Create a Strategic Plan

Strategic planning is an organizational blueprint you can use to create a uniform vision and purpose that is shared by all SART members. The fundamental benefits of a strategic plan? You can use it to improve the quality of victim services you provide, set priorities, and determine the best direction for the SART's future. The plan is ultimately a set of decisions about what to do, why to do it, how to do it, and who will do it.

Strategic planning implies that some organizational decisions and actions are more important than others—and that much of the strategy lies in making the tough decisions about what is most important to achieving success. The process itself, however, promotes communication by bringing together multidisciplinary agencies with a common goal. Although there may be difficult discussions, strategic planning accommodates differing interests and values in the decisionmaking process.

As with any other organizational tool, you can do a little planning or a lot of planning. You'll know you have planned enough when team members understand and have consensus about the SART's direction and action steps. However, strategic planning doesn't necessarily end once the first plan is developed. Although strategic planning takes a long-range approach, it helps you determine progress, assess the validity of the plan, and make adjustments based on changing circumstances and emerging opportunities. Ultimately, a strategic plan is essential for enhanced service delivery and continued funding support.

You can create a strategic plan at any point of SART development, whether you are forming a team or have a team already established.¹ First, assess the current response to sexual violence (see Collect Data for more information). Then, begin the strategic planning process:

• Create the SART's vision and mission statements.
• Develop goals and objectives.
• Develop protocols to institutionalize the SART's objectives.

Vision and Mission

Vision statements help define what your SART will be, how it can perform, and what it intends to do. For example, the vision statement of the New Mexico SANE Task Force is to have those affected by sexual violence receive consistent and quality medical treatment and forensic service from providers who meet the fundamental qualifications and training in the State of New Mexico.² Likewise, each agency or organization within a SART may have its own vision statement. Finding common ground among multidisciplinary vision statements will help you define a new collaborative identity.

Your vision statement should be compelling and should convey your SART's desired future. The statement should be positive, in the present tense, brief enough to be memorable, realistic, credible, uniquely descriptive, easily communicated and understood, specific in purpose, a guide to action, and consistent with SART core values.

Vision statements that work combine four elements:

• They are grand, they excite and inspire, and they are presented with credible commitment. People want to be inspired and feel good about where they are heading.
• They are within grasp—doable within a set time—while challenging people to work hard. People rise to challenges when they believe they can succeed.
• They are backed with funding and other support for the SART. Resources exist (e.g., sufficient money, willpower, and capacity) to fuel the work necessary to succeed.
• They can be expressed succinctly. People respond to memorable ideas.

Mission statements are similar to vision statements, but they're more concrete and action oriented. For example, here is the mission statement of the DC Rape Crisis Center:

The DC Rape Crisis Center is dedicated to creating a world free of sexual violence. The Center works for social change through community outreach, education, and legal and public policy initiatives. It helps survivors and their families heal from the aftermath of sexual violence through crisis intervention, counseling and advocacy.

Committed to the belief that all forms of oppression are linked, the Center values accessibility, cultural diversity and the empowerment of women and children.

Understanding that there are unpredictable circumstances that can affect progress, you can make your mission statement a roadmap and operational standard for your SART's purposes. When creating your mission statement, ask yourself the following: "If the SART were to do one thing that would have the most positive impact, what would that thing be?" Other considerations include—

• Does the mission statement clearly state how, why, what, and to whom the SART will respond?
• Does it state why the SART is important?
• Is the mission broad enough that all agencies on the team can see how they can contribute?
• Is the mission something that would rarely change?
• Will the mission make sense to the community?

For example, Cuyahoga County's SART developed guiding principles for pursuing its mission and vision:³

• Provide equal access to services for all individuals who have been sexually assaulted regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, income, ability, language, age, religion, or other personal characteristics.
• Develop and maintain professional relationships through respectful communication and cross-disciplinary education among team members.
• Educate professionals within the health, social, and justice systems and the community at large to overcome the silence and stigma surrounding sexual assault.
• Establish and implement countywide standards of practice to ensure consistent responses from providers who will be held accountable to the standards.
• Inform individuals about their rights and choices with regard to health care, social services, and the justice system.

