The Office for Victims of Crime - Training and Technical Assistance Center has provided the following video for our staff presented by Mary Vail Ware of the Department of Justice. Her bio is located below the video.
BIOGRAPHY FOR MARY VAIL WARE:
Mary Vail Ware, MSW, PMP is the project director for the Department of Justice’s Office for Victims of Crime Training and Technical Assistance Center (OVC TTAC). OVC TTAC provides victim-centered capacity building, training and technical assistance, and mass violence response for organizations and communities across the United States. OVC TTAC supports 1.4 million users annually.
Prior to joining OVC TTAC, Ms. Ware was the director of programs and outreach for the Virginia Office of the Attorney General. She managed initiatives in the following areas:
- Project Safe Neighborhoods
- Norfolk Gang Recidivism Prevention Project
- Anti-gang training and initiatives
- Human trafficking initiatives
- School-based prevention programs
- Family violence prevention
- Re-entry efforts
- Training for law enforcement
- Victim-witness assistance
- Community capacity building relative to criminal justice solutions
- Crime prevention efforts for senior citizens
- Testing of sexual assault kits
- Lethality Assessment Protocol training
- Sexual assault prevention programs and training
- Campus sexual violence prevention and intervention training
Ms. Ware was the director of the Virginia Criminal Injuries Compensation Fund (CICF) now Virginia Victims’ Fund. CICF assists victims of violent crimes with resulting out-of-pocket expenses. CICF is a multimillion-dollar special-purpose fund financed by state and federal court fees.
Ms. Ware responded to the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon, the Virginia sniper attacks, the 4/16 shooting at Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, the Orlando Pulse shooting, the Las Vegas shooting, the Highland Park shooting, and many other mass casualty crime incidents.
Ms. Ware authored first-in-the-nation legislation requiring all Virginia emergency plans to include methods to protect the rights of victims of crime.
She served as a member of the Governor’s Commission on Sexual Violence and the Governor’s Domestic Violence Prevention and Response Advisory Board.
Ms. Ware was the executive director of Quin Rivers Agency for Community Action, Inc., a nonprofit that serves five rural counties in central Virginia.
Ms. Ware earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social work from Virginia Commonwealth University, where she has served as a field instructor. She served as an assistant professor in the Social Work Department at Virginia State University. She is a credentialed Project Management Professional.