- October 4, 2024
-
-
Loading
Loading
On the second week on the job, Ormond Beach Police Department Victim Advocate Courtney Fraine was part of the response to a drowning call.
The victim's family lived out of state and all that his significant other wanted to do was get to the hospital. Fraine and retired Victim Advocate Evelyn Rebostini were there with her. It's what they do — a service the victim's family didn't know existed.
"We act in capacity that's needed at the time, just as a support system," Fraine said. "I think a lot of people don't know that there's somebody that can be there for you like that."
OBPD's Victim Advocate Program was created in 2001 with the aim to provide aid and support to victims of crimes and emergencies. They help in crisis intervention, death notifications, crimes against children and elderly, sexual crimes, domestic violence cases and more.
Fraine has been a victim advocate for seven years, previously having worked with the Domestic Abuse Council (formerly known as the Beacon Center) and the Daytona Beach Police Department. A graduate from the University of Central Florida who majored in criminal justice, she originally sought to be a death investigator at a medical examiner's office. But, when a job became open at the DAC, life took her on a different path.
The Ormond Beach Observer recently spoke with Fraine about the Victim Advocate program and what her job entails.
What's the difference between working as a victim advocate for a nonprofit versus a law enforcement agency?
The Beacon Center and Rape Crisis are both nonprofit and there's a different level of confidentiality.
Whatever is said to me in confidence as an advocate in one of those places is confidential. I cannot tell anyone else, unless they have a release of information, where in the police line it's super beneficial to have victim advocates because they can help in the investigation.
I work for the police department. I'm not bound by confidentiality. I explain that to the victim or the survivor, but a lot of the times I am and in the same exams and they'll recall things after the fact or they will remember something, or they just feel comfortable talking to someone that's not in uniform, and I'm able to relay that information.
The other difference would be the funding aspect and what you're allowed to do under their funding sources, which makes it a little more difficult.
It's nice to be under a city that sees the benefit in it and is going to be able to make up that difference if the grants don't.
You probably see a lot of hard cases. How do you navigate people's emotions in a heightened state?
Usually, I know what I'm going into, so I try to prepare myself as much as possible, prior to going in there.
And then, once I'm there, it's not my emergency. It's their emergency, their problem, I should be there to support them and that kind of changes like with each case. I always try really hard not to cry.
But there are things that you relate to that it's just hard to see people upset or crying.
I get a little tear and I'll apologize, that I'm also feeling emotional. I think for most people it makes them feel like, "There's somebody truly here with me."
What are your goals when you meet with someone that's a victim of a crime?
The immediate response, if I'm going to a call, is crisis intervention and stabilization. So, really just to make them feel as comfortable as possible, as informed as possible on the process that's going to be coming, and just really that they have somebody there with them.
When I leave any call, I want them to know, matter of fact, "If I have an issue, I can call Courtney, and if she doesn't have the answer, she'll try to find it for me."
Do all police departments have victim advocates?
Most in our area do. There are some smaller agencies that don't.
Some have more than one and some don't. That gets made up by the community resources, but a lot of times in those police departments, you don't know what to refer to for the information to get distributed properly.
What are some of the benefits of having a victim's advocate in a department?
It helps when you're going to calls where there's going to be an emotional response.
[Police] have to think about their safety, the safety of the people around them. We want to ask them to be trauma informed and really nice and really caring, but we also want them to have that command presence, or they've got to be in that mind frame of, "I have to get this done and this done and this done so I can go find this bad guy, bad girl."
For me, if I'm there, I can take that emotional burden away.
Also, the follow-up that I'm able to do in comparison — just staying in contact, getting them to the places that are able to help them, whether they need shelter, whether they need counseling or sometimes they just need somebody to talk to.
What's it like working at the Ormond Beach Police Department?
I love it here. They have fully embraced me as their new advocate. They've welcomed me with open arms — definitely feels like a family and I have had so much fun already. I've only been here two months and really, everybody's great. So I'm very happy to be here.
Any words you live by in your day-to-day life on the job?
No. (laughs) I just try to make jokes and keep it as lighthearted as I possibly can.
It's very hard to see some of the stuff that you do, or hear some of the things that you hear, and not just be angry at the world.
That 15 minutes of interaction isn't going to make a lifetime difference, but in that moment of crisis, it was helpful.