Goals and Objectives

Goals provide a framework for more detailed levels of planning. Objectives, on the other hand, are specific, quantifiable, and time-bound statements of tasks you want to accomplish or results you want to achieve. This section reviews—

• Goals.
• Objectives.
• Action plan.
• Logic model.

Goals

Goals are more specific than mission statements. They can be set at a local, regional, institutional, state, territory, tribal, or campus level. State, territory, and military goals generally represent a broad strategic SART direction, whereas local, campus, tribal, or regional SARTs normally are more jurisdictionally specific.

One of the most important questions to address in creating goals is "Will the goals support the SART's vision and mission?" In addition, you also may want to address priorities synthesized from community needs assessment surveys. (See Collect Data in this toolkit for more information about surveys.)

Goals encompass a relatively long period—at least 3 years or more—or have no stated time period. They should address gaps between the current and desired level of service. According to the Strategic Planning Toolkit, goals and objectives are often used interchangeably, but they are different⁴:

Goals	Objectives
Are broad.	Are narrow.
Include general intentions.	Are precise.
Are intangible.	Are tangible.
Are abstract.	Are concrete.
Are not tied to a timeframe.	Are always tied to a timeframe.

Objectives

The crux of writing realistic objectives is learning what changes need to happen to fulfill your mission. It is generally best to start with objectives that have short-term action steps that are attainable and tangible. This strategy gives you early and positive results from which to build your SART's next steps. Objectives should be⁵—

• Specific: Objectives should reflect specific, desired accomplishments. They need to be detailed and compatible with sexual assault response policies, protocols, and state, local, tribal, or military ordinances and statutes.
• Measurable: Objectives must be measurable so that SARTs can determine when they have been accomplished.
• Achievable: Objectives are standards for achievement. They may be challenging, but they should not demand the impossible.
• Relevant: Objectives need to specify a result; for example, "provide private waiting areas for victims at exam sites."
• Timed: Objectives need to specify a relatively short timeframe—from a few weeks to no more than a year.
• Challenging: Objectives stretch the SART to make significant improvements.  

When developing your objectives, include problems to be resolved within social, legal, economic, political, and policy contexts. In other words, brainstorm what is currently being done to address sexual violence and by whom and whether there are recent events or social or economic trends and policy shifts that could affect your objectives. In addition, consider past efforts to respond to the same or closely related needs, the consequences and lessons learned from those efforts, and what additional knowledge is needed to proceed successfully. For example, are there innovative practices in other jurisdictions that are relevant to your objectives? To what extent could you adapt and incorporate them into your own?

Setting attainable objectives requires a system that you can follow to prioritize them. To start, consider using the following chart:

Priority	Priority Rationale
Must Do	Objectives that are important and feasible.
Important To Try	Objectives that are important but will be difficult to accomplish.
Easy To Do	Objectives that are easy to accomplish but may not be very important. Making these objectives a priority provides speedy benchmarks for success.
Last Resort	Objectives of low importance that are difficult to complete.

You also may want to consider completing a self-assessment grid—a tool that allows you to score organizations on their organizational capacity, determining where they are strong and where they need work. In other words, the grid can help you identify infrastructures that support your objectives, thereby enabling you to identify those objectives that are most feasibly accomplished.

Action Plan

Action plans lay out the main steps in carrying out a specific objective. In addition to the steps, action plans can include the responsible persons, completion dates, and resources required. Your plan also should document potential barriers and potential allies to engage so that you can address challenges proactively.

Action Step	Persons Responsible	Date Completed	Resources Required	Potential Barriers or Resistance	Collaborators
What will happen?	Who will do what?	Timing of each action step	Resources and support (what is needed and what is available)	Individuals or agencies that may oppose the plan	Who else should know about or be involved in this action?

A sample action plan showing the mission, goal, and two objectives follows:

Mission: To ensure the coordination of a consistent, competent, respectful, victim-centered response to sexual violence.

Goal: To promote collaborative partnerships.

Objective 1: Establish a SART composed of an investigator, prosecutor, health care professional, forensic laboratory specialist, victim advocate, and civil legal attorney.

Action Step	Responsible	Date Completed	Resources	Barriers	Collaborators
Set an introductory SART meeting time and location.
Invite potential team members.
Host introductory team meeting.
Obtain commitment from members.
Decide future meeting times.
Develop vision and mission statements.
Develop core team values.
Define team members' roles and responsibilities.

