Safe Homes, Safe Communities
Our History
Center for Advancing Domestic Peace is a 501(c)(3) corporation continuing the work begun in 1998 by the West Side Domestic Abuse Project to provide partner abuse intervention services in the City of Chicago. Under the leadership of its co-founders, Dr. Christine Call and Dr. Charles Stoops, the Project incorporated in 2003. The program expanded its services in 2005 by opening a second office in the South Shore community and by also providing services for Spanish-speaking men in the Back-of-The-Yards (New City) neighborhood. In 2009, the Board of Directors changed the organization’s name to Center for Domestic Peace, to focus more on the result the agency was seeking rather than the problem needing to be solved, later adding “Advancing” to the name to better convey the action-oriented nature of its strengths-based approach to intervention and outreach.
CADP’s main office moved to 813 S. Western Avenue on December 1, 2009 moving quickly on information obtained in a strategic planning process showing the Center needed to relocate to an area of greater need and better access to transportation in order to advance its mission. The South Shore location moved to the Englewood community in 2013, and the Spanish language services previously provided in the New City area are now located at a church in Chicago Lawn, where an additional English-language group is also provided weekly. In February of 2019 the Center began providing the Beliefs and Skills program and supporting assessment and orientation services in Wheaton IL at the DuPage County Health Department building at 111 N County Line Road. The mission of Center for Advancing Domestic Peace is to help people who abuse to stop their domestic violence, create healthy relationships and strengthen their communities.
Professionals Committed to the Cause of Peace Work
The Center is governed by a seven-member volunteer Board of Directors. The Executive Director is responsible for the management of the agency, working in collaboration with the program coordinators as a management team. The provision of a diverse board and staff is a primary goal and value of the Center. All current Board members reside in Cook County and several members of our Board live in the communities we serve. Staff is widely diverse in gender, racial or ethnic identity, age and experience. Most staff members have some professional training in fields including social work, criminal justice, substance abuse treatment, psychology and community counseling. In order to provide necessary case management to the Center’s participants all staff and interns become familiar with the resources in the neighborhoods we serve and work to establish relationships with professionals in other agencies in order to facilitate referrals for our participants. The Center provides practicum training each year to interns in graduate and undergraduate programs in psychology, community counseling and social work and former interns have served on both our staff and our Board of Directors.