ICJIA STATEWIDE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FATALITY REVIEW COMMITTEE RELEASES REPORTS

The Statewide Domestic Violence Fatality Review Committee was established as an Ad Hoc Committee of the ICJIA Board by the Domestic Violence Fatality Review Act in 2021. Its purpose is to establish and provide guidance, leadership, technical assistance, and other supports to regional domestic violence fatality review teams. In Spring 2024, the Statewide Committee released its 2023 Annual Report and 2024 Biennial Report.

The annual report detailed key activities carried out by the Statewide Committee in 2023, including:

• Launch of the initiative's website;
• Facilitation of training for its members on vicarious trauma and traumatic brain injury; and
• Establishment of five regional domestic violence fatality review teams in Lake, Madison and Bond, Kankakee, Will, and Winnebago counties.

The Statewide Committee’s biennial report serves as a compilation of recommendations for legislative, systemic, policy, and other changes to reduce the domestic violence and domestic violence related fatalities and near-fatalities. This compilation is directly informed by regional review teams’ biennial reports that contain recommendations culled from reviews conducted over a two-year period. As of the biennial report’s release the regional review teams were still forming and had yet to conduct their first domestic violence fatality reviews. It is anticipated that teams will begin conducting reviews in late 2024 and that recommendations from those reviews will inform the Statewide Committee’s 2026 biennial report.