The County of Santa Cruz Human Services Department's Adult Protective Services (APS) provides intervention services to protect elderly or dependent adults from abuse, neglect, or exploitation. We support older and disabled adults who may be experiencing physical assault or abuse, domestic and/or family violence, sexual assault or abuse, bullying (verbal, cyber, or physical), stalking, harassment, neglect, identity theft or fraud, financial crime or scams.

County APS agencies investigate reports of abuse of elders and dependent adults who live in private homes, apartments, hotels, hospitals, or who are, or soon will be, experiencing homelessness. We support older and disabled adults regardless of status-if you are experiencing homelessness; are an immigrant, refugee or asylum seeker; identify as LBGTQIA+; are a Veteran, have a physical or mental disability; or if you have limited English language proficiency.

• Our Victim Offender Dialogue Program provides the opportunity for those most directly affected by crime - the victim, the offender, their families, and community members - to be directly and actively involved in responding to the harm caused by crime.
• Offers victim-offender dialogues, victim-awareness classes, neighborhood courts, parent-teen mediations, re-entry mediations with justice-involved persons, restorative justice and transformative justice for certain domestic violence cases.

• Adult Physical Assault (includes aggravated and simple assault)
• Arson
• Bullying (Verbal, Cyber, or Physical)
• Burglary
• Domestic and/or Family Violence
• DUI/DWI Incidents
• Other: vehicular victimization (e. g. hit and run)
• Robbery
• Teen dating victimization

Services include therapy groups/survivor support groups for women, men, all-genders, parents of survivors and Latina survivors, workshops on Healing the Brain and the Nervous System, Relationships and Connection, Healing and the Body, Compassionate Communication, Creativity, lending library, information and referrals, special events and a safe place for fellowship and peer support. We also provide training, resources, presentations, and outreach to the community around the issue of child sexual abuse and sexual violence.

Survivors/victims services: Mental Health Services, Support Groups

Serve victims/survivors who are impacted by the following crimes: Child sexual abuse/assault