The Club welcomed Emily Feldman to our meeting.  Sponsored by the Rotary Club of Highland Park/Highwood in cooperation with the Rotary Club of Abingdon in the UK, Emily was awarded a Rotary International Scholarship in support of her second year at the University of Oxford in the UK.   She provided an overview of her background and her recent experiences.    Emily is completing her studies for a Master of Philosophy degree in International Relations.  Her area of focus deals with the radicalization of women in the Arab world.   She wants to shed light on the circumstances behind females joining radical groups, with the hope of identifying actions which would reduce or eliminate such occurrences.   Emily spent the summer as an intern in Amman Jordan at the United Nations Development Program. She worked in the UN Volunteers office, whereby their mission is to mobilize volunteers to engage in humanitarian peace building and post conflict resolution.   Emily is a 2015 graduate of Emory University where she was on the Dean's list all years and was a varsity soccer player during which time Emory received 4 NCAA Tournament bids.  Wow!

Dale Mugler introduced our keynotes - Lake County State’s Attorney Mike Nerheim and the Executive Director at Lake County’s Children’s Advocacy Center Executive Director Carrie Flanigan and Courthouse Extraordinaire Support Dog, Mitchell.      Dale noted that State’s Attorney Mike Nerheim is a lifelong resident of Lake County. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice and Psychology from Winona State University and his law degree from The John Marshall Law School in Chicago.   As State’s Attorney, he oversees an office of 144 attorneys, investigators, victim coordinators, paralegals, and support staff, plus two certified comfort dogs and a corps of volunteers.    

The Lake County Children’s Advocacy Center is where children are brought for a forensic interview when there has been an allegation of sexual, mental, or physical abuse or a child has been a witness to a major crime.  The Center is a child-focused center that coordinates the investigation and prosecution of these cases.  Carrie Flanigan-Starvel was named the Executive Director of the Lake County Children’s Advocacy Center in 2017.  Mitchell is a Courthouse Facility dog assigned to the center.  His primary role is to comfort and provide compassion to child victims who are interviewed there.  Mitchell was donated to the State’s Attorney’s Office by “Support Dogs,” a national, non-profit organization.  New legislation went into effect in 2016 that allows dogs like Mitchell to be used during sex crime proceedings. Mitchell will be able to be present during the testimony of a child, at the discretion of a judge. 

The presentations were very well received.    Audience members asked questions of the keynotes.  The meeting adjourned at 12:57 PM.