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Lu Rocha
Mujeres Latinas en Acción
1823 West 17 Street
Chicago, IL 60608
(312) 226-1544
For over thirty years, Mujeres Latina en Acción (Mujeres) has been providing assistance to victims of domestic
violence in Chicago's Latino populations. During this time, Mujeres has developed a range of culturally-sensitive
services and programs to address these needs, with the strong involvement of the Latino community. One of the
most important of these programs is the training curriculum for community volunteers who provide advocacy and
other services to Latino victims of domestic violence (DV).
This successful, 40 hour DV training program was developed for Latino community volunteers (60 in the past year),
as well as others (physicians, lawyers, police, social workers, etc.) involved in Chicago Latino DV issues. The
program has also been employed by Latino groups outside of the Chicago area.
As result of this interest and the opportunities for outreach, Mujeres began a review of the curriculum of the DV
training course. This review included attempts to identify the curriculum elements that are common to the
understanding of DV and those that are specific to Latino culture. As a result, reviewers identified some
culturally-sensitive aspects of DV training that need to be addressed by groups that serve Latino communities. This
understanding could be of benefit to other groups working with U.S. Latinos and could serve as a basis for training
for DV workers in other cultural settings.
The current presentation will focus on core elements of Mujeres' DV curriculum and the specific cultural elements
that have been identified as important when addressing the needs of Latino populations. These considerations also
may be useful for DV training in non-Latino cultures and for organizations providing non-DV services to the U.S.
Latino populations.
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