Our goal is to empower victims of domestic violence and help them Document the Abuse. This valuable resource was created when Stacy Peterson, a young Bolingbrook mother, disappeared in 2007. The Evidentiary Abuse Affidavit lets victims document their abuse in both a written and video format. They are able to include photos, police and hospital reports, statements, DNA, anything that helps them tell their experiences and detail their histories.
In the U.S. alone, 1 in 4 women experience domestic violence and 8 women a day will die from it. A consistent hurdle in DV cases has been the ability to document the abuse and aid the investigation especially when the victim is missing or found dead. It has the added benefit of possibly preventing a tragic outcome by having victims journal their experiences, which may lead them to make life-saving changes to their lives. If perpetrators know there is a log of their behavior, it may keep them from committing another terrible act.
Now, organizations such as police and hospital personnel, or any first responder, can be part of the solution through certification training in one of the processes hailed as ‘a huge breakthrough in victim services’!
The Document The Abuse Fund has been established to fund the various tenets needed to bring this invaluable tool to victims, first responders, law enforcement, and the judicial system along with training in implementation. It will also help fund the actions needed to bring this tool to national and world-wide attention.
