When a victim of gun violence arrives at the University of Chicago Medicine, Tierra Lemon’s mind starts to dart: Which part of the city are they coming from? Do I know someone there who can help?
As a violence recovery specialist providing support for patients, making these connections can create a support network that reduces a person’s chances of reinjury.
“Seeing someone come in from a particular neighborhood, it’s like a light bulb,” said Lemon, a native of Chicago’s South Side. “I’ve been building relationships, and I have a resource for them.”
Such moments are the result of her participation in the Metropolitan Peace Academy, an 18-week, 144-hour program that focuses on trauma-informed services and the principles of restorative justice.
The Peace Academy has helped Lemon — who graduated from the program in January — better understand the work of street outreach and the network of organizations that exists across Chicago, especially on the West and South Sides that are home to much of the city’s Black and brown populations.
Street outreach workers are people with a “license to operate” in their neighborhoods — in other words, the relationships and credibility to intervene in disputes before they turn violent. The individuals vary in age but all have experience desisting from violent responses to conflict.
“These men and women have lived that life,” said Franklin Cosey-Gay, PhD, MPH, director of UChicago Medicine’s Violence Recovery Program. “They’re not asking individuals to make changes they haven’t made themselves.”
Lemon added: “Knowing what street outreach workers do has helped me do my work in a more beneficial way.”
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This story was first published by UChicago Medicine.
