Marquette in the community
Turning the trend
Marquette research targets domestic violence 
Dr. Ruth Ann Belknap won the College of Nursing Regner Research Award for a project designed to help Milwaukee’s Latina community understand how domestic violence damages their lives, children and community, and how to turn the trend.
Belknap’s community-based research makes the neighborhood women full partners in the study. She is conducting her work in collaboration with the Latina Resource Center, a respected local resource.
The first phase is building databases of women’s violence experiences and the community’s needs. In the next phase, the project will identify how the Latino Resource Center should serve clients.
“We want to build the center’s capacity to address sexual violence and assault,” Belknap says. Finally, the project will assemble a coalition of women and men who are prepared to work to prevent domestic violence.
| “The women may be immigrants with no status. If they put their abuser in jail, how will they survive?” |
“The Milwaukee Police Department receives the greatest number of domestic violence complaints from this zip code,” says Mariana Rodriguez, project manager at the center located on Milwaukee’s near southside. “Divorce has such a stigma in our culture, people say ‘you didn’t try hard enough or you didn’t pray enough.’ And there are often legal barriers. The women may be immigrants with no status. If they put their abuser in jail, how will they survive? It is important for women to have services that are culturally appropriate.”
The best outcome, Belknap and Rodriguez agree, is that women will know how to get help. “We want to get this information into the hands of women who will mobilize this movement,” Rodriguez says. — JMM
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