Hospital Resources Reducing Domestic Violence

By Sarah Schultz, Roosevelt University Student

Every nine seconds a woman is beaten in the U.S., and every two minutes a woman is sexually assaulted according to the Centers for Disease Control. If these statistics do not speak loudly enough, consider your four closest friends; at least two of those friends know someone who has been involved in domestic violence or has been a victim themselves.

Domestic violence is a real issue that Americans face today. More programs, services, and advocacy need to happen in order for these cases of domestic violence to go down.
Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights has partnered with the Northwest Suburban Alliance on Domestic Violence and Women in Need Growing Stronger (WINGS). Through this partnership, Cindy Hartwig, the director of Women and Children Services and Vice President of the WINGS board, has put together programs that are educating the hospital employees about domestic violence, analyzing and assessing the hospital’s procedures, screening, and intervention policies, and providing internal resources for patients along with counseling, and also creating a greater awareness about domestic violence.

In 2007, Northwest Community Hospital began using the Delphi Instrument, a consensus-driven quality assessment tool for evaluation of hospital-based domestic violence programs, developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). NWCH uses this tool (questionnaire) as a basis for their current hospital policies and employee training. The Delphi Instrument is mainly used for screening, documentation, intervention, and evaluations on domestic violence. This strategy showed the quality and quantity of domestic violence care and areas that needed improvement.

In response to the assessments, Northwest Community Hospital is directly addressing the issue of domestic violence by having a counselor, at no cost to the patients, available for victims of domestic violence. This counselor provides comfort, insight, and resources to the victim.
The hospital also began asking pregnant women, in private, questions regarding if they are suffering from domestic violence. Not only is the staff asking women who are pregnant, but also they are asking these questions of patients over the age of 16.

This personal and caring touch actually makes an impact. Cindy Hartwig explains, “It usually takes between 3-4 times of asking a woman if they are a victim of domestic violence before they will get help.” It is also true that women who are pregnant or have children are more likely to seek help, not for themselves as victims, but because the violence they are experiencing can affect their children or an unborn child.

Another big step Northwest Community Hospital is making towards decreasing domestic violence is by having numerous resources available to patients, employees, and anyone who enters the hospital. Through their partnership with WINGS they provide pamphlets on the signs of an abusive relationship, the cycle of domestic violence, and where to go to for help. They also have a “resource card” which can be stored in an individual’s shoe so an abused person doesn’t draw attention to themselves as victims, especially around their abuser.

Along with their internal resources, Northwest Community Hospital is taking a pro-active role educating the hospital staff. Every year each employee goes through an education program on domestic violence. The counselor, whom the domestic violence victims see, also spreads this education and awareness to the community by visiting doctors’ offices and leaving assessment tools and resources. By simply becoming more aware and educated about this topic, individuals can have an impact on reducing the number of domestic violence cases each year. Through the efforts of the WINGS program, the Northwest Suburban Alliance on Domestic Violence, and Cindy Hartwig, the Director of Women and Children’s Services at Northwest Community Hospital, the hospital has created programs, internal resources, educational material, and staff who are aware and actively working to reduce domestic violence in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago.


Roosevelt University Students are learning about domestic violence in their Writing Social Justice course. Photo courtesy of Holly Swanson.