Services and Rights for Victims of Crime

SeRV project in short

Services and Rights for Victims of Crime project participants are six countries that present different victim support models and victim protection cultures. The counties include Italy, Spain, Romania, Germany, Estonia, and Portugal, all presenting highly qualified expertise.  

Project activities include Research and Analyses, Strategic Plan Development, Model Identification and Transnational Exchange. The project activities started in October 2019 and will go on until September 2021.

Project outcomes include more cooperation, best practice exchange and better service provision henceforward on different levels, such as: 

For victims: better knowledge of available services via service mapping; services designed according to victims’ needs, smooth journey throughout the process, victims’ voices made heard.   

For service providers: better cooperation with other professionals involved i.e. NGO-s; police, legal professionals, and others, as well as addressing gaps in victim support. Also, cooperation and best practices exchange between service providing organisations will improve.

For policy makers on national and EU level: better understanding of challenges and opportunities in each country; greater transnational cooperation and mutual learning between partner countries.  Effective models will be identified and presented to decision makers that facilitate further strategic planning.  An EU handbook will be developed with identified models that work best.

For general public greater awareness of the topic, of the rights of victims, and available services is expected.

 The project is funded by the European Union’s Justice Programme (2014-2020)