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Dear John,
Today would have been day one of the 9th National Conference on Health and Domestic Violence (NCHDV). Although we are not together today in Chicago, IL to share and learn from one another, we would like to honor the work and passion of everyone who submitted to speak at the conference, planned to attend for the first time, or has been coming for years. You all are sources of hope and healing for your communities and we are so grateful and honored to be in this work with you.
Much of our NCHDV community are on the front lines of the COVID-19 response, having to adapt and innovate new strategies for health and safety. We asked three of our NCHDV steering committee members, Makini Chisolm Straker - Mount Sinai Brooklyn Department of Emergency Medicine, Amanda Pyron - Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women’s Network, and Connie Mitchell - California Department of Public Health, to reflect on their experiences mobilizing to address the impact that COVID-19 has had on communities:
Q: Your job and life has changed in many ways in the last two months – is there a reflection, lesson, innovation or message that you would like to share with the health and anti-violence fields?
Makini: In fact, my life has not changed much at all. This is what emergency medicine and public health are about and for. This time, I am counted among the privileged. From the safety of my privilege, where not much has changed, I consider that not much has changed. It is our same people that bear this burden. Our same people are dying, are hungry, are grieving, are sacrificing, are afraid. They are in danger, in their own homes... Octavia Butler wrote, “We cannot become what we want by remaining what we are.” Who are we, as a nation?
Read the rest of Makini, Amanda, and Connie’s powerful answers on FUTURES’ blog.
Futures Without Violence (FUTURES) continues to keep our resource pages updated as we consider the short and long term impact that COVID-19 will have on all of our lives - some more than others. Please visit the following links regarding resources and information compiled by FUTURES:
Conference Updates
We are very close to finalizing a new date for our postponed conference as well as a process by which registered participants can choose between carrying their registration over to the postponed conference date, or cancelling their registration. We thank you all for bearing with us in this endeavor. If you have registered for the conference, expect to receive instructions on this process in the coming weeks.
With our deepest respect and gratitude,
Lisa James, Lisa Sohn, Graciela Olguin, and Kate Vander Tuig
Conference Organizers, [email protected]
The Conference is a project of the National Health Resource Center on Domestic Violence (HRC), which has supported health care practitioners, administrators and systems, domestic violence experts, survivors, and policy makers at all levels as they improve health care’s response to domestic violence. The HRC is funded by a grant from the Family Violence Prevention & Services Program, Family & Youth Services Bureau, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and is a member of the Domestic Violence Resource Network.
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