In the District of Columbia, there is an interesting trend emerging. While the homicide rates have indeed been increasing, the level of violent crime has been decreasing…but how can that be? Surely more violent crime would lead to more homicides, right? Not necessarily, and in DC, quite the opposite it seems! The reason for this is something called “lethality”.
 
People who get shot don’t always die. Many survivors of actual gun shot wounds live on, some uninterrupted by the tragedy that befell them. Of course, many instances occur in which people have physical ailments for the rest of their lives due to the wounds inflicted upon them. A bullet in the spine will likely leave a person paralyzed. A bullet in the brain may lead to brain damage. But without the victim dying, it is not a homicide, but a violent assault and attempted homicide instead.
 
If you divide the homicide rate by the total incident rate, you get a measure of the “lethality” of the incidents. That is, the probability that a gun related violent assault will lead to death. This metric has been unusually high in DC over the past year. The equation would look something like this:
 
Lethality = Homicides/Overall Assault with a dangerous weapon
              = Homicides/(Homicides + Assault with a dangerous weapon)
 
Comparing the statistics from 2017 and 2018 we see an interesting change.

Recently, Kenny Barnes Sr. was featured in an emotionally charged article in the Washington City Paper about the parents of gun violence victims,

[https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/news/article/21043591/as-homicides-continue-to-rise-in-dc-parents-of-gun-violence-victims-reflect-on-open-wounds]

(Special thanks to Candace Montague for her reporting and Darrow Montgomery for his photography).

After his son, Kenny Barnes Jr. was shot and killed at his U Street Boutique in Northwest DC, Barnes Sr took his formal education in Psychology to use by trying to put an end to gun violence. He felt that the way to find the solution was to “Reach Out to Others Together” in order to find the ROOT Causes of the problem. Of the things he discovered on his 16 years journey into activism is that uplifting the local community and empowering stakeholders to feel a sense of cooperation, justice, and fairness, is essential in maintaining the health of the public. His past as led him to his definition of the present, that there is clearly a path to peace in the streets and in our schools, and it comes from the same warmth of unity that intrinsically binds us all.
 
Currently, Mr. Barnes and myself are working with The Collaborative to Improve Youth/Police Relations Through Prevention Science, a project combining one of the top public health research institutions in George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health and one of the largest professional law enforcement groups in National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) to study the interactions between police and youth. This research has a chance to clarify the problem of inner-city violence in the context of the relationships between law enforcement and the communities they serve. This represents Kenny Barnes Sr. current state of action, with the focal point of the study being Wards 7 and 8, where 65% of the homicides in Washington DC occurred in the last year, 2018.  
 
In the future, the Mr. Barnes and I would like to expand the project into the other Wards (and other cities) and find ways of communicating the central message of getting to the ROOT Causes of the scourge of violence that has risen in major east coast cities since 2015. We hope this future will see serious progress in the realm of instituting a public health model to combat gun violence, as it has worked well in cities like Chicago and Glasgow. When people worked together to solve problems, we all win!

The act of killing oneself, it appears, has become more American than ever, with people from the US committing the act year over year at higher rates, while global rates are declining. According to an article by The Economist, global suicide rates have declined 29% since the year 2000. Most notably, countries like China and India have seen fewer young women kill themselves, as well as in Russia, where middle-aged and older men are committing the act at a much lower rate. During the same time period, suicide rates in the United States have risen 18%.
                                                        
            https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/11/30/why-the-global-suicide-rate-is-falling
 
How odd is it that the international rates would fall at the same time as the national rate increases? It is much like homicides in Baltimore or Washington DC in that respect, where the local rates are increasing while the national rates are decreasing. These measures are extremely important when it comes to learning about what causes suicide and what can be done in the future to stop it from happening.
 
