The New York State Office of Victim Services will administer hundreds of millions in federal and state funding to support victim assistance programs throughout the state.

Lily Morrighan is a member of the Office of Victim Services’ advisory council – a group of people who assist and provide recommendations to the department’s director to improve the delivery of its services.

As the council’s survivor member, Morrighan brings a lived experience to the table.

Morrighan says the Office of Victim Services came into her life in 2018 when her brother was murdered in the Adirondacks.

“After everything was put to rest with that, I definitely needed some therapy. So, OVS came in and covered those costs for me and unfortunately my brother, being quite a bit older than me he was also the perpetrator of my childhood abuse,” Morrighan said.

Morrighan says OVS’ assistance helped her deal with the complex emotions that came with her brother and abuser’s death.

She says the murder had the opportunity to completely derail her life but OVS enabled her to receive the help she needed and file paperwork to classify her dog – who she inherited from her brother – as an emotional support animal.

“I was pacing in my dorm room before I could try to leave for class just to try to get up the courage to get out the door and just be out peopling,” Morrighan said.

Morrighan is one of the many people that has benefited from OVS’ compensation service which enables crime victims, survivors and their families to be reimbursed for counseling, medical, funeral, and burial expenses among others.

The Office of Victim Services also funds and supports programs across the state that provide services such as crisis counseling, civil legal assistance and relocation assistance.

The Justice Center of the Southern Tier is one of those programs, it was created by the Schuyler County District Attorney’s Office. The office will receive almost $270,000 in annual funding to support the justice center for the next three years.

Schuyler County District Attorney Joseph Fazzary says the crime victim advocacy organization helps bring services to crime victims.

“It’s for all victims of crime and basically what we do is we’ve created a safe space for our victims to come and it’s filled with plants and flowers and waterfalls and artwork and just about everything to make them feel comfortable,” Fazzary said.

Fazzary says he wanted to create the center because he was a victim of sexual abuse as a child.

“I don’t have a great recollection of when it started but I believe I was about eight years old and it was just a friend of the family and my parents would go there regularly and it happened for hundreds of times over a period of about seven years,” Fazzary said.

Fazzary says as a district attorney who met with child victims frequently, he began experiencing significant anxiety as memories of his own experience began to emerge.

Eventually, Fazzary began therapy.

“Once I started down that road, I knew I had to do something for more victims so I started speaking about it and became stronger and my ability to talk about it and to help others with it. And then finally I just kept saying I still need to do something more, what can I do, what can I do? And it was, I’m going to create a center for victims,” Fazzary said.

The nearly $380 million in state and federal funding will support hundreds of those programs throughout the state. The three-year disbursement of those funds will begin in October.

OVS Director Bea Hanson says any victim of a crime can qualify for the kinds of services OVS provides.

“It doesn’t matter if somebody reported to the police or not all of the services are free, they’re confidential. So, anybody can get access to those services that needs it,” Hanson said.