Objective 2: Develop multidisciplinary protocols. (For more information, see Protocols in this section.)

Action Steps	Responsible	Date Completed	Resources	Barriers	Collaborators
Determine which problems or barriers impede victim participation in the criminal justice system.
Obtain statistics—the rate and types of sexual violence.
Compile records of existing resources.
Survey victims and the community.
Write a report from survey data.
Identify which policies, procedures, or laws need to be changed or introduced.
Identify and prioritize issues to address.
Complete role and responsibility matrix for each agency.
Create a SART protocol based on roles and responsibilities.
Create written interagency agreements (memorandums of understanding or agreement).
Train agency staff on SART protocols and guidelines.
Monitor implementation of protocols.
Evaluate effectiveness of protocols.

Logic Model

Once teams have defined and prioritized their goals and objectives, the next step is the construction of a logic model—a way of thinking that links your SART's activities to the outcomes you hope to achieve.

Logic models help you define⁶—

• Your vision and goals.
• Steps (activities) you need to take to achieve your goals.
• Whether the steps will lead to desired outcomes.
• Which indicators (e.g., number of cases) will help you track the degree to which you are taking intended actions (process evaluation) and which indicators (e.g., victim satisfaction) will track team goals (outcome evaluation).

Although you should develop your logic model when you first plan your SART, know that it isn't static or detached from ongoing SART activities; you also can use it for focusing evaluation efforts. (See Monitor and Evaluate Your Efforts in this toolkit for more information about evaluation.)

Generally, it is easiest to work backwards. Once you define desired outcomes, you can identify activities that are needed to achieve them. Once you identity activities (outputs), you can determine which resources (inputs) are needed to develop and implement them.

Inputs are resources dedicated to the program. Examples are money, staff and staff time, volunteers and volunteer time, facilities, equipment, and supplies.

Outputs are the direct products of program activities and usually are measured in terms of the volume of work accomplished. For example, the numbers of community referrals, medical forensic exams, and cases investigated and prosecuted.

Outcomes are benefits to victims and the criminal justice system based on coordinated service delivery. For example, victims may be more willing to assist with the investigation and prosecution of their cases because their practical, emotional, psychological, social, and economic needs are prioritized.

When creating a logic model, ask yourself the following questions:

• What is the problem or challenge we are trying to address? Beginning by identifying problems or challenges will help to ensure that everyone on the team is on the same page.
• What long-term outcomes do we hope to achieve? Long-term outcomes are what you hope to ultimately achieve—in other words, your SART's vision.
• What short-term outcomes may lead to these long-term outcomes? Short-term outcomes prepare you to achieve your vision.
The Right Tool

Enhancing Program Performance with Logic Models: Logic Model Basics  Teaches users the basics of logic models.

Logic Model Builder Takes users through the process of developing a customized logic model (requires user to establish an account).

Logic Model Worksheet Allows users to chart inputs, outputs, and outcomes.

• Which activities will help us achieve outcomes? The activities must be specific.
• Are we working on assumptions? Any time an arrow is drawn from one box to another (e.g., from an activity to an outcome) it suggests that the one leads to another. Make sure your activities will lead to your desired outcomes. For example, will increased community networking really lead to more victim-centered responses? Discuss how you reach any conclusions and whether evidence supports them.
• What will the focus of our evaluation be? Identify indicators for each outcome. Indicators are areas of change that help to identify the degree of your SART's impact. They should be measurable, clearly defined, and accessible. For example, you may want to assess if team meetings promote increased knowledge of community resources. One indicator is that team members report increased knowledge of available community resources. Another potential indicator is that referrals to community resources have increased. In addition, consider if data needed to measure outcomes are currently being collected or are available. If not, are there cost-effective instruments available? (See Monitor and Evaluate Your Efforts in this toolkit for information about evaluating your SART.)

Protocols

SART protocols (or guidelines) are an agreement between agencies about the provision of sexual assault services and the roles and responsibilities of core responders in providing those services. Ultimately, protocols allow you to institutionalize interagency roles and responsibilities to maintain high-quality, consistent responses over the long term.

