The USC College of Social Work’s Center for Child & Family Studies, through the South Carolina Research Foundation, has been awarded a $325,000 grant from the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Justice Programs, Office for Victims of Crime (OVC). As Principal Investigator (PI) on the project, Dr. Dana DeHart will convene a new National Victim Assistance Standards Consortium (the Consortium) and initiate a rigorous marketing campaign for dissemination of standards to the field of victim services. Dr. DeHart was PI for the original Consortium (1999-2003), a project that reached across geographic and philosophical divides to forge a common ground in victim services through model program standards, competency standards, and ethical standards. The new award will be used to work with the Consortium to update those standards for contemporary relevance, develop the standards as an easy to use web-based tool, and implement media and dissemination events to enhance accessibility of standards across the nation. This project furthers DOJ’s mission by providing resources to practitioners, programs, and communities that will promote competence and ethical integrity of victim service providers and quality and consistency of services for crime victims and their families.   The Center for Child & Family Studies has a strong history of victim service projects, including exceptional staffing to integrate research with program development, meeting planning, and media development. For further information about the project, contact Dr. DeHart at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .