Pathways to Peace: Healing Hurt People's small victories in Philly may translate to Cleveland

The Healing Hurt People program, or HHP, is an ER-based violence intervention program that works on the public health-based notion that violence - like other diseases that spread - can be prevented. It targets services to those at highest risk, patients like those in Philadelphia, who are being treated for violent injuries in the city's emergency rooms. Unlike other programs, it recognizes and attempts to heal the underlying emotional trauma that results from, and often predates, violent injury.

Some local programs see youth employment as more than just a workforce development issue. They also view jobs as a way to offer stability to young people, especially those from Cleveland area communities with high violence rates. The research bears them out. These are the voices of some of the voices speaking in favor of more jobs and less violence.

Victims of violence found in hospitals are more likely to return for emergency care than those with chronic illnesses. As a result, communities like Cleveland, Ohio are trying the approach of treating violence as a public health issue. By employing social workers and peer mentors for the victims while being treated, it is hoped that the cycle of violence can be interrupted and the root cause addressed.

Across the country, hospitals are embracing intensive intervention programs to help victims of violence — including those who have criminal histories — after they have been brought in for treatment of injuries. Such programs can help prevent retaliation, reduce the chance a patient will be violently injured again, and put people on track for success.

Baltimore and other cities saw an increase in violence and individuals repeatedly ending up in the hospital with serious injuries, which mass jailing did not solve, leading to the creation of Shock Trauma's Violence Intervention program. This program's specialist-Ross assesses and tries to convince victims of violence to enter the program which helps them deal with their past trauma in order not to retaliate and instigate more violence, for those who engage in the program it is quite successful.

Healing Hurt People (HHP), the program that helped save his life, now employs men like Jermaine McCorey - men who used to be a part of a violent life on the streets of Philadelphia - to reach out to boys and young men in the emergency department and help get them through empathy and personalized support. HHP's goal is to help young people recognize the role trauma has played in shaping their lives, to respect and honor their experience and to help them avoid fueling the cycle of violence.

Healing trauma has never been an easy process but programs like Healing Hurt People help to promote recovery in traumatized, angry young men. This program, in partnership with local medical services, aims to provide therapy in place of violence, which would only cause more trauma down the road. Those who stick with the program have found great success in overcoming their pasts.

Connecticut is attempting to reduce prison recidivism by changing parole practices. Changes to the system are allowing parole officers to foster relationships with parolees and counsel them as people, not as cases.

Since 2017, two publicly funded trauma recovery centers in Illinois have helped violent-crime survivors cope with the emotional fallout that can accompany a loved one's murder or surviving their own violent attack. Case managers help people get group and individual therapy. They can also line up financial aid to help people pay for food and rent, when their trauma interferes with their ability to make a living. The centers, based on a model developed in California as a way to foster public safety through healing communities, will expand by three more in the state in 2021.

The Violence Intervention Program at the University of Maryland Medical Center's Shock Trauma Center helps people meet basic needs after they have suffered a gunshot injury. Along with clothing, transportation vouchers, and toothbrushes, the program's social workers also provide talk therapy. The goal is to keep victims of violence from becoming victims again, and the approach is to build trust by giving the help without strings attached. Many people return for the help, and the therapy.