A conference winding up today in Waterloo has focused on strengthening the community response to family violence. It’s sponsored by the family violence response team of the Iowa Attorney General’s office, where spokesman Bob Brammer says the aim is to help professionals balance priorities between catching batterers and protecting the victims. Brammer says “there’s no magic tricks,” but this conference is offering things found to work and some to avoid, for law-enforcement officers, domestic-violence advocates and prevention specialists, prosecutors, doctors and even workers in the department of human services. Brammer says in recent years the focus has sharpened on protecting children in domestic-abuse situations. Brammer says the A-G’s office has formed a family-violence response team that divides up the responsibilities while having members compare notes and all pull together. The 2-day conference sponsored by the family-violence response team of the attorney general’s office is titled “Improving Your Community’s Response to Family Violence: Strengthening Policies and Practices.”
