Photo courtesy: Indiana Victim Assistance Training Project
In the nonprofit world, a leadership role is often something people grow into through experience rather than something they’ve been trained to do.
Suzanne O’Malley says that’s something they see in the field of victim services.
“People go into this field to help others,” she explains. “They don’t necessarily have management training or an educational background in leadership.”
O’Malley leads the Indiana Victims Assistance Training Project, part of the Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence. IVATP offers support and training to anyone in the state who provides direct services to victims of crime, whether that be domestic violence or other crimes.
She admits this line of work can take a toll on those trying to help. From salary challenges to the emotional and mental weight of the cases they see, turnover rates are high. When her team surveyed those working in victim services agencies, they were surprised to learn that one of the reasons people were leaving was workplace culture, things like not having enough supervision or not having someone to turn to when they needed help.
That’s what her team wanted to address—and it’s why they turned to IU Executive Education. O’Malley had worked with IU Executive Education’s then-Director Sara Johnson in 2018 during a series of presentations. She says she recalled being very impressed with Johnson. So much so that when the time came to think about a long-term training program for the organizations they serve, she knew she wanted to reach out to Johnson.
The pair sat down to go over what they found in the surveys. O’Malley says she knew she could rely on the expertise of the Executive Education team to help determine the best path forward.
“When you’re looking for organizational and leadership training, you don’t have to know precisely what’s wrong—you just have to realize there’s something you want to change,” she explains. “With IU Executive Education, you can tell the team what the issue is and then let them use their expertise to help you develop a program to address it.”
They collaborated with Executive Education to create programs that would speak directly to the issues their clients were facing, like leadership resiliency and communication skills.
“These programs are very helpful because they give our clients a process and help fill in the gaps by providing the education they never received,” she says. “It helps them the training to navigate challenges with staff and clients alike.”
She says the feedback they’ve received has been overwhelmingly positive. As she flips through surveys in her hand, she reads off some of the results: 100% of respondents said the program increased their skills, that they would incorporate the skills gained in their work, and that this training was necessary to help them better serve victims of crime.
That, she says, is the ultimate goal.
“Before working with Executive Education, I didn’t realize you could really break leadership down into a science and then teach those skills,” she says. “But their team put together programs that took an all-encompassing, 365-degree view of the issues we wanted to address. And the leaders we work with are better off now because of it.”
