Welcome to the Office of Victim Assistance (OVA).

OVA provides free, confidential response services for students, faculty, staff and their significant others who experience traumatic, disturbing or disruptive life events. We do this by providing information, support and short-term counseling. OVA is not a part of the police department. Our office responds to situations involving physical assault and hazing, bias motivated incidents, death, discrimination and harassment including sexual harassment, intimate partner violence, serious accidents, sexual assault and stalking, as well as other potentially traumatic situations. We help people learn about and assess their options in these situations.

We are able to support and consult with people as they make their way through systems, and we refer to and collaborate with campus and community resources who also work with these issues. We talk with people who want to help friends or significant others who are experiencing these situations.  We can talk about academic or work questions, medical questions, reporting questions, counseling and informational questions. To send a general question to our office, e-mail us at assist@colorado.edu.

In addition to these response services, we collaborate with Community Health, a division of Wardenburg, to provide gender violence prevention and education.  For more information about these services, email Teresa Wroe, or call her at 303-735-0474.  More information may also be found here

Health & Wellness Team/Student Affairs OVA is a member of the Health and Wellness Team located within the Division of Student Affairs. Other Health and Wellness Team members are: Wardenburg Health Center, Counseling and Psychological Services, Recreation Services, and Alcohol and Other Drugs. We work closely with other programs in the Division to streamline support and outreach for students, faculty, and staff. The following link will take you to the Division of Student Affairs main website http://www.colorado.edu/StudentAffairs/

The OVA Mission

The Office of Victim Assistance (OVA) works towards a safer, more socially just and supportive campus community by providing culturally relevant trauma response and prevention services.

About our name

Our Office 
Main: 303-492-8855 
Email: assist@colorado.edu 
Location: Center for Community (C4C), suite S440. 

Click for link to map.

 

OVA Staff

Jessica Ladd-Webert, LPC, Director - 303-735-2323 Jessica started at Victim Assistance in October 2007.  She was promoted to the Director of the department in January 2012.  Jessica is familiar with the University of Colorado because she received her undergraduate degree in Psychology here.  She then went on to earn a Master’s degree in Counseling from the University of Phoenix. While working on her master’s degree she interned as a counselor at Access Counseling, a non-profit counseling center in Boulder.  Jessica has worked as a contract therapist at MESA, Moving to End Sexual Assault, Boulder's rape crisis center, doing woman survivor groups.  At one time she was MESA's Client Services Coordinator.  She was also a  volunteer counselor and supervisor on MESA's 24-hour hotline for over six years.   Jessica was a part of the victim advocates for the Boulder Sheriff’s Office for seven years.  Her career has always focused on crisis and trauma work and she continues to bring her skills of therapy and advocacy to support the CU community.  Jessica is also a CO State Licensed Therapist.

Ruchi Malhotra, MS, LPC, Assistant Director -303-492-2235 Ruchi joined the Office of Victim Assistance in May 2009. She attended University of Colorado for her undergraduate degree in Sociology.  During this time, she worked as the Cultural Resources Coordinator at the Women’s Resource Center and the Programmer for the Student Outreach and Retention Center for Equity (SORCE).  Ruchi then completed a master’s in Mental Health and Counseling at Southern Oregon University.While in graduate school, Ruchi was a counseling intern with the Counseling Center and the Queer Resource Center.  Ruchi provided therapy to youth, young adults and families facing economic hardship, family conflict and abuse.  Ruchi is passionate about exploring with individuals methods for healing from trauma and advocating for those experiencing various forms of oppression.

Sarah Williams, LSW, Victim Advocate-303-735-4866 Sarah Joined the Office of Victim Assistance in April 2012. After obtaining her BA in sociology and women's studies from Tulane University, she spent two years working with adolescents in foster care as a Teacher’s Assistant Counselors providing academic and therapeutic support as well as crisis intervention. She went on to pursue her masters from Smith College School for Social Work. Both at Tulane and Smith College School for Social Work, Sarah was a leader in providing education and awareness to her peers on sexual assault, relationship violence, and stalking.  While in graduate school Sarah completed two full time internships at Citywide Case Management and the San Francisco Art Institute. Sarah has clinical experience providing clinical case management and individual and group therapy for adults with chronic mental illness and undergraduate and graduate students. Sarah has experience working with diverse populations and is committed to assisting people who have been impacted by trauma on the road to healing. She is particularly sensitive to the ways that oppression impacts the lives of her clients and sees herself as a social justice advocate.

Mailing address for Director, Assistant Director and Victim Advocate: Office of Victim Assistance University of Colorado at Boulder UCB 140 Boulder, Colorado 80309-0140

Gender Violence Prevention and Education - for presentations on gender violence prevention, please contact:

Teresa Wroe, Gender Violence Prevention and Program Development Coordinator in Community Health, a division of Wardenburg, 303-735-0474.  Teresa Wroe has been at CU Boulder since 2004 and has worked in violence prevention for over 18 years. She has specialized expertise in prevention education and sexual violence prevention. Teresa develops programs for Community Health to address a variety of health topics including gender violence, relationship wellness, sexual health, alcohol, bystander intervention, stress, sleep, and wellness.  Before coming to CU Boulder, Teresa worked for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault providing training and prevention programming research and development for programs statewide and nationally. She is a graduate of the University of Wyoming.

Community Health is located in the UMC, University Memorial Center, fourth floor, room 411.  Mailing address is UCB 207, Boulder, Colorado 80309.


Portions of this project were supported by grant #2004-WA-AX-0005 awarded by the Office of Violence Against Women, Office of Justice Programs, US Dept of Justice. The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women.