Comprehensive protocols can⁷—

• Alleviate barriers and historical misunderstandings.
• Maintain momentum during staff transitions.
• Clearly illustrate the role of each agency or service in responding to victims of sexual assault.
• Promote policies designed to reach underserved or unserved populations.
• Foster interagency communication.
• Enhance multidisciplinary working relationships.
• Educate the community at large on the issue of sexual assault.
• Provide quality control mechanisms for service delivery.
• Provide parameters for resolving emerging issues.

This section reviews—

• Protocol basics.
• Multidisciplinary issues.
• Formal endorsement.
• Training.
• Monitoring.
• Evaluation.

Protocol Basics

Protocols are working documents that provide direction to sexual assault responders to ensure that they consider victims' wishes and requests and maintain the quality and integrity of evidence. A number of issues must be addressed in every protocol, such as definitions of basic terms, procedures for key personnel, storage and transport of evidence, response checklists (including activation procedures and agency referrals), and important instructions for victims (e.g., the importance of not eating, drinking, urinating, bathing, or showering until the forensic medical examination is performed).

Your work is not complete when your protocol is written. The protocol, per se, is not so much a final product as it is a blueprint that will change and grow as more information becomes available.⁸

Read on for information about—

• Determining responsibilities.
• Being flexible.
• Following statutes.

Determining Responsibilities

SART protocol development requires each agency on your SART to customize its sexual assault protocols or guidelines to fit into a multidisciplinary, coordinated response. Because interagency response systems differ, a SART responsibility matrix can help team members organize their roles and responsibilities to facilitate an integrated protocol for the team.

What is a responsibility matrix? It's a tool you can develop that quickly shows all team members what their roles are and what other team members' roles are, organized by the service provided. One example is the Minnesota Model Sexual Assault Response Protocol. The matrix does not represent all the steps involved in the handling of every sexual assault case; to remain manageable, it lists tasks that directly involve or affect victims or have considerable implications for the team. You can use this matrix as a guide, but you will need to customize it to fit your SART's needs and also should update the matrix periodically to account for any changes taking place in your jurisdiction (e.g., changes in the law, technology, nature of crime).

Being Flexible

You will need to balance the need for structure and certainty with a system that allows for flexibility based on victims' specific needs and case variables. For example, once policies are written, there could be legal or procedural repercussions when procedures are not followed, no matter how compelling the reason.

To offset this potential problem, some teams refrain from using the term protocol and write their policies as guidelines to minimize legal repercussions when policies are not followed.

Following Statutes

Some teams develop protocols for each judicial district as mandated by statute. For example, Georgia Statute 15-24-2 mandates the formation of a sexual assault protocol committee, stipulates who will serve on the committee, and governs the frequency of meetings. The statute states that the protocol shall be a written document outlining in detail the procedures used for investigating, collecting evidence, paying for expenses related to evidence collection, and prosecuting cases arising from alleged sexual assault. Once the protocol is written, the protocol committee continues to meet at least annually to evaluate the effectiveness of the protocol and appropriately modify and update it. The statute further states that a failure by an agency to follow the protocol shall not constitute an affirmative or other defense to prosecution of a sexual assault, nor shall a failure by an agency to follow the protocol give rise to a civil cause of action.

Multidisciplinary Issues

When developing your protocol, you'll need to consider optimal responses from the agencies or organizations that victims will likely contact in the aftermath of sexual violence, and you should address specific needs proactively. For example, how will your response be different if victims choose not to report the sexual assault? How will you address the specific needs of victims with limited English proficiency, victims with disabilities, victims who are intoxicated or drugged prior to the assault, or victims who are assaulted by intimate partners?

Following are some multidisciplinary-related questions to consider when developing your protocol:⁹  

• Advocates.
• Medical/forensic officials.
• Law enforcement.
• Prosecution.
• Vulnerable populations.
• Cultural considerations.

