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Boston's inner-city violence epidemic is all too familiar to Jacqueline Rue, case manager for Boston Healthy Start Initiative at Martha Eliot Health Center (MEHC). For the past six years, Rue has helped struggling mothers overcome the complex challenges involved with physical and mental violence, as well as with housing, hunger and substance abuse. "Many of these mothers have had chaos in their lives," she says of the dozens of Boston women enrolled in the program. "Violence is everywhere." In fact, according to a recent report conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health, two-thirds of Boston high school students said they'd witnessed violence in the past year.
Rue can relate to their experiences. When her family lived in Jamaica Plain, she and her husband, Albert, a retired Boston police officer and Gang Resistance Education and Training instructor, would share bleak stories of how violence afflicted their neighborhood. At times, the Rues welcomed troubled local teenagers into their house to give them guidance over a home-cooked meal. "These kids were screaming for help," she says. "They came from good families. They were our neighbors, our friends. But like so many of our youth, they simply got off the right track."
On August 17 of last year, the Rues themselves became victims of violence. Their 25-year-old son, Sean, was sprayed by bullets while visiting childhood friends at Bromley Heath, a public housing development adjacent to MEHC, where the Rues and their four children used to live. In an instant, the Rues found themselves in need of the same support they had long provided families. Fortunately, Sean pulled through after several surgeries, and has made a remarkable recovery.
Rue is quick to point out that her story has a silver lining; she plans to share the lessons she learned during the ordeal with others affected by violence as a member of MEHCs new Trauma Response Team. By communicating with the Boston Police Department and closely monitoring news reports, the team will seek out victims, their families, neighbors, loved ones and witnesses after a violent act occurs to give them prompt emotional and psychological support. The team is community-wide and involves representatives from MEHC, Children's Hospital Boston and more than a dozen other organizations serving the Jamaica Plain neighborhood, including faith-based organizations, schools, housing developments and teen support programs.
"When the idea of forming this response team came up, I cleared my schedule and jumped at the opportunity to be a part of it," Rue says. "As a health center, we need to do something like this. We have 1,000 families living right next door who need our help." Rue, like all members of the Trauma Response Team, enrolled in a certification program to learn best-practice techniques on post-traumatic stress management from Robert Macy, PhD, founder and executive director of the Brookline-based Center for Trauma Psychology.
"Well offer both immediate and long-term help," says Jean Wilkinson, PhD, director of Human Services at MEHC. "Our goal is to provide those affected by violence with culturally sensitive emotional support in a pragmatic manner and deal with the demands that arise when violence occurs. We hope to draw from the experience of those such as Jacqueline, who have been personally affected by violence." Rue remembers the terrible feeling of helplessness, especially during the first 24 hours after her son was shot, while her family waited to see if hed live. As a result, shes suggesting the team give hospitalized victims families a bag filled with essential items, such as a note pad and pen for writing down medical notes, bottled water, a prepaid cell phone and phone card, gift cards for food or clothes and parking vouchers.
The program has had lots of help getting off the ground, including from long-time community activist Mildred Hailey, executive director of the Bromley-Heath Tenant Management Corporation, and Bob Francis, co-chair of the Academy/Bromley/Egleston Safety Task Force and retired chief of the Boston Municipal Police, who have met with MEHC administrators every week for the past year. "We always try to design our services around what the community identifies as a need," says Jim Cote, MEHCs executive director. "Mrs. Hailey and Bob Francis identified the lack of a coordinated effort on the grassroots level to support residents in a prompt and proactive manner. One organization can't do that alone; it requires a collaborative effort involving the stakeholders in the community."
The program is part of a larger anti-violence strategy Children's aims to launch in response to the violence in Boston neighborhoods. Children's Office of Child Advocacy, Department of Psychiatry, Emergency Department and Trust office are working together to fund and implement a plan that includes patient screenings, parent support groups, referral services and youth groups for adolescents affected by violence. "Through this initiative, we envision children who are exhibiting signs of stress to be identified early by a teacher, health care provider or parent and get them help," says Wilkinson.
While the team will work to help victims in the community, the MEHC group is also looking inward. Rue is one of several MEHC employees who have been directly affected by violence. In response, MEHC held A Future without Violence Day as an outlet for employees to discuss the impact of violence in their lives and strategize on ways to reduce its impact in the local community. During the event, employees, patient families and community residents wove pieces of fabric, which were used to construct a large, multicolored quilt to hang in the health center.
"This quilt will serve as a symbol of our stand against violence in the community and its different colors will represent the diversity of our community," says Rue. "Since we serve as a lifeline for health and mental health services for our community, we will do whatever we can to break the cycle."
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