CHARLESTON, W. Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Southern Legislative Conference (SLC) of The Council of State Governments has selected the West Virginia Division of Justice and Community Services Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit Information System as a finalist for the 2017 State Transformation in Action Recognition (STAR) Award competition to be held on Aug. 1, 2017, at the 71st Annual Meeting of the Southern Legislative Conference in Biloxi, Mississippi.
The SLC’s STAR Award recognizes impactful, creative, effective, and transferable state government solutions, and innovative program submissions are accepted from a wide array of state agencies, departments, and institutions operating within the executive, legislative, and judicial governmental branches from among its 15 member states. The Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit Information System was selected as one of five finalists to compete for the top award.
The STAR Award is given to the two exceptional programs selected as models of efficiency and effectiveness in state governments in the Southern region. The winners are determined by the STAR judges panel — comprising state legislators, legislative staff, and policy experts —following an initial review of each application and a 15-20 minute presentation to this panel by each of the five finalists. The award winners will be announced and the implementing agencies and representatives will be honored at the capstone State Dinner on that evening.
The Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit Information System enables the tracking of sexual assault kits from the time they are shipped to a healthcare facility to when they are collected and returned for forensic testing. Additionally, the system collects invaluable feedback on the quality of the collected kits that will be used to identify potential areas of improvement and training opportunities to ultimately improve evidence collection. The combination of these two features into a centralized, web-based solution that provides a single point of entry for all stakeholders results in a major process innovation for the tracking and evaluation of sexual assault kits. Visit http://finance.yahoo.com/news/west-virginia-aims-eliminate-untested-170000579.html for more information about the system.
"It is truly a great honor that our system was selected by the SLC as a finalist to compete for the 2017 STAR Award, and we look forward to sharing the story about our innovative solution with our collegues from other states,” said Rick Staton, Director of the Division of Justice and Community Services. “The reality is that we are just beginning, but the exciting thing is that things are changing! By knowing where a sexual assault kit is at all times, and learning from the feedback gathered on the quality of kits collected, the Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit Information System not only benefits West Virginia’s criminal justice system and our healthcare providers, but the victims themselves.”
For more information about the SLC and the 2017 STAR Awards, visit http://slcatlanta.org/STAR/.
The online system was developed by the West Virginia Division of Justice and Community Services and the West Virginia State Police Forensic Laboratory in partnership with WV.gov. Guidance and recommendations were also provided by the West Virginia Sexual Assault Forensic Examination Commission, the West Virginia Foundation for Rape Information and Services, and the West Virginia Hospital Association.
The Division of Justice and Community Services is part of the Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety. For more information about the West Virginia Division of Justice and Community Services, visit http://www.djcs.wv.gov.
About WV.gov
WV.gov is the official website of the state of West Virginia (http://www.wv.gov) and is the result of an innovative public-private partnership between the state and West Virginia Interactive. West Virginia Interactive works with state and local government agencies to build and manage interactive online services and is a subsidiary of digital government firm NIC (NASDAQ: EGOV).
About NIC
Founded in 1992, NIC Inc. (NASDQ: EGOV) is celebrating 25 years as the nation’s premier provider of innovative digital government solutions and secure payment processing, which help make government interactions more accessible for everyone through technology. The family of NIC companies has developed a library of more than 12,000 digital government services for more than 4,500 federal, state, and local government agencies. Among these solutions is the ground-breaking digital government personal assistant, Gov2Go, delivering citizens personalized reminders and a single access point for government interactions. More information is available at www.egov.com.
