This grant will evaluate the Cook County Circuit Court’s Family Court Enhancement Project (FECP), which was a demonstration project funded by OVW in 2016. Through a mixed-methods approach, this project seeks to understand the impact of FCEP on the safety and fairness of child-related remedies in Orders of Protections for litigants and their children, the long-term effects on parenting arrangements, as well as the overall FCEP court process.
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CURL is working to create a comprehensive program evaluation plan with Erie Neighborhood House’s (ENH) Proyecto Cuidate (which means Take Care Project in Spanish). ENH works to empower Latinx immigrants and others in the community through health and wellness education, community building and leadership initiatives, counseling, and advocacy. Proyecto Cuidate focuses on families as a whole unit in the Little Village, Cicero, and Berwyn communities by providing free counseling and education with the goals of violence prevention, family cohesion, and Restorative Justice.
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CURL is conducting research for the Jane Addams Resource Corporation (JARC) in order to better understand why/why not unemployed and under-employed women are interested in participating in JARC’s Women in Manufacturing job training program. Based on the research findings, CURL will also collaboratively develop a new recruitment strategy to expand the Women in Manufacturing job training program to more qualifying women in the Chicago area.
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The Englewood Women’s Initiative (EWI) is a program through a coalition of 8 organizations in the Englewood neighborhood in Chicago connecting women in the neighborhood with pathways to incomes over $40k/year through job training, business development, and financial and job readiness skills. CURL is evaluating the pilot and collaborating in creating a database tracking system and benchmarks.
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Chicago's Fifth House Ensemble (5HE) partners with local non-profits to offer music education residencies to vulnerable populations throughout the city. Recent residencies include Teen Living Programs, a homeless youth services provider; Deborah's Place, homeless women services provider; and Nancy B. Jefferson Alternative High School, an alternative school located within the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center. The Center for Urban Research and Learning (CURL) and Brian L. Kelly of Loyola University Chicago, School of Social Work, are working together to evaluate the benefits of these residencies, by measuring their effects on participants' mental health, professional skills, engagement with the community, and other dimensions of social and personal life.
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The Family Court Enhancement Project is a collaborative project of the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women (OVW), the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ), the Battered Women’s Justice Project, and the National Institute for Justice.
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This endeavor encompasses both consulting and training. Christine George, CURL Research Associate Professor and Stephanie Riger, UIC Professor of Psychology will advise and assist through consultation and training members of the Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women's Network in the development and implementation of a common tracking and feedback system of former program participants.
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