A quick look at some statistics tells us why and how we can focus in on the problem to solve it. Firstly, it is a male-dominated action, with men dying at a rate of almost 4 times that of women. However, more women attempt suicide than men by about 1.2 times. Many factors are associated with self-injury in general, including traumatic stress and poor economic conditions. This Wikipedia article gives a good break-down of the numbers in the US:
 
                                            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_the_United_States
 
The second important set of statistics involves Veterans of the US military, those brave men and women who fight to protect American interests overseas seem to be killing themselves at an ever-higher rate. The reasons are complex, but essentially boil down to this – as service-members witness atrocities, they develop traumatic stress, which, if left unattended, can persuade the Veteran to commit acts of self-destruction.
 
                                        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_veteran_suicide
 
It is interesting to note that the gender-gap for suicide diminishes with military service. Possibly because the success rates are higher for women who have more access to and knowledge of fire-arms.
 
It is the first day of 2019. A New Year. Let us take stock on how important and joyful life is. Let us take aim at preventing suicide. Let stopping suicide be an American Resolution. To learn more or donate to the cause, please visit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention website:
 
                                                                               https://afsp.org/

When a homicide occurs, the victim, having fallen to the ground, gets examined by professionals. A crime scene is blocked off, and detectives start to try to piece together the events that led to the loss of life. After some time, when the victim has been identified, their next of kin are contacted and given the horrific news. This was the call that ROOT, Inc. Founder and CEO Kenny Barnes, Sr. received after his son was shot and killed by a 17-year-old boy.
 
This year, 138 such heart-wrenching calls were attempted in the District of Columbia. 138 families have lost someone close to them, dealt with law enforcement to answer questions, arranged for memorial services, and grieved in their own way. In Baltimore, that number is 266…far too many troubling phone calls and news stories.
 
In the wake of a homicide, healing must come swift, and empowerment be the end goal. Such was the case for Kenny Barnes, Sr., who threw himself into the founding of ROOT, Inc. after finding out about his son’s murder. Armed with a knowledge of mental health and trained in Psychology (he has a Master of Science from the University of the District of Columbia), he formed relationships with key stakeholders to try to solve the problem of not just homicides, but suicides and genocides as well.
 
He helped develop and champion the program “Guns Aside” which offered pledge cards encouraging people to solve their disagreements peacefully. He spoke at many schools and community centers with the concrete message “Suicide, Homicide, Genocide, Guns Aside”. Efforts by community activists such as he and his cohorts have had a substantial effect. The murder rate in America has almost halved over the last two decades according to a report by the Office for Victims of Crime  
 
Still, there is much more work to be done. The trends in Washington D.C. and Baltimore have been different than the rest of the country. In these cities, and a few others like Chicago and St. Louis, there has been an increase in the number of homicides per capita. These tragic circumstances, fueled by the lack of trust in our public institutions, must be addressed quickly and effectively. For upon which the model of peace is created, its replication becomes inevitable. 

With the broadly circuitous progress of society, we have recently begun to observe a practice in which employers will grant their employees a “mental health” day. The meaning of this day is to help facilitate healing from mental exhaustion during a stressful period. Back in the days of old, you had to pretend you were physically ill, but now, at least at some companies, you can tell your boss you need some time off for you, and not be punished for it.
 
Have you ever taken a mental health day? What was the response of your coworkers? It may range from outright disapproval to a sincere congratulations. But either way, the conversation on mental health has been challenged a lot recently, and an understanding that anyone can have problems with their mental health is commonplace. Physical health and mental health are more frequently equated in terms of their ubiquity. After all, every gets a cold, right?
 
            Here is a great article from Psychology Today about when to take a mental health day.
 
Mental illness is a different story. Mental illness comes with a diagnosis. Not everyone is mentally ill. Only when symptoms manifest over a long period of time do people seek out a professional diagnosis. Sometimes, it renders its host mostly disabled and likely requiring of assistance. Mental illness usually requires medication. There are anti-depressants, anti-anxiety, anti-psychotics, and mood stabilizers. Hospitalization occurs. Insurance is sought.
 
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), approximately 1 out of every 5 Americans deals with Mental Illness a year.
 
