CCHCI Announces Year Long Expansion in Domestic Violence Prevention Programming in Support of National Domestic Violence Awareness Month
New programming will reach 1500 students, teachers and Chiricahua patients
Media Contact:
Jane Montgomery – PR Specialist – jmontgomery@cchci.org | 520.266.3279
Dennis Walto – Chief of External Affairs – dwalto@cchci.org | 310.922.4281
Douglas, AZ – October 4, 2022: Chiricahua Community Health Centers, Inc. (CCHCI) today joined with tens of thousands of organizations around the world in a month-long heightened observance of National Domestic Violence Awareness. October was first declared as National Domestic Violence Awareness Month in 1989, and since then, people from all over the world use this time to acknowledge domestic violence survivors and be a voice for its victims.
This year’s theme, #Every1KnowsSome1 highlights how common domestic violence is and that it is more than physical violence. Domestic violence is the willful intimidation, physical assault, battery, sexual assault, and/or other abusive behavior as part of a systematic pattern of power and control perpetrated by one intimate partner against another. It includes physical violence, sexual violence, threats, and emotional abuse.
Across the United States, more than 20,000 domestic violence calls are placed to national hotlines every day. In Cochise County, Chiricahua is among the first referrals from that hotline. In the last year, Chiricahua directly served 128 survivors of domestic violence by providing assistance with housing, utilities, legal aid, mental health services, food, safety plans, clothing, and transportation. As we observe National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Chiricahua is announcing an expansion in our Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Program to include prevention education, focusing on high school students to educate youth and break the cycle of abuse.
According to the Federal Office of Women’s Health, boys who witness domestic violence are ten times more likely to abuse their female partners as adults compared to boys without that exposure. Similarly, girls who are exposed to domestic violence are more than six times as likely to be sexually abused. Children who witness or are victims of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse are at higher risk for health problems including diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and have mental health effects, such as depression, anxiety, and poor self-esteem.
Chiricahua will be expanding our Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Program by offering prevention education, focusing on school-aged students to educate and break the cycle of abuse. Through existing relationships, Chiricahua will partner with local school districts to facilitate trainings in the classroom to bring awareness of domestic violence and promote healthy, safe relationships. The classroom curriculum will include: a) Self Care: Exercise, Eating Healthy, Sleep, Self- Reflection, Emotions, Positive Affirmations, Boundaries, and Coping Mechanisms, b) Safe and Healthy Relationships: Compromise, Friendship, Respect, Communication, and Boundaries, and c) helping a person in an abusive relationship. Staff advocates will participate in educational outreach, address domestic violence and sexual assault concerns in middle and high schools through a prevention lens, and assist Chiricahua providers in identifying patients who are struggling with domestic violence or sexual assault.
Additionally, throughout October, Chiricahua will join allies from across the globe to adorn ourselves in the color purple – from t-shirts and ribbons to nail polish and hair color. The color purple is a symbol of peace, courage, survival, honor and dedication to ending violence and Chiricahua buildings and our logo will all observe this practice.
“We know how common domestic violence is across the country – and even right here in our own community,” said Rosie MendozaChapa, Chiricahua’s Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault Program Supervisor, “…with our new commitment, Chiricahua wants to stop the cycle of violence. Working with young people to educate them on healthy relationships is a step in the right direction.”
National Domestic Violence Awareness Month runs all of October with a special candlelight vigil the night of October 20th. Chiricahua’s domestic violence prevention staff and organizational leadership will participate in the vigil in Douglas, AZ to be held at the Douglas Police Department, 300 W 14th St. beginning at 6:00 PM.
About Chiricahua Community Health Centers, Inc.
Chiricahua Community Health Centers, Inc. (CCHCI) is a mission driven Federally Qualified Health Center and a tax exempt not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization. Founded in 1996 as a small, rural health clinic operating in a community center, CCHCI has since grown to become the largest primary care organization in southeastern Arizona, serving more than 30,000 patients annually. CCHCI operates fourteen fixed-site medical and pharmacy clinics, and seven mobile-medical and mobile-dental units, that serve patients throughout the more than 6200 square mile borderlands of Cochise County.
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