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https://reasonstobecheerful.world/in-baltimore-healing-trauma-is-now-official-policy/>
"In the year since Donna Bruce started working at the Baltimore public
library’s Penn North branch, she has connected more than 400 visitors to
housing programs, food assistance and substance abuse recovery options — and
saved a man from dying of a drug overdose by administering the emergency
treatment Narcan.
Poverty is pervasive in the neighborhoods around the Penn North library, and
many people come in simply looking for heat or shelter. Bruce is leading a team
of “peer navigators” in the library system trained to provide trauma-informed
engagement and support to the public.
“It takes me back,” she says, remembering the moment the man collapsed. “I get
emotional, because if the peer navigator program wasn’t here, if Narcan wasn’t
here, I don’t know what would have happened to him.”
All navigators have personal experience with mental health challenges or
substance abuse disorders and act as role models in the community.
After her mother died, Bruce experienced a mental health crisis that led to a
substance abuse disorder. “I’m also a hairstylist … and people sit in my chair
and get their hair done, and I hear so much trauma, but they don’t understand
that they have been traumatized,” she says. “A lot of the time people say,
‘What did you do?’ instead of ‘What happened to you?’ When we begin to look at
what happened to a person, we can address those issues better, and that person
can understand and heal.”
Peer Navigators is the first city agency program that owes part of its origin
story to Baltimore’s 2020 Elijah Cummings Healing City Act. The goal of the
groundbreaking legislation is to help departments reckon with and change
policies that have caused — and continue to cause — trauma, while charting a
new path rooted in healing."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
