| AKRON, Ohio, August 13, 2002 -The
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has awarded a $500,000 grant to Children's Hospital Medical
Center of Akron to launch the Summit County Children Who Witness Violence Program. |
A collaboration of Children's Hospital's Department of Adolescent Services and 28
community partners, the program will offer immediate home-based crisis intervention and
trauma support services for children ages birth to 17 who witness domestic violence in
Summit County.The four-year grant is being made
through the Foundation's Local Initiative Funding Partners program. The grant is
contingent on gathering local funding resources to match dollar-for-dollar the amount of
the grant. The area matching partners for the first year of funding are: Akron Children's
Hospital Foundation, Akron Community Foundation, Akron Police Department, American Medical
Association Fund for Better Health, Barberton Community Foundation, Christ Child Society,
Tuscora |
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| Mayor Don Plusquellic holds his
weekly news conference at Children's Hospital Medical Center of Akron to announce the awarding
of a $500,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Hospital CEO Bill Considine and
Iris Meltzer, administrative director for Adolescent Health join the mayor for his news
conference in the Roger Sherman Auditorium. |
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| Park Health and Wellness
Foundation, City of Akron, Junior League, Ohio Attorney General, Sisler McFawn Foundation,
Summit County Medical Alliance, Summit County Sheriff, and an anonymous donor. |
The goal of the program is to help decrease the damaging
effects of aggression, hypersensitivity, delinquency, bed wetting, nightmares, depression,
low frustration tolerance, isolation, anxiety, mistrust and low self esteem that may
result when children witness violence in their homes.
Iris Meltzer, administrative director of the Center for Adolescent Health at Children's
Hospital, said the Children Who Witness Violence Program also aims to stop the cycle of
domestic abuse that occurs over generations.
"Studies show that 82 percent of men convicted of domestic violence were
themselves victims or witnesses in childhood," Meltzer said. "If we can offer
these children counseling and support at the time of the abuse, we hope to reduce the
likelihood of repetition and continued victimization."
Services will be provided by four teams of two crisis intervention specialists. Two of
the teams will be based at the Battered Women's Shelter and two teams at the Summit County
Victim Assistance Program. Crisis intervention teams will be dispatched within 30 minutes
of the referral call by police officers responding to a call in which children have
witnessed violence.
The program expects to serve 200 Summit County families and 400 children in year one
(beginning in August), and 300 families and 600 children in subsequent years.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, based in Princeton, NJ, is the nation's largest
philanthropy devoted exclusively to health and health care. It concentrates its
grant-making in four goal areas: to assure that all Americans have access to basic health
care at reasonable cost; to improve care and support for people with chronic health
conditions; to promote healthy communities and lifestyles; and to reduce the personal,
social and economic harm caused by substance abuse - tobacco, alcohol and illicit drugs.
Children's Hospital Medical Center of Akron is one of the largest pediatric hospitals
in the country. Caring for more than 300,000 inpatients and outpatients annually, the
Hospital is the area's largest regional pediatric center and houses the regional burn
center and pediatric trauma center for 2.5 million people over a 17-county area.
