We spent the afternoon recently with our grantees at WellSpace health in Sacramento, who are on the front lines of this issue, working to save lives through their Hospital Violence Intervention Program (HVIP).
This month marks the second anniversary of the Parkland, Florida tragedy in which a teen gunman opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Seventeen people died that day, and 17 more were injured.
Violent injury has become one of the leading causes of death among young people. Every day, 21 children and teens (1-17) are shot in the U.S., according to Brady United Against Gun Violence.
In many of our communities, unfortunately, it is also a recurring event. Data from Youth ALIVE!, an Oakland-based public health agency, shows that when young victims are discharged from hospitals back to their communities without adequate support, more than 50 percent return to the hospital with a second violent injury; approximately 20 percent will die within five years.
Hospital-based programs that intervene in the cycle of youth violence have been shown effective in changing the lives of young patients. The CARESTAR Foundation has prioritized grantmaking support for a growing cohort of intervention programs that start at the bedside, during a window of opportunity when support for lifestyle changes can be initiated with an Intervention Specialist. This mentor connects victims and their families with new resources, and creates a care plan to prevent injury from reoccurring to the victim, or those they love, in the crossfire of retaliation. This guidance goes beyond hospitalization, through recovery.
According to Jodi Ravel, Program Officer at the CARESTAR Foundation,
“We are deeply concerned about injured youth treated in hospitals, and then discharged back to their communities without plans or support systems, since they are at very high risk of experiencing a more serious or even fatal re-injury. We are supporting HVIP programs across California to provide wrap-around resources and support to these youth starting at the hospital bedside, to help them change course, move on in productive ways, find their voices, and possibly even take on leadership opportunities in mentoring others.”
To that end, the CARESTAR Foundation recently created a multi-grant initiative to support hospital-based violence intervention programs, in San Francisco, Sacramento County, Oakland, and East Los Angeles. The grants are for general support and operations, enabling the programs to maintain high quality, ongoing services to patients and families, with emphasis on partnerships and connections between entities. Some funds will be used for increasing staff, and for support services such as mental health counseling. The funding amounts to $75,000 per year for each grantee, over three years.
“This is exactly the type of support that the CARESTAR Foundation was developed to provide,”
says CEO Tanir Ami.
“Preventing re-injury is one of our main goals. We are very excited to be collaborating with our grantees and the growing network of hospital-based violence intervention programs (HVIP) in California and nationally. Our networking is helping us all learn more from research and evaluation, leading to best practices, impacting policy, and developing sustainable funding.”
