Research In Action

At CHOP, we view intimate partner violence (IPV) as a pediatric issue because children who live in a home or environment with IPV can suffer long term adverse health outcomes. As a Fellow of CHOP’s Violence Prevention Initiative (VPI) and research coordinator for several VPI programs, I am fortunate to interact regularly with staff at Lutheran Settlement House (LSH) through the STOP Intimate Partner Violence (STOP IPV) program. Through STOP IPV, CHOP partners with LSH to provide on-site IPV Specialists who serve as referral resources for caregivers and patients experiencing violence from intimate or romantic partners. (STOP IPV was fomerly known as the Children's and Mom's Project or CAMP.)

The STOP IPV Specialists are on-site at CHOP’s Emergency Department and Karabots Primary Care Center to provide training and support to medical staff to encourage universal screening of all caregivers for IPV. Through discrete bilingual screening cards and a streamlined confidential referral process, STOP IPV works to make routine inquiry for IPV a standard practice for the patients and families we serve. In doing so, we address the safety needs of our patients and their caregivers and reduce the likelihood for continued violence. 

Below is a recent conversation with Marcella Slick, LSW, Assistant Director of the Bilingual Domestic Violence Program at LSH, where we discuss STOP IPV’s recent successes and what’s on the horizon for this rapidly-growing program.

Rachel Myers (RM): We are so thankful to have such a positive academic-community partnership with the team from LSH. Could you share what your experience has been like working with CHOP team members?

Marcella Slick (MS): We're grateful to have such a passionate and dedicated interdisciplinary team of CHOP staff members to assist us in bringing IPV to the forefront of clinical care within the CHOP system. Our CHOP IPV Task Force, led by Drs. Joel Fein and Ashlee Murray, has been able to generate and achieve amazing gains, such as instituting training, signage, documentation, and screening in the Emergency Department.

Even more than that, our CHOP team members help us to spread the message that IPV is a pediatric issue and that CHOP staff play an integral role in helping keep victims and their children safe. We could never accomplish our goals without the time, energy, and expertise of our CHOP “IPV Champions” and Task Force Members who continue to advance these issues within CHOP.

RM:  You recently presented a successful pitch to local funders at “The Intersection of Community, Academia, and Grantmaking Symposium” sponsored by The Center for Public Health Initiatives (CPHI) at The University of Pennsylvania.  Can you tell us about it?

MS: We were selected to be part of the inaugural class of community scholars through a pilot program with CPHI, which was intended to help non-profit organizations like LSH become more skilled around pitching our programs to funders, researchers, and potential project partners.

Our pitch aimed to demonstrate the devastating health and financial impact of IPV on communities, the role our program plays to prepare hospitals to identify and respond to IPV, the impact our program has had on our current hospitals, and our plans to sustain and grow our efforts. We are pleased to say that our pitch won 1^st prize and allowed us to connect with several funders and hospital representatives!

The class, along with business consultation services we secured through a grant from the Curaterra Foundation, helped us to create several step-down models of our program that we will offer to smaller hospitals, medical offices, and community health centers starting this summer. We believe this new tiered-approach will allow us to partner with a greater number of medical care providers throughout Philadelphia and reach more families.

RM: STOP IPV is now operating in several Philadelphia-area hospitals. I know LSH has been facilitating collaboration and lesson-sharing across these sites. What are the goals for this?

MS: Our program is fortunate to continue to gain new partnerships and grow our IPV network across Philadelphia. In addition to CHOP, we currently have IPV Specialists stationed at St. Christopher’s Hospital, Einstein Hospital, and Aria Frankford Hospital. What we have noticed over the years is that our hospital IPV teams execute amazing ideas and initiatives, and run into many of the same barriers and challenges.

We created the Cross-Site Outcomes Collaborative to encourage information sharing between our partner hospitals to identify and replicate “IPV best practices,” such as the streamlined documentation and referral process designed by the CHOP IPV Task Force. We also hope to eventually pool data for a large-scale research project.

RM: I am attending the inaugural Philadelphia Medical Advocacy Summit on June 3, 2016. What can attendees expect to experience at the Summit?

MS:  We’re excited to see you there! The goal of the Summit is to invite our IPV Champions from all of our partner hospitals to present on and share the successes they have achieved at their sites.

The presentation topics range from strategies for IPV documentation to tips for funding IPV research in your hospital. Attendees from the Summit who come from current partner hospitals will walk away with strategies for improving and growing their IPV program. Others will gain insight into how to launch an IPV program at their own medical site.

It should be an interactive opportunity for networking, information-sharing, and developing action steps for continued work. We hope to see many familiar and new faces!

For more information on the Philadelphia Medical Advocacy Summit, click here.
For more information on IPV, click here.