Building a Trauma-Informed Space for Survivors
Connecting Project Beloved with
the Park Forest Police Department
I first learned about Project Beloved while working for the Global Alzheimer’s Platform Foundation. During a service project in Florida, I was introduced to the organization and its work supporting survivors of sexual assault. That experience stayed with me because it was a practical example of how a relatively simple change in environment can make an extraordinarily difficult experience a little more humane.
Project Beloved: The Molly Jane Mission was founded by Tracy Matheson following the 2017 rape and murder of her 22-year-old daughter, Molly Jane Matheson. The organization works to educate, advocate, and collaborate around sexual assault while helping survivors find their voices. One of its initiatives is the creation of trauma-informed “soft interview rooms” inside law-enforcement agencies. Rather than asking survivors to recount traumatic experiences in the same type of stark interview environment commonly associated with criminal investigations, these rooms use comfortable furniture, softer lighting, blankets, and other features designed to create a calmer setting.
When I thought about Park Forest, I immediately saw an opportunity.
Our police department operates from a facility where space is limited and virtually every available area has a purpose. At the same time, the department has long emphasized community relationships and problem-oriented policing. Its formal community-relations policy calls for treating residents with dignity and respect and involving the community in public-safety relationship building, while its Problem-Oriented Policing program connects individual officers with neighborhoods to address quality-of-life concerns before they become larger problems.
Before contacting Project Beloved, I first approached the Park Forest Police Department. I wanted to know whether this was something they actually needed and would use. Their response was immediate: yes.
From there, I connected the department with Project Beloved and worked with both organizations as the project moved forward. The Police Department identified an appropriate room, Project Beloved provided the furniture and materials, and I joined the department's community coordinator in helping put the space together.
An underused room became a dedicated trauma-informed interview space.
The room remains in service today.
When I later returned to the department to discuss broader questions surrounding sexual-assault investigations and survivor support in Cook County, I was told that the room continues to be used. There is something bittersweet about that. I am grateful that survivors have a more thoughtful environment available to them, while recognizing that every time the room is needed, someone in our community is navigating an extraordinarily difficult experience.
This project reinforced something I believe strongly about local service: we do not always have to invent a new program ourselves. Sometimes the most important thing we can do is identify a need, find an organization that already knows how to address it, and bring the right people together to make it happen.