Glenvista Victim Support launched

GLENVISTA – The succesfull official launch of Glenvista’s Victim Support Unit (VSU) served as a proud moment for all the coordinator, councillors, policing forum and Mondeor SAPS.

Glenvista CPF VSU coordinator Raquel Neilson revealed to a room of attendees how the victim support unit came about and honoured the people who made it possible.

According to Neilsen, it was Glenvista CPF Executive Committee representative Mike Fontes who approached her with the idea of forming a victim support unit. She recalled his exact words: “Madam, our community needs a VSU, let’s establish one.” It was in that special moment that the unit was conceptualised.

“We are very proud to finally host our official launch. I say official launch, because launch insinuates that we are new, but in fact our volunteers have been helping our community for some time now,” said Neilson.

Raquel Neilson also said: “It’s nice to have this on record, because not all people know about what we do. We welcome volunteers in the Glenvista area and they can contact us on our Glenvista Community Policing Forum’s Facebook page.”

Mike Fontes took to the floor to brief attendees who included Mondeor SAPS Colonel Mahlaba and Sgt Andrew, on the victim empowerment sub-committees strategic objectives.

Fontes revealed that the unit has dealt with a variety of crime incidents ranging from attempted suicides to smash and grabs and hard crime. The trauma experienced by victims of crime at the scene is where the VSU councillors come in to offer much needed comfort, support and understanding through their council.

“As CPF patrollers and policemen, we sometimes get there and we ask questions,” explained Fontes. He added that the victim support councillors have a softer approach when dealing with traumatised residents.

“We’ve come to find that we (GCPF) are the first ones on the scene and there’s no one there to help the victims to say let’s sit down and process what’s happened,” said Fontes.

He noted that the presence of councillors at the crime scene has been helpful. Mike Fontes gave a thank you to VSU sponsors, The Dog Club’s Julie Bezuidenhout, Property Financial Planning and Multitool Engineering.

Expressing her appreciation, Neilson said: “I would like to mention Captain Bohler and Julie from Brackendowns police station; they were very kind to invite Lauren and me to join their VSU, where we received basic training and learnt so much.”

Neilson added: “I would like to thank Captain Bohler and Julie for helping us get on our feet, training us and including us in their group. Not only did they help us get started, but they also assisted us with a crime scene where we had more than 25 people to counsel. All it took was a phone call to CPT Bohler and within minutes the Brackendowns VSU arrived to help us. Thank you for all your help and support.”