As a part of our ongoing policy work in rural eastern North Carolina, we hold monthly sessions in which we listen to our community to identify priority issues and then fuse community knowledge, international best practices, and local connections to solve them.

In March’s session we delved into ROI’s newest initiative working with Rocky Mount Police Department (RMPD) to combat the school to prison pipeline. As a part of our discussion, we outlined five key areas of community access that we’ve presented in our grant proposal to Rocky Mount City Council. The five areas are as follows: hospital-based violence intervention, group violence intervention, mental and behavioral health interventions, violence reduction councils, and trauma informed training.

Hospital-based Violence Intervention

• We discussed the desire to have dedicated case managers in Nash Hospital to provide support to victims and families to reduce the risk of reentering the cycle of violence
  • One participant described potential solutions to hospital lockdowns due to violence and how to remove barriers to care for victims and families.

Group Violence Intervention

• To reach youth at their level, ROI hopes to facilitate meetings at schools and other community locations for at risk individuals and groups to provide services and information without the consequences of potentially being involved in violence
  • We highlighted the benefits of having personalized action plans for youth and reputable community members and law enforcement at meetings.
  • Participants discussed potential community partnerships such as the community service program through the Boys and Girls Club and Edgecombe schools’ Parent Resource Center.

Mental and Behavioral Health Interventions

• Here, ROI will work with existing community-based organizations and healthcare providers to provide counseling, resilience building and restorative practices at schools, wraparound services such as finding a job, education, etc.
  • Members outlined transportation as one of the largest barriers to care, with one participant proposing healthcare providers contracting with schools to come in weekly to provide their services.
  • Additionally, participants emphasized the importance of proactive mental health care in elementary and middle schools to prevent future behavioral concerns in high school saying, “I just don’t want to wait until they’re in high school and say, oh, we’ve got a problem and we’re reacting.”

Violence Reduction Councils

• We deliberated how ROI could best work with RMPD to establish a violence reduction council which would represent stakeholders like schools and hospitals

Trauma Informed Training

• Modeling off current trauma informed training with school resource officers and MPD hospital staff, we discussed potential delivery methods of trauma informed training.
  • To reach as many people as possible, participants discussed the prospect of using a peer support model to deliver training.