            You can download fact sheets about the prevalence of mental illness in America here. 
 
We hear about them both so much now-a-days, and the distinction is quite subtle.  Mental health is something we all have. We are all data points on a spectrum of “completely functional” to “rock-bottom”, and our place on this spectrum changes depending on our environments and our habits. Genetics play a big part as well, because they can determine our responses to surroundings. Only when our mental health deteriorates to the point of needing health care do we cross the threshold into mental illness.

            Click here to find out more about the process of Mental Health Assessment from WebMD.
 
Of course, the main take away here is that whatever minute difference there are in the two phrases, we must understand that everyone suffers at some point. The brain is an organ just like the kidney or the lungs, and managing its health is an incredibly important step in a person’s all-around well-being. 

​Today is an important day. It’s the day I turn 33. This allows for a fair amount of self-reflection. You see, these are important numbers for us Hokies, my former age and my new one. 32 people were murdered on April 16th, 2007. But 33 people died. It is a small distinction numerically with a massive psychological difference. 32 people were murdered. 32 homicides in the span of about 9 minutes. 32 victims. 32 martyrs. 32 lifelong learners who were sacrificed. But 33 people died. 33 deaths in the span of about 9 minutes. 33 sons and daughters lost. 33 brothers and sisters perished.
 
Those who hurt others usually hurt themselves. It is the past-facing version of the Golden Rule, which is not just “do onto others as you would have done onto you” but also “you do onto others as has been done onto you”. Combined, they achieve a fuller story, the future and the past-facing remarks on the nature of actions towards each other.
 
33 then, feels to me to be the number of understanding and forgiveness. If we can understand the mind of the committers of these atrocious events, we can learn to adapt. And if we forgive, we can learn to prevent. This is what this year means to me, learning to prevent, in the names of the 33.

​Science is an amazing thing. Not only can it send us to the moon, develop treatments for cancer, and burgeon new technologies, but it can also systematically reduce violence of all kinds. This is the science of the Public Health approach to dealing with gun violence in urban areas and beyond. It contrasts with the traditional model of law enforcement and mass incarceration, which does not result in the reduction of violence, but merely satisfies the human urge for revenge and retribution.
 
The Public Health approach has been sweeping the country, with several instances of the same basic model of community engagement in places like New York and California. Imagine a holistic approach to reducing violence where mental and behavioral specialists work with government officials and members of law enforcement to engage with the community to positively impact the lives of those effected by violence. The results will speak for themselves: http://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/390501-gun-violence-is-a-disease-has-dc-found-a-solution
 
In our Nation’s Capital, an approach like this has already been used with tremendous success, and now it is being taken up with greater scope by the city government in the form of the Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results (NEAR) Act, which was passed unanimously in 2016. The status of its implementation is so far incomplete, but the progress being made is intent on longevity. The Safer, Stronger DC website has a great overview: https://saferstronger.dc.gov/page/near-act-safer-stronger-dc
 
It harkens back to ROOT, Inc.’s very own Community in Action program, that was developed to reduce violence with the help of the science of psychology. From some of our own literature: “The ROOT Inc. Community in Action/Guns Aside Initiative can provide a holistic approach by addressing the problem using a grassroots strategy of our Community in Action model. This entails engaging the community and developing alliances within the community to proactively promote a sense of stability within the community. The opportunities for the youth and their families to have access to recreational, youth-centered activities, mental health services, tutoring, mentoring, physical education, life skills development, substance abuse counseling, and other services foster a sense of empowerment.”  
 
To the ROOT causes of violence we go and soldier on until this terrible crisis of gun violence is eliminated.

One thing I have noticed in my research efforts around the issue of gun violence is how many good ideas there are out there. Ideas that verifiably make a positive impact on communities in the form of the programs that holster those ideas. One such idea is that of violence interruption, which has found success in Chicago, with the Cure Violence initiative (www.cureviolence.org), and in Baltimore with the Safe Streets program (https://health.baltimorecity.gov/safestreets). These programs leverage knowledgeable and caring community members against the scourge of street violence, and have shown marked success of reducing the frequency of shooting incidents. Both programs have seen fluctuations in funding due to the fact that they have to rely primarily on grants.
 
