St. Gabriel’s Hospital Shares in Rural Health Team Award
Date
07/17/2012
Photo 1
Caption 1
Mary Pat Burger, OSF, Patrick Rioux of St. Gabriel’s Hospital, Little Falls, MN, and Julie Kapsch of the Hands of Hope Resource Center accept the 2012 Rural Health Team Award.
Article Text
The Violence Prevention Council of Morrison County received the 2012 Rural Health Team award at the Minnesota Rural Health Conference on June 25. The council – a collaborative effort of St. Gabriel's Hospital, Little Falls, Hands of Hope Resource Center and many individuals in central Minnesota – received the honor for its outstanding contribution to rural health. Funded by a CHI Mission & Ministry Fund violence prevention grant, the council uses a Spectrum of Prevention approach to reducing partner violence, focusing on "upstream" activities to change societal norms. The council uses a variety of public education and media strategies to change how partner violence is perceived and bolsters community resources for violence prevention. Recent projects include working with high school students to create "Photo Voices" – video clips about partner violence that air in the school and will run on a local cable access channel – and collecting detailed data at the site of domestic violence incidents to provide a stronger base for prosecution and sentencing. After the council's first full year of activity, the number of domestic assaults in the county dropped from 62 to 48; orders for protection decreased from 56 to 31; and violations of those orders dropped from 35 to 15.
