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Family Justice Center
Circuit Court Judge Rosemary Collins, the first woman judge in the history of the 17th Judicial Circuit Court, served the people of Winnebago and Boone County for almost 30 years before her recent retirement.
While on the Bench, Judge Collins served as Presiding Judge of the Family Division and as Presiding Judge of the Domestic Violence Division while maintaining a full time felony caseload. She established a domestic violence assistance office in the Courthouse, one of the first in the nation. She founded Children’s Safe Harbor, a neutral visitation exchange facility which also provides safe supervised visitation for families in crisis. She developed a Domestic Violence Division which was designated by the United States Dept. of Justice as one of the Model Courts of the nation.
She has trained internationally, nationally, and locally on the issues of domestic violence, immigration law, community collaborative building, and judicial leadership. For years she has led domestic violence and sexual assault awareness training for the Northern Illinois University football team.
Judge Collins has been involved in the community, being an active board member of many organizations. She is particularly proud to be a member of the downtown Rockford Rotary Club, a Paul Harris Fellow, and a Service Above Self Award winner. Recently she was honored to be awarded the prestigious Excalibur Award by the Rockford Register Star. She remains active in community work and is currently involved in the movement to bring a Family Justice Center to our area, and is a founding member of the Board of the Family Peace Center.
Judge Collins will talk about the new Family Justice Center which will bring a number of services under one roof to work on Domestic Violence and Human Trafficking. This will be a most informative program about this new Family Justice Center which will be part of larger effort to combat Domestic Violence and Human Trafficking in our community.
Judge Collins will talk about the new Family Justice Center which will bring a number of services under one roof to work on Domestic Violence and Human Trafficking. This will be a most informative program about this new Family Justice Center which will be part of larger effort to combat Domestic Violence and Human Trafficking in our community.
Mary Ann Norwood will introduce our presenter and act as Rotary host.