East St. Louis community leaders share trauma-informed plans to reduce youth violence

Residents, community leaders and teens in East St. Louis highlighted efforts to address youth trauma during a virtual gathering on Thursday night. The event, titled “Working Together for Youth,” informed listeners on how the community is working to eliminate systemic conditions that foster youth violence in East St. Louis.

The gathering was hosted by East Side Aligned, a movement that uses community collaboration to improve the lives of East St. Louis youth. Through videos and guest speakers, Thursday’s event shared results made through the implementation of East Side Aligned’s FIRST STOP plan, a solutions-based effort that uses trauma as a framework to explore violence in the community. East St. Louis has witnessed 34 murders so far this year.

“Youth are not to be blamed,” said Evan Krauss, director of East Side Aligned. “Violence is the result of structural racism, concentrated disadvantage and decades of oppression in a community that has led to inequitable conditions. So understanding the lens of what causes violence is our approach to address violence and aren’t maybe what one might think. You’re not going to see much from a law enforcement standpoint. We don’t look at law enforcement as the driving force to solve violence.”

“You also see things that people may not always connect to violence as that relates to the investments we’re making in early childhood, the investments in youth development overall.”

‘First stop’ to eliminating violence

Steps to achieve the FIRST STOP plan include building a trauma-informed community, fostering positive youth development, cultivating youth power, and interrupting youth violence. The plan was supported by a 2016 grant funded by the U.S. Department of Justice-Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

United Way of Greater St. Louis, which houses East Side Aligned, and the office of St. Clair County Board Chairman Mark Kern served as the plan’s lead partners.

“A lot of times (when) we all talk about plans and they sit on a shelf, but this one isn’t. This is a working effort that’s going on and it’s going to make a big difference,” Kern said during the event.

Other speakers of the event included Judge Zina Cruse, 20th Judicial Circuit; Dr. Tiffany Gholson, director of parent and student support services for East St. Louis School District 189; Wyvetta Granger, director of Community Life Line; and Juliana Stratton, Illinois Lieutenant Governor.

Stratton, who is Ilinois’ first Black woman lieutenant governor, said she was grateful that the East St. Louis community is dedicated to addressing the various traumas that youth experience.

“America is a country of both comfort and trauma, and unfortunately the one that you experience the most is far too often based on race,” Stratton said in her message to youth during the beginning of the event. “If you don’t feel safe in your neighborhood, that is trauma. If you don’t have enough to eat or a place to live, that is trauma. If you don’t have resources to do well in school, that’s trauma. If you are bullied, that’s trauma. If you don’t have a job, that is trauma, and if you are overworked and underpaid or if you been passed over a promotion that you know you deserve, that is trauma.”

“And if you ever have been arrested and can’t afford to make bail, that is trauma. And if you’ve ever been incarcerated, served your time and come back home to find that no one will give you a second chance, that is trauma. If you saw the George Floyd video, that is trauma. If you were angry or confused that there was no justice for Breonna Taylor, then that is trauma.”

Stratton stressed the importance of healing from systemic trauma. She applauded the work of East Side Aligned for being on the frontlines in supporting and uplifiting youth in East St. Louis.

“We can heal from trauma, but we have to talk to each other and support each other,” she said.

’The work is still happening’

As a part of the FIRST STOP plan, East St. Louis School District 189 offers social and emotional learning support services to students. The district’s efforts are focused on exploring reasons why a student may create conflict in classrooms instead of immediately punishing them for it.

For the 2019-2020 school year, some of the social emotional learning (SEL) efforts included 25 dedicated SEL staff across 10 schools, a district-wide SEL curriculum, and a peace warriors student group focused on reducing violence.

Gholson said the pandemic outlined the need for her team’s initiatives.

“COVID tried to throw a wrench in it, but actually I think it, in a lot of ways, strengthened the work that we’ve done,” Gholson said. “No. 1, I think it’s highlighted the importance of social emotional well-being of folks. We can’t be productive until our well-being is intact, at least not to the level that we want to, and I think that COVID has shown that.”

“I think in a lot of ways, the work has not stopped, and we’ve just changed the format of how it’s being presented. Just today, I was on a pre-K class, and they learned about what it takes to be a good neighbor and what neighborhood is and what’s in the neighborhood and identifying what they can show to be a good neighbor ... and so the work is still happening.”

Leaving Our Voices Everywhere (L.O.V.E.) is a youth leadership program that’s also included in East Side Aligned’s FIRST STOP plan. The group is focused on empowering youth voices in the East St. Louis community. Isaiah Haynes, a member of L.O.V.E., said being in the group has helped him to become an advocate for people to be successful.

“Whenever people younger than me ask for help with homework assignments or looking for advice, I always push them toward learning what they need and also learning what comes next,” Haynes said. “Whatever lesson they’re on, I always make sure they go into the next part of the lesson so that way they won’t be behind; they’ll be ahead. I push for people my age to start looking at the entrepreneurial positions because I want people to actually take charge of their own lives and their own financial situations.”

DaJuan Burton, another member of L.O.V.E., said engaging in the work has helped him to recognize that he enjoys pushing other people to be leaders instead of being in the front of an effort.

“I try to give 100% to everything I do,” Burton said. “I’m not a lead from the front type of person. I like to lead from the back, but it takes all kinds of forums — leadership does. Like, for me, leadership is me pushing others. I don’t really wanna be the face of a movement, but I like to push others, give advice and lead others instead of being out in the forefront.”

Join Hands ESL is another youth-driven organization involved in the FIRST STOP plan to reduce violence. The group is comprised of peace warriors who teach people in the community about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolent principles. JaMaya Bonner, one of the group’s peace warriors, said being in the group has helped her love her community more.

“We acknowledge that we all experience violence, but we’ve noticed how violence is more frequent and more fatal in our community,” Bonner said. “Also (because) our community being such a small space, it’s easier for everybody to relate to having had experienced violence. So looking at the six principles and even just reciting them every day through training, you can see a real change through teens. Especially at the end of the training, you can see that people have more love for the community and empathize with the community as well.”

Andra Lang, an alumnus of Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville and a co-chair of East Side Aligned, ended the event by urging everyone to dedicate more time to making lives better for children and teens in East St. Louis.

“I want to close by calling our community to increase their commitment to our youth, to advocate more boldly, invest more boldly, and do whatever is in our power to help build a community that’s equitable and just for our young people. Let’s do this together,” Lang said.

To see more results of East Side Aligned’s FIRST STOP plan, including videos and a progress report, click here.

This story was originally published November 13, 2020 at 5:30 AM.

DeAsia Paige

Belleville News-Democrat

DeAsia Paige joined the Belleville News-Democrat as a Report for America corps member in 2020. She’s a community reporter covering East St. Louis and surrounding areas. DeAsia previously interned with VICE and The Detroit Free Press. She graduated from The University of Kansas in 2020.