Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown's Annual Domestic Violence and Child Support Summit a Provides Assistance to Families in Chicago

Originally published in Streetwise in 2007.

“Too many custodial parents are not getting the kind of support that is necessary for their children. At least 62% of the people that qualify for child support are not collecting child support, have never requested it or have not made arrangements. That means too that children are not living the kind of quality of life that they should live,” Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County Dorothy Brown said. 

The Clerk’s office sponsored the A Child Support and Domestic Violence Summit held Saturday, August 29th at Wright College. The event was a way for Brown to bring the services of her office and numerous partner organizations to the public. Free HIV testing and medical screening was also available.

“Domestic violence, with all of the efforts that we have made over the years, is still on the increase. We had in 1999, 27,000 orders of protection filed, in 2006 we had 32,000. Looking at the case of Nailah Franklin, we’re doing something wrong. I think we have a social ill that needs to be healed in this country,” Brown said.

Brown experienced domestic violence from a boyfriend while she was in college and once struggled to get child support from her ex-husband.

“I think that we are not doing enough to reach the abuser. We’re not doing enough to reach the non-custodial parent to help them be able to pay child support by decreasing unemployment, by helping them stay out of jail. Helping abusers or even potential abusers to heal themselves internally as to why they feel that they need to abuse,” she said.

T.A. Banks, domestic violence survivor and author of “He Won’t Hit Me, He Won’t Hit Me Again, We Thought That Too” revealed to attendees that the manipulation, fear and abuse she experienced only came to an end when she realized that her husband could end her life during an attack in which he beat her with a lead pipe.

“I don’t know how long I was on the floor but when I came to I saw he was over in the kitchen grabbing a butcher knife coming over to get me. I got off the floor and ran out of the house. The whole eight years we were together we never had a phone. I went and called the police for the first time during the relationship. I had never called the police. I didn’t want to make him angry”, Banks said.

Rev. Lopez, founder of Lopez Out Loud Ministries and keynote speaker of the event witnessed domestic violence as a child and believes that men abuse because they are hurting.

“A lot of guys are out there toting guns and doing drugs. Why? Because they are hurting. They’re trying to suppress the pain. My dad was hurting but nobody knew about it. They drink and they try to express ‘Somebody please help me. I’m trying to get out of this situation. I’m trying to get out of this pain that I’m in’,” he said.

Representatives from the Chicago Police Department, City the Cook County Public Defender’s Office, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office and the Chicago Domestic Violence Helpline which operates 24 hours a day and offers translation in 144 languages, and many others outlined the services they provide and how they help victims and families through the process in addition to reviewing cases, offering free legal advice and answering questions on site.

“Child support and child support enforcement is about families. I don’t want anyone to walk away from this thinking child support is only financial because it is about bridging that gap between what a family needs to sustain itself both from a financial and emotional standpoint,” Norris Stevenson, Deputy Administrator of Field Operations for The Department of Healthcare and Family Services Division said to the crowd. His agency currently has about 600,000 child support cases, nearly half of which are in Cook County.

“There is still lots of work for my agency to do. We are absolutely poised and ready,” he said.

Author: Chanel Polk

Image: NBC Chicago