New Chicago mental health training aims to address residents' trauma
CHICAGO (CBS) – A new training initiative hopes to address gun violence in Chicago's underserved communities.
CBS 2's Steven Graves spoke to organizers about how the initiative works and how it could help residents and their neighbors.
The city's goal is to go into neighborhoods to address mental health, even if it starts out with a small group.
What may look like a childish game of tying pipe cleaners together is a way to find commonalities with classmates.
They're skills meant to help strengthen Yvonne Livingston's mental health practice on Chicago's West Side.
"As I began to do this work and to unravel the trauma, I had to first start in my own home," Livingston said. "Because that's where the trauma lived at."
Livingston has been shot at, been a victim of domestic violence and is raising children.
"Let's just face it, we don't have a lot of mental health professionals to deal with the magnitude of trauma that's in our community," she said.
She was one of about half a dozen people in the group meeting in Englewood to learn community mental health tactics.
"(It's) so they can act in moments where they haven't had the tools to act before," said Pharlone Toussant, of Center for Healing through Justice and Sport, a national organization.
The organization is working with the Chicago Department of Public Health in ten South and West Side neighborhoods with the highest rates of gun violence.
CHJS aims to use any type of physical activity to understand the brain and foster relationships, equipping people with tools to better understand the origins of gun violence and help redefine their communities.
"I think that's the hope of sport to a certain degree," Toussant said. "Right? You've got underdogs who come in and win. And for us, that's our ultimate belief, that the underdog is always going to have a chance as long as they continue to try."
That starts with people who want to break the stigma of getting help.
"Therapy should be free, honestly," Livingston said. "And since it's not, then they have me."
Livingston said in order to make this approach more effective, it's about availability and making sure residents can attend trainings on different days and times.
CDPH said it's working on possibly making classes available in the fall.
Registration is still open for future trainings.
Four cohorts are planned for Auburn Gresham, Chicago Lawn, Austin and West Humboldt Park, and West Pullman and Roseland.
For more information on the trainings, visit chjs.org/news/cscctrainings, then click on the "Community" link to be taken to Eventbrite for registration.