January 22, 1997|By Brenda J. Buote | Brenda J. Buote,SUN STAFF
A partnership led by Johns Hopkins Hospital announced plans yesterday to provide mental health counseling for children in East Baltimore who are exposed to violent crime, in an attempt to break the cycle that transforms childhood victims into violent adults.
The program, to be launched this spring by Hopkins in collaboration with city police, will focus on the Eastern District -- a 4-square-mile area that includes some of the city's roughest neighborhoods, with high levels of street violence and domestic abuse.
"Trauma by exposure to violence results in a sort of emotional bleed," said Dr. James Lewis III, a clinical coordinator at Hopkins' East Baltimore Child Development Community Oriented Partnership Services. "This program is an attempt to stop that emotional bleed and begin the healing process."
The Child Development Community Policing program will pair therapists with veteran street officers.
Patrol officers will carry the electronic pager numbers of clinicians on 24-hour call at the child development center. When officers respond to a crime scene where children are victims of or witnesses to violence, they will page the center and a clinician will respond within minutes.
"This program gives us an opportunity to reach children when they are most vulnerable," said Officer Loretta Bolling, 44, who established the Eastern District's Domestic Violence Unit in October 1994.
A former patrol officer and five-year veteran of the department, Bolling said she sees at least 50 children each week who are exposed to violent situations. An average of 250 incidents of domestic abuse are reported in Eastern District each month, police records show.
"A lot of parents are in denial that the violence in their home affects their children," said Bolling's partner, Officer Sandra D. Redd. "And if we can't reach the parent, then it's difficult to reach the child."
"The children who see these events tend to have all sorts of symptoms," Lewis said. "Some children lose some of the developmental skills they had once mastered. They start wetting the bed or stop walking. Others become aggressive. They strike out in an attempt to control their environment.
The Hopkins program -- the only one of its kind in Baltimore -- is sponsored by the Baltimore Police Department and the East Baltimore Mental Health Partnership, which has on-site counselors in 19 East Baltimore schools. Funding for the program has not been secured.
Nevertheless, six police officers, including Bolling and Redd, and four mental health workers have volunteered to become participants. For four hours each week, they are in training -- conferring about the emotional condition of children who have been exposed to violence.
The Baltimore program is part of a nationwide effort. Similar programs have been established in Framingham, Mass.; Newark, N.J.; Buffalo, N.Y.; Portland, Ore.; Charlotte, N.C.; and Nashville, Tenn.
Pub Date: 1/22/97