Advocates

• Who will provide which services and when? How will advocates be dispatched? Are there jurisdictional issues to consider?
• For advocates within the criminal justice system, when does their role begin and end? What is their role if the case is not pursued within the criminal justice system?
• How will advocates observe confidentiality rules (e.g., during team meetings or case reviews)?
• How will you ensure that all team members understand their roles and boundaries?
• How will advocates prioritize the needs of the victim, medical personnel, law enforcement, and prosecutors?
• How will victims who do not want to report their assaults access advocates?
• If a victim does not choose to report but wants the perpetrator identified to law enforcement, can you accommodate the request?
• Should advocates respond to secondary victims (e.g., family, friends)?

Medical/Forensic Officials

• What is the current medical response to sexual assault in your jurisdiction?
• Is your response as effective as it needs to be? Why or why not?
• Who attends to sexual assault victims, and what do they do (e.g., physician assistants, emergency medical technicians, family nurse practitioners)?
• What is the timeframe for performing exams?
• Would involving a trained sexual assault nurse examiner improve your response? How would it benefit the victim?
• How will you ensure adequate medical followup?
• Are exam facilities accessible, private, and available 24/7?
• How does the forensic evidence collected by a sexual assault nurse examiner fit into the larger evidence collection context?

Law Enforcement

• Are patrol officers trained in responding to sexual violence?
• What are the specific roles of dispatch? Patrol officers? Detectives? Law enforcement supervisors?
• Is there a best practice when it comes to the initial victim interview? Followup interviews?
• How many interviews are usually sufficient? Who conducts each interview? Is there an ideal place to conduct followup interviews?
• Can advocates be present during interviews?
• Which types of evidence should always be collected, and which types should depend on the circumstances of the sexual assault?
• Is there a role in the evidence collection process for taped phone calls between victims and (known) perpetrators (pretext calls)? Will pretext calls be done at the instigation of the police or the district attorney's office?
• When, where, and how will suspect exams be performed?
• Is law enforcement routinely in contact with corrections regarding suspects who are under supervision?
• What resources are available for victims and suspects with specific needs?

Prosecution

• Are sexual assault cases difficult to prosecute? Why? What team procedures could enhance prosecution?
• What should be included in an optimal investigation of sexual assault?
• After law enforcement completes its investigation, how do prosecutors handle the need for additional investigation?
• Are prosecutors trained in handling sexual assault cases?
• Should the district attorney's office review every sexual assault case reported to any law enforcement agency in the jurisdiction?
• How do prosecutors determine whether to prosecute sexual assault cases? For example, are cases selected because there is evidence beyond a reasonable doubt or because of community safety or victim impact?
• Would it be helpful to have specialized sexual assault units in the prosecutor's office?
• How do prosecutors inform victims when their cases do not go forward?
• When should the prosecutor contact the victim directly? When does a prosecutor-based victim/witness assistant contact victims?

Vulnerable Populations

• Which characteristics define vulnerability?
• Which populations are considered vulnerable in your community?
• Which individuals are least likely to be believed if they disclose sexual assault?
• What available resources will assist in the investigation, support, and prosecution of cases involving vulnerable victims?
• When must sexual assault against vulnerable adults be reported to authorities? Which agencies investigate and protect vulnerable populations?

Cultural Considerations

• What is already in place within SART member agencies to promote cultural competence? How can you more effectively use what is already in place?
• How can you ensure that your SART's sexual assault responses meet the needs of specific populations?
• Are there special training needs to meet?
• In what ways do you need to consider cultural issues when responding to victims' families?
• What would an ideal sexual assault response be for a non-English speaking survivor? Someone who is undocumented? An exchange student? Lesbian, gay, transgender, or bisexual victims?

Formal Endorsement

Interagency agreements, also called memorandums of understanding (MOUs) or memorandums of agreement (MOAs), do not replace agency policy—they memorialize collaborative guidelines. For example, the U.S. Department of Defense directs military installations in the United States (and overseas, where appropriate) to establish a formal MOU with local community service providers and other military services to¹⁰—

• Enhance information sharing concerning investigations, arrests, and prosecutions of reported sexual assault cases.
• Improve the response to sexual assault victims.
• Collaborate with local community crisis counseling centers and coordinate services that may not be available on military installations.
• Coordinate medical and counseling services between military installations and/or deployed units.

