University of Maine at Presque Isle students in an honors class on domestic violence are helping to organize a training session for healthcare professionals to be held on Friday, April 29, from Noon to 4 p.m. in the Campus Center.

Approximately 35 healthcare attendees from throughout the community are registered to participate in the training session, titled Health Care Response to Intimate Partner Violence: Reach Out, Recognize, Respond, Refer. The event is being sponsored by the UMPI Criminal Justice Program and the Hope and Justice Project.

The work students are doing is part of a service learning project they’re completing for their class, according to Dr. Lisa Leduc, UMPI Associate Professor of Criminal Justice. Every two years, Dr. Leduc’s students conduct a service learning project with the Hope and Justice Project. This year, when the 13 students in Dr. Leduc’s class talked with the Hope and Justice Project about how they could help, officials said they could use some assistance in organizing a training for healthcare response to domestic violence. The Hope and Justice Project is offering the actual training, but the students are handling the planning, logistics and registration efforts.

“The idea behind this training session is that healthcare providers have the potential to refer people for services if they see someone who needs help,” Dr. Leduc said. “Sometimes people feel more like opening up because they know it’s confidential when they talk to their healthcare provider, so this is a way to ensure people are trained for that.”

The April 29 event will include presentations by trainers with the Hope and Justice Project, Spruce Run, and the Mabel Wadsworth Women’s Health Center. It also will include a Reader’s Theater, where stories of domestic violence and response will be shared. Several UMPI Criminal Justice students will be performing in the theater activity.

All of the students involved in the event are keeping a journal and writing a reflection paper that explains how this project relates to what they learned in class.

“This is something that connects with their understanding of how complicated the issue of domestic violence is, and what they could be dealing with once they get into the career field,” Dr. Leduc said.

For more information or to learn more about UMPI’s Criminal Justice Program, contact Dr. Lisa Leduc at 207-768-9436 orlisa.leduc@maine.edu.