Advocate Trauma Recovery Center expands

LIBERTYVILLE – Advocate Condell Medical Center dedicated the first Trauma Recovery Center in Lake County.

Advocate’s Trauma Recovery Center will be located in Gurnee and is only the fifth Trauma Recovery Center in Illinois and the second in the Chicago area. U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin and state Reps. Mary Edly-Allen and Bob Morgan attended the Sept. 29 dedication.

The Advocate TRC is a health care-based violence intervention program that provides social and behavioral health services, individual and group therapeutic services and psychiatric consultation to survivors of intentional crime and/or trauma. The location will build upon the success of the existing Advocate TRC at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn and expand the Advocate TRC to better serve communities throughout the Chicago area, including Lake and McHenry counties.

“Today’s opening of this new Trauma Recovery Center represents an important commitment not just to help victims of violence cope with trauma, but also to help break the cycle of violence and address health disparities,” Durbin said.

The Advocate TRC was awarded a $781,793 grant by the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority and funded by the Victims of Crime Act. There is an unmet need for trauma recovery services in Lake County because residents are facing greater hardships and are more likely to experience violent injury. The American Community Survey’s Hardship Index incorporates unemployment, age, dependency, education, per capita income, crowded housing and poverty into a single score that allows comparison across geographies. When compared with the rest of Lake County and the state, residents of Park City, Waukegan, Round Lake Beach and Zion all face greater hardship than their neighbors. Communities facing greater hardship in these social and economic categories also are more likely to experience poor health outcomes and less likely to seek out behavioral health support.

“We know there are a lot of trauma survivors in Lake County and greater Chicagoland who can’t access the care they need to fully recover because it’s too far from home,” said Matt Primack, president of Advocate Condell Medical Center. “Moreover, some of the communities we serve see higher rates of crime than Cook County, and the poverty of 71,000 of our neighbors is often hidden behind the veneer of affluence associated with the suburbs. We are committed to working with our partners in the community and other health care providers in Lake County to support survivors and their families and to help fill the need for trauma recovery services here.”

In 2018, Lake County recorded 3,068 instances of violent crime, including 165 rapes, 272 robberies, 452 aggravated assaults, 921 burglaries and 1,258 domestic violence events. This represents nearly 45% of the reported crime offenses in the collar counties of Lake, Kane, Kendall and McHenry and is why the location is positioned to best serve the community as a whole.

“Treating traumatic injury is only part of the healing process for a survivor,” said Dr. Kim Miller, director of the Advocate TRC. “While our relationship with a client may begin in a hospital, our whole-person approach to care doesn’t end when the physical wounds heal. We meet our patients where they are and provide comprehensive services to meet each individual’s emotional, psychological and spiritual needs. We know there’s a significant need for this kind of compassionate, holistic care in Lake County.”

Survivors of trauma should call 708-346-7300 to be connected to the Advocate TRC and its services.