Training

Training is a crucial part of the protocol adoption process that ensures each agency and organization understands how the protocol affects it. You'll need to decide what training is needed, who should receive training (specific to each position in each agency), how much training is needed, and how the training can be evaluated.¹¹

Your training program can cover SART activation, community resources, victims' rights, legal requirements, medical responses, advocacy responses, investigative strategies and procedures, multicultural responses, court procedures, and victim support. These are just a few of the areas in which team members should receive training. Training in every area should include a balance between system requirements and victim-centered activities.

Here are a few tips about setting up a training program:

• To offset the cost, you may decide to seek grant funding.
• Service providers will need to be trained specific to their responsibilities as identified in the protocol.
• Make the training flexible enough to meet the varying knowledge and skill levels of all trainees.
• When you schedule trainings, make sure to accommodate variable work hours and shifts to ensure that all responders can attend.

Monitoring

Because protocol development and revision are an ongoing, dynamic process, monitoring allows you to assess the need for policy adjustments. To help with the process, consider the following questions as a springboard to determine your protocol's challenges and successes:

• Is the protocol consistently followed?
• Has the protocol benefited the advocacy, medical, and legal response to sexual violence? How?
• How are team members using the protocol?
• Where, when, and why do agencies deviate from the protocol? Do certain trends need to be addressed?
• Are there emerging issues not previously considered (statutory changes or technological and scientific advances in evidence collection)?

Monitoring protocol implementation is critical to an effective team response. For example, if a particular response is consistently not executed, it will be difficult to evaluate the SART's effectiveness. The point is not to hinder innovation that can improve the response, but to recognize that the effectiveness of a coordinated response is based on the consistent follow-through of endorsed principles and policies. In other words, deviations from the response cannot help to improve the response if they are not understood and ultimately supported by the whole team.

Methods for monitoring protocol implementation can take many forms. Some teams use completed checklists, a review of records or cases, and self-reporting from responding team members to determine the level to which the protocol is being implemented. Others incorporate anonymous victim experience surveys into their assessment process. To be successful, the monitoring plan should be connected to short-term and long-range goals for improving the response. For example, if teams believe that early disclosure will result in victims getting more of their needs addressed, a monitoring plan may underscore the initial, acute response to sexual violence.

Evaluation

Evaluating protocol implementation can help you understand how well the protocol facilitates the team's goals and objectives. Traditional measures of success in the criminal justice system (e.g., conviction rates, clearance rates, arrest statistics) only tell part of the story. You also must evaluate the team's effectiveness in meeting victims' needs.

Consider the following questions:¹²

• What do we want to know from our evaluation?
• Which data should we collect as part of our SART response?
• How will we elicit feedback from victims and responders?
• What would be the benefits or drawbacks in having a case review system?
• What process will we use to collect feedback?
Read More
In This Toolkit: Monitor and Evaluate Your Efforts
• Who will evaluate the information received?
• How often should we evaluate our SART?
• Are sexual assault victims more satisfied with their treatment now than they were before the protocol was developed?
• Does the coordinated involvement of different responders (e.g., advocates, law enforcement) result in better performance from all responders?

Resources

Action Plan to Implement the Recommendations of the HMCPSI/HMIC Joint Investigation into the Investigation and Prosecution of Cases Involving Allegations of Rape
Lists practical action steps to improve police investigation of rape cases, provide training to police and prosecutors, enhance decisionmaking and case preparations, and improve the treatment of rape victims and witnesses.

Best Practices in the Investigation and Prosecution of Sexual Assault Cases
Links to an interagency responsibility matrix used by the Minnesota Model Protocol Project that focuses on tasks that directly involve or affect victims or have considerable implications for teaming.

Collaboration Framework—Addressing Community Capacity
Helps individuals who are either starting collaborations or need help in strengthening an existing collaboration.

Community Organizational Assessment Tool
Helps guide group discussion about how a board of directors, organization, or committee is functioning. Can easily be adapted by SARTs.

Community Tool Box
Provides practical information to support work in promoting community development. There are sections on leadership, strategic planning, community assessment, problem analysis, grant writing, and evaluation to give just a few examples.

County of San Diego Sexual Assault Response Team: Systems Review Committee Report
Summarizes SART accomplishments and standardized procedures and outlines future SART program goals.

