Model and Strategy
Our innovative model addresses violence as a health issue, initiating gun safety efforts in hospitals, not jails. By integrating gun violence intervention within the health system, we not only will be able to, with technology newly available to us, address violence in Oakland, we will be able to spread this model virally throughout California. By providing training to communities and hospitals, we will expand and improve the use of this model proven to reduce recidivism and retaliation. In addition to direct services and training, the third prong of this project is advocacy. We have already been successful in developing one funding source for this work through State Victim Compensation, but without continued advocacy, that law will sunset even before it is fully implemented. What’s more, we have a unique opportunity to pass laws that would permanently embed this model in our health system as a requirement for all urban trauma centers and create sustainability through Medi-Cal.
Impact
Violence is a contagious disease, and the virus is trauma. One study found that at least 50% of gunshot victims showed signs of PTSD. To break the cycle of violence, our work heals the trauma and interrupts the violence. Almost half (44%) of gunshot victims are shot again. Why? Where the body carries visible scars, the mind hides an unhealed wound that continues to cause pain and havoc. This trauma, mostly unacknowledged and unattended, brings on symptoms that attract conflict, like flashbacks, impulsivity and paranoia, and inspires victims to behaviors that only make their lives more dangerous, such as abusing drugs or carrying weapons.
Our program, and the ones that we nurture, change the path a victim goes down by addressing trauma and barriers to safety they would otherwise face alone, isolated and embittered by their shooting. Changing this life saves it from the high potential for re-injury and the frequent resort to retaliation. Our own studies and others conducted in cities across the country indicate that hospital-based violence intervention reduces injury recidivism and criminal justice contact. For example, the sharp drop in patients returning to the hospital with another bullet wound compared to a control group in a Baltimore study showed that the program saved the hospital over half a million dollars in surgeries and treatments. The uniqueness of our work, and this project, is that we are not only directly providing these services and saving lives locally, we are seeding programs in other cities and legislating new funding streams to keep them viable.
Leadership
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Anne Marks
Executive Director
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Kyndra Simmons
Intervention DIrector
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Glen Upshaw
Lead Interrupter