CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Two federal lawmakers from Illinois want to provide treatment for children who suffer traumatic events so they don’t wind up in a life of crime and drugs.Char Rivette, executive director of the Chicago Children’s Advocacy Center, said children who witness or experience violence, whether in the home or on the street, have a higher likelihood of turning to crime when they get older.
“Intervention does really change their life path and it’s an investment that’s not cheap, but what’s the alternative?” Rivette said.
Congressman Danny Davis said the legislation he and Senator Dick Durbin are proposing would provide treatment for that trauma, but that it’s going to take time and money.
“We don’t expect, as Senator Durbin just said, that we’re going to wave a magic wand nor do we believe that you’re going to police your way out of violence and crime," Davis said.Davis and Durbin said the RISE from Trauma Act will be introduced in Congress next week. RISE stands for Resilience, Investment, Support and Expansion.Sen. Durbin said society is changing to the point where mental illness is looked at differently.
“We’re growing up. We’re getting beyond the time when mental illness was viewed as a curse. We view it as it is, an illness to be treated successfully,” he said.Tuesday Nelson, 20, said she’s received help for trauma she’s experienced and that, “they calm me down. He showed me ways to get things off your chest, you don’t always got to go the wrong way.”Pastor Chris Harris of Bright Star Church in Bronzeville said it all boils down to, “hurting people tend to hurt people and that’s why we tend to have this vicious cycle of violence.”Rivette said the Children’s Advocacy Center serves 2,500 young people each year, mostly children who have suffered sexual abuse. Often, she adds, police “will bring a child here that witnessed a murder, that witnessed domestic violence, witnessed an older or younger child being abused. So, our job is to immediately wrap services around that child.”
She said the center’s job is to make sure the child is not further traumatize by the system that’s supposed to help.Studies have found that 35 million children have had at least one traumatic experience and that nearly two-thirds of children have been exposed to violence.Senator Durbin said that during a visit he made years ago to the Cook County Juvenile Detention facility, he was told that 92 percent of those young people locked up had been the victims of trauma or had been exposed to it.Senator Durbin said Republican Senator Shelly Moore Capito of West Virginia will co-sponsor the legislation.Among the provisions of the proposed legislation:
- Increased funding for the Health Resources and Services Administration’s National Health Corps loan repayment plan, in order to recruit more mental health clinicians;
- Enhanced federal training programs at Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Justice and the U-S Department of Education to provide more tools for early childhood clinicians, teachers, first responders and certain community leaders;
- Creates a new HHS grant program to support hospital-based trauma interventions, such as for patients who suffer violent injuries, in order to address mental health needs, prevent re-injury and improve long-term outcomes;
- And creates a new HHS program to monitor and enforce health insurance parity requirements for coverage of youth mental health services.
