Training Medical Professionals to Help Break the Silence
From a distance, Dawn’s life seemed picture-perfect. She was a nurse married to a well-respected university professor, living in a beautiful home with five children. But the reality was something different.
Dawn was a victim of domestic violence. After years of abuse and legal troubles, Dawn decided enough was enough. She loaded up her children and some personal belongings in her car. She didn’t know where she was headed, but gravitated toward the state of her alma mater, the University of Colorado.
A year later, Dawn heard about the domestic violence center at UC Denver, a certificate program and concentration within the master of public administration at the School of Public Affairs. “I knew immediately this program was for me. I enrolled that spring.”
Now pursuing her master’s degree through the center, Dawn’s passion is mirrored by Kaiser Permanente. This year, Kaiser Permanente made a generous gift to promote the center’s work and to provide education for health care professionals and students of the health sciences who will treat victims of domestic violence.
“What we know is victims of domestic violence frequently reach out to health care professionals, most of whom have received very little training on these difficult issues,” says Barbara Paradiso, the center’s director.
Dr. Cristin Panzarella, co-chair of Kaiser Permanente’s domestic violence/intimate partner violence task force says, “We are proud to support this program. This innovative educational initiative will improve the skills and expertise of frontline health care practitioners in the identification, treatment, and prevention of interpersonal violence.”
Dawn, now a nurse at a major hospital, understands the critical need to educate caregivers about domestic violence. “It’s not that victims don’t want to talk about it. It’s that no one asks. If we can just encourage health care professionals to ask the questions, they could help someone find freedom.”
Click here to make a gift to the Domestic Violence Program Fund.
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