Rockford’s domestic violence services center adds on-site physicians

ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — A historic partnership between Family Peace Center and Mercyhealth brings medical residents to the domestic violence service center to improve its client’s access to healthcare.

Jennifer Cacciapaglia is the executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Domestic and Community Violence.

This week, the office announced a historic partnership between the Family Peace Center and Mercyhealth, bringing a rotating team of family medicine resident physicans to the domestic violence service center.

“It gives them an opportunity while they’re in that building, while their child is being taken care of in our beautiful childcare space, to also check in with a medical professional, to get a wellness check, to talk about a chronic condition that they perhaps have not had an opportunity to seek care for in the past,” Cacciapaglia said.

She said her office had identified a gap in survivors having access to healthcare. Bringing a resident physician to a domestic violence resource center is a significant remedy.

“A situation where somebody is in in an interpersonal situation where every day they are trying to figure out all the ways to avoid violence, both for themselves or for exposure to their children,” Cacciapaglia said. “The last thing they are thinking about is taking care of themselves. And so they are not able to find a pathway to get to that medical care.”

Second-year resident Nikki Brar will be one of the rotating physicians at the Family Peace Center. She says the partnership is one step toward making medicine better for everyone.

“I think getting others, you know, more comfortable with working with sensitive populations, also brings a lot of awareness, I think, to and it is something that needs a lot more awareness,” she said. “And it’ll kind of help expand, I think our views on dealing with patients that are kind of struggling with things that we might not get to see all the time, and hopefully make us better physicians at the end of the day.”

Caccipaglia said, “It’s really just being thoughtful and at its base, leading with kindness, dignity and respect and letting everything flow through that. When we know better, we will do better.”