Victim ‘Survival’ Skills: reclaiming the narrative

• In Event: COST 18121: Working Group number 1: Examining victims rights in Europe

Abstract

The idea of ‘victims rights’ features prominently in political, criminological and legal discourse, as well as being subject to regular media comment. Nevertheless, the concept remains elusive and at times ambiguous against a backdrop of near international consensus on how victims ought to be treated and the rights and services they should be entitled to.
This paper questions the nature of some services and resources that are often afforded to vicitms of crime.
Based on a small in-depth set of narrative-appreciative interviews with victims of serious violence, this paper asks how victims can change in the aftermath of their experience and what skills are draw upon to make sense of and survive victimisation? Surprisingly, both positive and negative experiences provided resources to derive new purpose from their victimisation. These experiences incorporate every day and profound moments in which victim-survivors practice, rehearse and frame what has happened to them. Consequently, such experiences become vital learning moments in the development of reclamation, interpersonal and narrative skills. This has significant implications for how to support victim-survivors and suggests that alongside existing services and supports, the training in such skills (for both victim-survivors and practitioners) can provide new approaches for surviving serious victimization.

Authors

• Nicola O'Leary, University of Hull

• Simon Green, University of Hull