Advanced Advocacy

About Advanced Advocacy Training

Advanced Advocacy trainings are meant for experienced advocates looking to expand and deepen their knowledge of victim advocacy.

Courses:

Mind the Gap: 2023 NCA Advocacy Standards Training

Mind the Gap is an advanced training designed for advocates who have completed a comprehensive 24-hour Advocacy Training before 2023.

This course builds upon the foundational principles of victim advocacy outlined in the 2017 accreditation standards and prepares participants to meet the 2023 Victim Advocacy Standard for Accreditation established by the National Children’s Alliance (NCA). The training has been officially approved by the NCA. 

Over the course of 3 hours, participants will deepen their understanding of key topics including: 

• Victim Rights and Compensation (pre-reading materials) 

• Cultural Responsiveness and Addressing Explicit Bias 

• Caregiver Resilience 

• Domestic Violence and Polyvictimization 
• Effective Referral Methods 

Webinars:

Adult Survivors of Sexual Abuse: Working with NOC’s Who Have Been Victims

Sexual abuse can be generational. Caregivers who have experienced abuse, now walk through our doors after a report from their own child. Their child’s report may trigger a new crisis stage for parents in their own healing journey. Understanding common experiences and needs of adult survivors can help advocates support them in their efforts to help support their children.

Building Advocacy Relationships with Resistive and Reluctant Caregivers

This advanced session will guide advocates to dive deeper into the relationships that they have with social services and law enforcement alongside the families they serve in the advocacy role. We will discuss the implications and the intersectionality of the notorious systems labeled ‘non-compliant’ caregivers throughout a case and/or child maltreatment investigation. The training will share the advocacy perspective rooted in the work of Ellen Pence and the Advocacy Learning Center, bridging grassroots work of domestic violence to the child advocacy center field. Participants will learn about how to better advocate for caregivers labeled as non-compliant, resistive, or reluctant. Trainers will facilitate discussion among participants designed to help shed light on the lived experiences of families of families and how they may present to multi-disciplinary professionals from a systems perspective.

Failure to Protect or Protective Factors? Identifying Protective Factors in the Co-occurrence of Domestic Violence and Child Abuse

For advocates working with children disclosing abuse, it is important to align with caregivers to effectively advocate and amplify their voices during the investigation and healing process. Knowing that domestic abuse co-occurs at a substantially high rate alongside child abuse magnifies an advocate’s ability to engage caregivers to advocacy. In this session, participants will learn the barriers that victims of domestic violence face in leaving an abusive relationship, specifically when children are involved, and how system intervention may inadvertently create additional barriers. Additionally, the presenter will discuss barriers that children face to disclosing their own victimization when family violence is present in the home. We will examine protective factors that supportive caregivers have put in place to keep their children and themselves safe as well as how systems and advocates can best support families experiencing these types of victimization utilizing a multi-disciplinary approach.

The Power of PCEs

Sexual abuse can be generational. Caregivers who have experienced abuse, now walk through our doors after a report from their own child. Their child’s report may trigger a new crisis stage for parents in their own healing journey. Understanding common experiences and needs of adult survivors can help advocates support them in their efforts to help support their children.

Supporting Children with No Non-Offending Caregiver: Advocacy to Forensic Interview

This presentation will speak to the prevalence of children with no NOC who come to the child advocacy center, and how we provide individualized advocacy and forensic interview techniques to these children. Systems change will also be discussed when systems or policies do not serve these children well, and starting points to facilitate these conversations.

Trauma-Informed Advocacy in Practice

Being “trauma-informed” is a term that is heard a lot in this field, but what does being trauma-informed actually look like in your advocacy practice? This session will discuss how to be more trauma-informed within your current advocacy practice and perspective. In this session we will consider how childhood and historical trauma impacts both the physical and mental health of the families we work with, as well as the power of resiliency factors. Participants will also take this information, and learn how to apply this knowledge to their advocacy practice from the first meeting through any ongoing advocacy, including community advocacy. The session will end with the acknoledgement that healthy advocates are more effective advocates, and will discuss self-care, secondary trauma, and how to prevent burnout.

Courtroom Advocacy for Non-Legal Advocates

While many community-based advocates may come into contact with courtroom advocacy in their careers, without a law degree, court systems can be extremely difficult to navigate. This training helps to bridge that gap by giving advocates the tools and education to be able to more easily navigate court systems and convey this information to caregivers. Advocates will gain a better knowledge of court proceedings, gain more understanding of sentencing guidelines using the Minnesota Sexual Offender Grid as an example, follow a case study through the court systems, and gain tips for assisting victims through victim impact statements.