Posted on 01/14/20
| News Source: WBAL
The Baltimore City Council voted in support of the Elijah Cummings Healing City Act, which is intended to address the trauma faced by young people in the city, on its second reading.
The bill, sponsored by councilman Zeke Cohen, would establish a "Trauma-Informed Care Task Force" to train city employees to help them identify the signs of trauma and how to properly respond to it.
"We are living in a city where people murder mothers in front of their children," Cohen said at a press conference following the council meeting. "The trauma those children have endured will only get worse."
Over 55% of children in Baltimore have witnessed significant types of trauma, Cohen told WBAL-TV 11.
If this trauma goes unaddressed, the possibility of the young person becoming an offender or victim of violence increases, Cohen said.
As part of the bill, city agencies would be required to readdress their policies in efforts to reduce re-traumatization.
"It goes beyond the physical wounds caused by the bullet," Maryland State Director of Doctors for America Justin Lowenthal said at the press conference. "Trauma reverberates and ricochets through families and through communities, affecting how people interact with one another and are free, or not, to experience their daily lives."
Doctors and teachers at the press conference said trauma is seriously impacting the lives of students and residents of Baltimore City.
Frederick Douglass High School senior Damani Thomas and other students were part of the inspiration for the Elijah Cummings Healing City Act, WBAL-TV 11 reports.
Thomas was present at school when a visitor shot a staff member on Feb. 10, 2019. Read more at WBAL