Mission
The mission of the Office of Victim Services and Justice Grants (OVSJG) is to develop, fund, and coordinate programs that improve public safety; enhance the administration of justice; and create systems of care for crime victims, youth, and their families in the District.
In order to accomplish its mission, OVSJG coordinates and funds community-based and District agency services for victims of crime and justice involved individuals. Additionally, OVSJG manages efforts that aim to reduce truancy in the District's public and charter schools, and supports juvenile delinquency prevention, juvenile justice diversion, mentoring, and gang intervention efforts. OVSJG is the State-Administering Agency (SAA) responsible for the direction of systemic criminal justice planning, coordination, management, research, training, and technical assistance. OVSJG also provides policy making expertise, advice, and counsel to the Executive on the role of victims and offenders in the criminal justice system, and evidence-based practices to respond to, intervene in, and prevent violence.
Core Values
Our work is guided by the following core values:
PURPOSE
We positively contribute to the public safety of our fellow citizens. We want empathy and compassion to guide us in our work. We are dedicated to delivering the best service that we can to benefit everyone’s wellbeing and safety.
PROFESSIONALISM
We have a high standard for our work and hold ourselves and our partners accountable to honoring our commitments. We are committed to doing work that positively impacts the District of Columbia. We use our knowledge, experience, and skills to produce positive results to fulfill our mission.
INTEGRITY
We believe that fairness and integrity are important to our day to day work and relationships. We believe in communicating with each other, and our partners, respectfully and honestly in order to build trust and understanding.
TEAM WORK
We build productive, strong and respectful working relationships with each our grantees, partners, and other stakeholders. We believe the best way for us to collaborate with each other is to share ideas, opinions, and information openly and often.
SELF-CARE
We are at our best when we are mentally, emotionally, and physically healthy and we have a strong expectation that we should take care of ourselves. We believe that engaging in intentional actions to enhance our well-being, both inside and outside the office, is a wise investment in sustaining our commitment to this work and is a practice that we want to model for our stakeholders and partners.
HUMOR
We know that our work can be emotionally demanding and draining and we believe that humor contributes to our resiliency. Humor is healthy way for us to relieve stress and maintain our professional empathy. We encourage an office culture where we feel comfortable laughing with our colleagues.