VENTURA, California – District Attorney Gregory D. Totten announced today that Give an Hour® has been awarded a contract and is partnering with the California Victim Compensation Board (CalVCB), the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office, and the Ventura County Family Justice Center to offer support services to the victims of the October 2017 Las Vegas Route 91 Harvest Festival shooting who reside in Southern California. Founded in 2005, Give an Hour® is a national nonprofit that specializes in mental health and emotional wellness, and has extensive experience in providing recovery assistance after mass trauma events.
Approximately 65 percent of the more than 24,000 attendees of the 2017 Route 91 Harvest Festival were from California, with the majority residing in Southern California. Funding for this project, SoCalRoute91, will benefit eight counties – Ventura, Kern, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, and San Diego.
The SoCalRoute91 project will begin offering the following NO COST services in late September 2020:
- Ongoing Support Groups: Initially, support groups will be available online using a web-based platform. When it is safe to do so, face-to-face groups will be offered in each county;
- Emotional wellness training and coaching;
- An Evidence-Based Peer Support Model that will provide training to survivors who are interested in becoming a peer supporter in the project;
- An on-line Trauma Resource Library;
- Referrals for mental health services; and
- Annual anniversary and memorial events in each county. For 2020, the project is producing video memorials from survivors to share online. If a survivor is interested in sharing their story, they should contact Give an Hour Outreach Coordinator Michael Morisette at [email protected].
Funding for this program is provided by a federal grant from the Antiterrorism and Emergency Assistance Program (AEAP) in the federal Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) awarded to the California Victim Compensation Board (CalVCB). The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office is a subrecipient of the grant and is working in conjunction with the Ventura County Family Justice Center and victim service providers from the Southern California region to provide services for the long-term recovery for victims of the Las Vegas Route 91 Harvest Festival shooting.
The District Attorney encourages survivors to contact Give an Hour® to inquire further about the services available by visiting the website: www.giveanhour.org/route91.
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