Domestic violence victims frequently encounter many challenges maintaining separation from their abuser. Sharing children makes it even more difficult to maintain separation; from wanting the abuser to see the children, to an inability to financially support themselves without help from the abuser.

Orders of protection provide the child-related support many victims need to maintain separation from their abuser – possession of their children, a concrete visitation schedule, and child support – without which they are more likely to be abused again. Until recently in the Cook County Court system, however, for orders of protection issued in criminal cases, including domestic violence cases, there was no one helping victims request this more comprehensive relief.

Until now.