Lisa Cope Earns Victim Advocate Award

Since becoming a parole agent in 2002, Lisa Cope has filled many roles. She was a center agent, a field agent and an Assessment, Sanctioning, and Community Resource Agent (ASCRA). At the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole awards on Sept. 19, Cope was honored for her excellence and dedication as an agent.Cope was awarded the Victim Advocate Award for Excellence in Victim Services at the event at the Governor's Residence. The award was created to recognize an employee who leads by example in providing exemplary services to victims of crime, goes above and beyond to assist victims, proactively enforces the protection of a victim, increases restitution collection efforts for victims or collaborates with the Office of the Victim Advocate on a regular basis to enhance victim participation in the parole process.

From her bio in the awards brochure: Lisa began her Commonwealth employment with the Department of Public Welfare in 1997 as an Income Maintenance Caseworker and transferred to the Board of Probation and Parole in 2002 as a Parole Agent. She possesses the exceedingly rare ability to perfectly and consistently balance victim safety with parolee accountability. She has established rapport with victims through her professionalism, her ability to suspend personal judgement, and empathy. She is a resource for her offenders due to her awareness of local treatment programs and service providers to address the needs of her offenders thereby helping to bolster the safety of the community in general and the victim(s) in specific. She is a mentor for less experienced agents by virtue of the fact that she leads by example and is never afraid to roll up her sleeves and get the work done. She has used information gleaned through meeting victims in wrap-around cases to improve the supervision of these offenders as well as enhance the safety of the agents supervising them.  She has demonstrated grace under fire by handling cases that were high profile in nature, cases that had they not been handled as well, and could have resulted in additional victimization as well as negative publicity for the Board.  Agent Cope is a shining example of what an ASCRA should be. Her masterful handling of victim wrap-around cases should be presented to all future ASCRAs as a model.