too slow. My OB told me it didn’t look good, but he couldn’t say for certain at that point. I went home and later that evening, miscarried at home, at 6 weeks. I was 29.

    I had a healthy pregnancy with our first child, Amy, when I was 30. But, the entire time I fretted. When you have your first pregnancy at that age or older, more odds, complications and viability testing options are shared with you. More risk is involved, and though you aren’t nudged in any direction, they (and you) want to progress with eyes wide open.

    I had two more healthy pregnancies, with Paul and Em. Then, at age 39, a chemical pregnancy. I had had some bleeding before that ultrasound; I didn’t bother telling Matt to meet me there. “What’s your due date?” the doctor (not my usual OB) asked me as she prepped me for the scan. “I’ve no idea,” I said. “I don’t do that anymore, because I’ve not always walked out of this room with good news.”

    Ben came last, a beautiful blindside, at age 42. It’s the only time I had to sit down to catch my breath after taking a pregnancy test. I was old. We were blessed, everyone would say, but few knew what that pregnancy was like for us. You don’t really ready for a child; you prepare yourself for whatever may come. Miscarriage. Birth defects. Potential loss. And any pregnancy-related trauma you’ve ever felt, mental and physical, comes roaring back. You count on nothing, and brace for anything.

    “We all have different experiences and opinions. We all live this life differently, not always by choice. I’m not foolish enough to think my experience will change your mind. I had miscarriages, after all, not abortions. But, every time, I had choices. Choices I’m grateful for, because they were mine to make.“

    Every time prior to Ben, after we had a pregnancy or a pregnancy loss, we had to make a decision—not whether to have another child, but whether to put ourselves through the process that may or may not end with a child. And once I was pregnant with Ben—whose conception happened by failed contraception—we had another decision to make: whether to risk future pregnancies, in middle age with a body that had served me well but suffered complications along the way.

    We chose a vasectomy for Matt while I was in my seventh month of pregnancy with Ben. I say that out loud because society in general doesn’t do that enough, although we are quite comfortable speaking of contraception and prevention in regards to women.

    By age 45, I had fully entered menopause, and I no longer had to worry about getting pregnant. After all of my adult life having to weigh the risks and benefits of taking birth control pills, or using condoms, or trying “natural” prevention, or considering surgery, or taking chances, or hoping the vasectomy “took,” I didn’t have to worry anymore. At 45.

    I share this, perhaps oversharing, because many people think they know how they feel about pregnancy. And contraception. And having babies. And abortion. And, most importantly, what they would do. What others should do. What they DID do. Their own experiences. My own experience. 

    Others speak from experience they don’t personally have, but think they know enough about to judge someone else’s.

    We all have different experiences and opinions. We all live this life differently, not always by choice. I’m not foolish enough to think my experience will change your mind. I had miscarriages, after all, not abortions. But, every time, I had choices. Choices I’m grateful for, because they were mine to make.

    Give an ear and perhaps some grace to those who’ve been there. Who’ve been in that room where your odds of coming out with a due date are 50/50. Who’ve had a pregnancy they terminated under unimaginable circumstances. Who’ve carried the trauma of losing, or being faced with a painful choice; of having to explain something so personal to others who may not understand or ever have to experience what you did; of having to piece together a life afterward. 

    Look around you. Talk to women you know, and maybe some you don’t. Ask questions about what pregnancy is like. Better yet, just listen. Hear their stories. Learn their experiences. Not just the happy endings or desired outcomes.

    Then support them. Support their right to have some control over what largely feels like something happening TO them, not just IN them. If you can’t bring yourself to do that, then please, try to listen a little longer, and seek to somehow, in some way, understand.

  • School districts may apply for trauma-informed care training

    School districts may apply for trauma-informed care training

    Attorney General DeWine Announces Initiative to Help Child Victims of Crime

    Columbus, Ohio —Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine today announced a new initiative to help child victims of crime. Funded by grants from the federal Victims of Crime Act, DeWine is setting aside at least $25 million to fund children’s programs.

    “It is critical that crime victims have access to comprehensive care and services, and that includes services for our youngest, most vulnerable victims,” DeWine said. “We want to help ensure that kids who experience trauma receive the care they need.”

    DeWine called on organizations across the state to submit innovative ideas for programs in areas such as:

    • Providing comprehensive services to child victims of physical or sexual abuse.
    • Addressing mental health issues in children who have experienced trauma.
    • Providing trauma-informed care training to interested Ohio schools.
    • Helping children whose families are struggling with substance abuse.
    • Researching the impact of child abuse, neglect, and other adverse childhood experiences.
    • Locating safe, trauma-informed living environments for children.

    Organizations should contact the Ohio Attorney General’s Office to learn more about VOCA grants or to submit a proposal.



    The federal Victims of Crime Act (VOCA), signed into law in 1984, established an account known as the Crime Victims Fund, which is financed by federal settlements, fines, and penalties. States apply each year for the federal grant and then award VOCA funds to eligible public and nonprofit organizations.

    In Ohio, the Attorney General is responsible for administering the state’s VOCA grants. The state was awarded $117 million for fiscal year 2018-2019, an increase of more than $30 million from the previous year.