Saint Francis Hospital Receives U.S. Dept. of Justice Grant

From the Saint Francis Hospital:

December 19 2019

Saint Francis Hospital’s Greater Hartford Family Advocacy Center Awarded Federal Grant for Child Safety Initiatives

HARTFORD, Conn. – The Greater Hartford Family Advocacy Center at Saint Francis Hospital is one of five agencies in the nation to be recently awarded a federal grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office for Victims of Crime. The funding will support efforts to reduce the number of child fatality deaths from abuse or neglect. The work will include formulating standardized data collection and recommendations for measureable and sustained reductions to the child fatality rates.

The grant provides $750,000 over a 3-year period along with technical assistance from national experts in addressing child fatalities and child maltreatment. Saint Francis Hospital, a member of Trinity Health of New England is committed to an ongoing reduction in the number of child fatalities and repeated injuries over at least the next seven years, well past the duration of the grant funding, in order to be a leading force in efforts to attain measurable and sustained reductions to this growing tragedy.

“While the rate of child maltreatment and fatality in GA-14 is similar to that of the nation, the rate of child maltreatment in Hartford specifically, is more than twice the national rate,” Regina S. Dyton, M.S.W., program manager of the Greater Hartford Family Advocacy Center. “One of the greatest risk factors for child maltreatment is poverty. African Americans are only 16% of the U.S. population, but African American children comprise 30% of all child fatalities nationwide. We feel a responsibility and urgency to do our part in trying to lower these devastating statistics. We are well positioned to make a meaningful change.”

Initially, the Greater Hartford Family Advocacy Center will utilize the funding to work with diverse stakeholders, including state agencies, policy makers, affected community members, first responders, educators, researchers and providers, in order to develop a standardized, data-driven systemic approach to documenting and tracking child maltreatment.

“In many cases of child death, there have been past incidents of injury which raises the risk for death. A key hurdle we will look at is that in many communities locally, there is a past relationship or perception of law enforcement that creates a hesitation to report a child’s injury, but that report may have been the key to preventing the death later on,” said Dyton.

The center will work to create effective intervention and prevention strategies. The Family Advocacy Center will focus their work specifically in cities and towns under the judicial district GA-14, including Avon, Bloomfield, Canton, Farmington, Hartford, and West Hartford.

Disclaimer: This product was supported by cooperative agreement number 2019-V3-GX-K005, awarded by the Office for Victims of Crime, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this product are those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

About Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center

Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center has been an anchor institution in north central Connecticut since 1897. In 2015, Saint Francis became part of Trinity Health Of New England, a member of Trinity Health, one of the largest multi-institutional Catholic health care delivery systems in the nation. Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center, licensed for 617 beds, is a Level 1 Trauma Center, a major teaching hospital and the largest Catholic hospital in New England. Other Saint Francis entities include the Comprehensive Women’s Health Center, the Connecticut Joint Replacement Institute, the Curtis D. Robinson Center for Health Equity, the Hoffman Heart and Vascular Institute of Connecticut, the Smilow Cancer Hospital Yale-New Haven at Saint Francis, and Trinity Health Of New England Medical Group. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @SaintFrancisCT

This press release was produced by the Saint Francis Hospital The views expressed here are the author’s own.