While sitting in the break room, a co-worker confides in you that she is being beaten at home by her boyfriend. Even worse, he may show up at her job, and she is scared.
“You may be taken aback or overwhelmed by that scenario,” said Dr. Cynthia Schumann, Sun City resident and co-developer of a new online course dealing with domestic violence and the workplace. “First, always believe the person who is telling you. There’s no reason to suspect otherwise.”
More importantly, Schumann advises, “Be supportive, be kind, and tell HR or tell them to go to HR, so they can get connected with services or referrals.”
Dr. Cynthia Schumann, a retired 30-year-veteran of the Chicago PD, co-developed an online course to help educate workplaces on anti-violence strategies. (Photo provided)
Schumann’s online course, co-developed with Aileen Robinson, interim coordinator for the domestic violence program for the City of Chicago, is available through Luma, an online training corporation based in Indiana.
Schumann and Robinson are both trained and certified by the state of Illinois after completing 40 hours of training offered by Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women’s Network. Initially, the women offered in-person training all over the 18th district, and quickly found that the hospitality industry was a good place to focus.
“In the hospitality industry, there’s little to no training that deals specifically with the issue of domestic violence on property. With hotels, the threat is internal as well as external,” Schumann said.
Because hotels have a unique mix of private spaces, such as guest rooms, and public spaces, such as restaurants, bars, and banquet rooms, abusers can sometimes get uncomfortably close access to their victims, both guests and employees.
A 30-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department, Schumann retired last May after a long and varied career that found her on patrol, then in the Narcotics section of the Organized Crime Division; from there she was promoted to Sergeant and did extensive work in the city’s 18th Division, including administering CAPS (Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy).
Schumann, newly retired, is settling in to her new surroundings at Sun City, where she says she’s still adjusting to all the quiet and fresh air of Huntley.
“It’s very different from where I lived in the city,” she said.
Even in retirement, Schumann, who has a doctorate in education, continues teaching criminal justice classes as an adjunct professor at National Louis University in Chicago.
Before her days on the police force, Schumann says it was her internship while she was in college that planted a seed that grew throughout her career.
“I was a Criminal Justice major, focused on domestic violence,” she said. “I did a student internship at what was then called the Greenhouse Shelter. I did programming and interacted with children’s playgroups. It really connected me with a passion for domestic violence, the family unit as a whole, and of course women and children who suffer from ongoing issues of family violence.”
Today, Schumann hopes that the online course, which is approximately one hour and can be taken all at once or in increments, will offer a viable way for hotels and other businesses to educate their staff and develop an anti-workplace violence strategy.
“Work is the one place where an offender knows where to find the victim,” she said. “It’s easy to say, ‘Why doesn’t she just leave?’ But leaving only stops half the problem. You can’t just expect someone to uproot children from school, or quit a job, or relocate to a new apartment. There are all sorts of nuances attached with that myth,” she said.
Schumann said that this violence is unfortunately on the rise.
“We see acts of public violence increasing across our country, almost on a regular basis,” said Schumann, who notes 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men have or will have experienced physical domestic abuse in their lifetime. “It seems like it’s weekly or daily. We turn on the news and hear about these insidious scenarios. Some of them are domestic violence, some are not. But anything we can do to minimize the impact of violence in our workplaces that cater to inviting the general public in, it’s certainly going to be beneficial.”
Schumann added that the course can be customized for any type of business, and can be translated into different languages.
Through her work, Schumann hopes to facilitate safer workplaces so that potential tragedies become successful interventions instead.
“I’m thrilled and passionate to spread the word and educate people in all different environments and businesses,” said Schumann. “It’s my work and it’s what I love doing.”
Find more information about the course Schumann co-developed here: learnwithluma.com/domestic-violence/