Denver Victim Services 2000 Needs Assessment
Reviews Denver's needs assessment, which generated information that contributed to the creation of several critical components of a coordinated victim services network (e.g., a shared case management system, an interagency cross-training plan, standardized service evaluation, cultural competency training).

Developing a Sexual Assault Response Team: A Resource Guide For Kentucky Communities
Discusses an eight-step model process for developing a SART, program models, and many other issues that communities must explore when implementing a SART program.

Enhancing Program Performance with Logic Models: Logic Model Basics
Teaches users the basics of logic models.

From Problems to Strengths
Provides an introductory overview of "appreciative inquiry," which is a strategy for purposeful change that identifies the best of what is to pursue possibilities of what could be.

Handbook on Justice for Victims
Provides practical and comprehensive guidance for service providers.

Hawai'i Statewide Strategic Plan for Victim Services
Highlights the special needs of underserved victims of crime who are tourists or visitors, immigrants, or people with limited English proficiency, disabilities, or who are elderly.

Including Evaluation in Outreach Project Planning
Includes information on developing outcomes-based projects and assessment plans, describes how to use a logic model at different stages of development, and provides sample data resources and evaluation methods.

Logic Model Builders
Takes users through the process of developing a customized logic model (requires user to establish an account).

Logic Model Worksheet
Allows users to chart inputs, outputs, and outcomes.

Logic Models: What Are They and Why Would Anyone Except Spock Care?
Explains the logic model and how it determines outcomes.

Looking Back, Moving Forward
Helps communities organize and carry out the steps in developing and implementing a multidisciplinary, interagency, victim-centered protocol.

OVC Training and Technical Assistance Center
Provides victim service professionals with developmental support, mentoring, and facilitation in areas such as program design and implementation, strategic planning, program management, evaluation, quality improvement, collaboration, and community coordination.

The Response to Sexual Assault: Removing Barriers to Services and Justice
Enables communities, victim advocacy organizations, medical systems, criminal justice systems, and other key systems in Michigan to design and support effective local and state responses to sexual assault involving adults and adolescents.

Toolkit to End Violence Against Women
Includes recommendations for strengthening prevention efforts and improving services and advocacy for victims. Chapters of interest to SARTs may include information for the military, colleges and universities, American Indians, community-based services, mental health care, criminal and civil justice remedies, faith-based organizations, and educating the public.

Using Analysis for Problem-Solving: A Guidebook for Law Enforcement
Provides police practitioners with a resource for conducting problem analysis. It is not a text on research methods but instead identifies issues and concerns police practitioners face in analyzing problems.

A Vision To End Sexual Assault: The CALCASA Strategic Forum Report
Raises public awareness of critical issues, thereby changing community consciousness about sexual violence.

Notes

1 OVC Training and Technical Assistance Center, 2004, Strategic Planning Toolkit, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office for Victims of Crime.

2 Correspondence with Connie Monahan, Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Coordinator, nd, New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs.

3 Cuyahoga County Sexual Assault Response Team, 2005, SART Standards of Practice, Cleveland, OH: Cuyahoga County Sexual Assault Response Team.

4 OVC Training and Technical Assistance Center, Strategic Planning Toolkit, 3–5.

5 Work Group for Community Health and Development, nd, "Developing a Strategic Plan: Creating Objectives," Community Tool Box, Lawrence, KS: Work Group for Community Health and Development.

6 Adapted from Nicole Allen and Leslie Hagen, 2003, A Practical Guide to Evaluating Domestic Violence Coordinating Councils, Harrisburg, PA: National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, 45.

7 Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2000, "Forming a Team," Forming a Multidisciplinary Team to Investigate Child Abuse, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

8 Correspondence with Donna Dunn, nd, Sexual Violence Justice Institute, Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault.

9 Attorney General's Sexual Assault Task Force, 2002, Oregon Attorney General's Sexual Assault Task Force SART Handbook, Version I, Salem, OR: Attorney General's Sexual Assault Task Force.

10 U.S. Department of Defense, 2006, "Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program Procedures," Department of Defense Instruction, Number 6495.02.

11 Anita Boles and John Patterson, 1997, Improving Community Response to Crime Victims, Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 101–107.

12 Attorney General's Sexual Assault Task Force, Oregon Attorney General's Sexual Assault Task Force SART Handbook, Version I.

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