Senator Dick Durbin Visits MFS Midway Center to Highlight $800,000 Earmark for the Metropolitan Peace Academy

U.S. Senator Dick Durbin visited Metropolitan Family Services’ (MFS) Midway Center to discuss the $800,000 in earmark funding he secured through the Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23) omnibus appropriations bill.  The earmark will allow the Metropolitan Peace Initiatives’ (MPI) Metropolitan Peace Academy (MPA) to expand training for professionals involved in addressing and responding to gun violence in Chicago.

“If we want to address gun violence from a trauma-centered perspective, one of the key ways to do it is to partner with community-based organizations whose outreach workers live and work in the communities they serve,” Durbin said. “These organizations are in the best position to provide the victim services and wraparound supports that people dealing with trauma so desperately need. We know that trauma is at the root of so much pain and conflict in our neighborhoods, with a recent study finding 50 percent of Chicago residents have witnessed violence.”

“This year, with Senator Durbin’s support, Metropolitan Family Services will open the Metropolitan Peace Academy Training and Wellness Center,” MFS President and CEO Ric Estrada said. “This new center will allow Metropolitan Peace Initiatives to double our community violence intervention work in street outreach, case management and victim advocacy training. Together, with our legislative and community partners, we will proactively work to address the generational trauma and public safety crisis our neighbors’ experience.”

MPI will also be able to provide additional health and wellness resources for staff and participants—who face their own direct and secondary traumas from the work they do.