Thank you so much this wonderful award.

It is easy to advocate on your behalf in Washington because you have such an amazing network of experts who have done an excellent job of educating me and my fellow Members of Congress.

Until this year, I was always a Member of the minority party in Congress and achieving legislative victories were unfortunately few and far between.

But one of my greatest achievements during those years was the product of our work together on the Domestic Violence Screening Treatment and Prevention Act.

As the then-Democratic Vice-Chair of the Women’s Caucus, I had the opportunity to be intricately involved in the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, or VAWA.

I was so pleased when the authors decided to incorporate a new program into VAWA that would finally place more emphasis on the role of the public health sector in combating this epidemic.

Through the Family Violence Prevention Fund’s efforts we achieved our goal of putting into law, what we all know to be good practice…

That is, giving health professionals the tools to screen, diagnosis, treat and refer victims of abuse.

Unfortunately our work isn’t over.

Everytime Congress authorizes a program, we also need to fund it.

This year, as Democratic Chair of the Women’s Caucus, I was proud to be one of the leaders of the effort to ask appropriators to fully fund all programs under VAWA.

And I assure you that I will continue working hard to see that this request becomes a reality.

I salute you all for coming together for this important conference.

It took a long time, but dealing with domestic violence is no longer an issue that is swept under the rug nor left to law enforcement alone.

As a public health nurse, I am so proud to see my colleagues here today sharing best practice information and brainstorming on ways to bring an end to abuse through the public health system.

Thank you for this award, but mostly, thank you for the work that all of you do.

Pictured above: (center) Congresswoman Capps meets with Central Coast firefighters to discuss emergency preparedness.