However, these two cases are ultimately success stories. Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh has secured over $5 million for the Safe Streets program through state and city funds and has a goal to increase the number of sites to ten. Cure Violence has expanded into cities such as Philadelphia and New York and claims a 70% violence reduction rate. They were also just ranked #10 NGO in the World by NGO Advisor (https://www.ngoadvisor.net/).
 
But while some initiatives gain success, other do not. Such is life in the realm of donations and grants, not all programs can sustain themselves through the chaos that comes with it. Two examples of youth-led organizations that have tried to improve relations between youth and police, and ultimately had to cease operation due to lack of funding are the New Lens project (http://www.newlens.info/about_new_lens.html) and the Inner Harbor Project (http://www.theinnerharborproject.org/), both from Baltimore City.
 
Ambitious in their scope and successful for a time, both programs relied on youth to be Peace Ambassadors in some sense, and to mediate conflicts before they get out of control. The Inner Harbor Project saw a sharp decrease in the number of arrests and incidents in the community they served. How can we help programs like these maintain their funding?
 
One simple answer is to educate ourselves about the programs that do exist, what their success rates are, and then who to communicate their successes with.

Happy Teacher Appreciation Day everyone! As we reflect on those who have made a lasting impact on every person ever, we ask ourselves, "How can we give back? We understand how caring and patient these folks are, how can we truly pass across our deep feeling of gratitude?"

This year has seen teachers strike in four different states (Kentucky, West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona). Why? Stagnating pay, loss of benefits, poor teaching conditions. To show our appreciation for teachers, we should begin by listening to their grievances and being honest about what we can should give to teachers in terms of salary and benefits. Luckily, a lot of data exists on the current situation state-by-state, and we can use this information to give feedback to different states about how well they treat their teachers, and even which teachers are more likely strike in the future given their tough situation. 

                                            Check out this article by The Brookings Institute to find out more!

                  Is your state on the list? They might have difficulty and need a small apple to make things better ;)

Ever wonder what shift is occurring in our schools to make it easier for students to deal with their Adverse Childhood Experiences or Adverse Community Environments (pair of ACEs)? After all, dealing with the ACEs of students helps to alleviate some of the strain of a violent past or environment and assists in breaking the traditional cycle of violence.

Trauma Informed Practices (or TIP) are practices for schools, public health initiatives, mental/behavioral health practices, youth services, and law enforcement to be able to coordinate with the knowledge of normally stigmatized traumas. Some of the practices they have put into place are:

1. Social and Emotional Learning Curriculum: People can experience trauma at any time in life, so being able to give youth the tools to deal with them in the context of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) is extremely important. This means curriculum for students and teachers alike. It also means that principals are given the tools to be able to enact practices according to their school's needs.

2. Peace Corner: a much better variant of wearing a dunce cap while sitting alone facing a wall, the "Peace Corner" is a place for students to go to to self-regulate their emotions. They may complete a short questionnaire where they circle which emotion they are feeling overwhelmed by and briefly explain why. This helps students recognize their emotions and develop strategies for managing them.

3. One-on-One Mentorship: sometimes that best resource is a person who has already been through it. Providing a mentor to each and every student is an incredibly valuable way to check in with kids on a regular basis. It helps inform staff about what is going on in the mind's of the students. It can also go a long way to making each student feel connected and reduce their risks of being victimized by violent behavior later on. 

4. Teacher Support: different methods for developing Social and Emotional Learning for teachers can also go a long way. If a teacher is feeling overwhelmed, they may act in an ill-advised manner toward their students or other teachers. Having staff support can help teachers feel confident that their actions towards students and co-workers will always be as positive as possible.
​
A great example comes from Fall Hamilton Elementary school in Nashville, TN: Click here to read and watch!