The leadership team of Operation 2 Save Lives & QRT National is pleased to announce a new partnership with the West Virginia Center for Children’s Justice to expand the reach of the Center’s Handle With Care (HWC) initiative.
The HWC model promotes safe and supportive homes, schools and communities that protect children, and help traumatized children heal and thrive.
According to the West Virginia Center for Children’s Justice, a recent national survey of the incidence and prevalence of children’s exposure to violence and trauma revealed that 60% of American children have been exposed to violence, crime or abuse. Prolonged exposure to violence and trauma can seriously undermine children’s ability to focus, behave appropriately and learn. It often leads to school failure, truancy, suspension or expulsion, dropping out, or involvement in the juvenile justice system.
HWC supports school-community partnerships aimed at ensuring that children who are exposed to trauma in their home, school or community receive the appropriate interventions to help them achieve academically at their highest levels, despite whatever traumatic circumstances they may have endured.
The Handle With Care model allows first responders to collaborate with their school partners to address the needs of children who may have experienced trauma so that they are “Handled with Care.” When first responders respond to an incident where a school-aged child may have been a victim or a witness, they notify the school of the child’s name and advise the school to “handle with care.” No further information is shared, however teachers and staff are then able to monitor the affected child and prepare to offer additional support or referrals for additional services as needed.
Through the new partnership, O2SL & QRT National will serve as ambassadors of the HWC initiative by helping communities, states and sites learn and integrate HWC as part of a whole-system approach to trauma-informed responses. As part of deflection training, O2SL & QRT National will also introduce the HWC model as another complementary initiative for agencies to build into their community health planning.
The HWC model was co-founded by Andrea Darr of the West Virginia State Police in 2011 and piloted in Charleston, West Virginia in 2013. Darr currently serves as Director for the West Virginia Center for Children’s Justice.
In 2011, Darr and her team received trauma-informed training from Edward Jacoubs, who is now a O2SL & QRT National instructor and assisted in the development of HWC. O2SL & QRT National Chief Operating Officer Scott Allen and Vice President of Business Development Mike Botieri also implemented the HWC initiative within their Massachusetts police departments and partnering schools districts as police chiefs.
“Both Mike and I have seen the immense value of the Handle With Care initiative in the communities we served, and the capability it gives first responders and school partners to provide the proper care and resources to children experiencing trauma,” Allen said. “We are looking forward to collaborating with the West Virginia Center for Children’s Justice and sharing the mission of the HWC initiative with the communities we work with across the country.”
“Our team at Handle With Care (HWC) is excited to collaborate with our friends at O2SL & QRT National, who have been and will continue to be ambassadors for HWC as they engage with communities across the nation in addressing community health needs through their outreach, QRTs, trauma-informed responses, and non-arrest pathway initiatives,” Director Darr said. “We see HWC as the Quick Response Teams for juveniles, integrating and complementing the O2SL & QRT National efforts that are being practiced in communities across the country. It is our hope that wherever there is an Outreach initiative and/or QRT, HWC will be integrated and vice versa.”
O2SL & QRT National is working with Outreach, QRTs nationally in Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, Missouri and other states where Handle With Care models are implemented. To learn more about the Handle With Care initiative, click here.
About the program:
Components of the Handle With Care program were developed with guidance and technical assistance from the Massachusetts Advocates for Children: Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative, in collaboration with Harvard Law School and the Task Force on Children Affected by Domestic Violence. The West Virginia Center for Children’s Justice Special also recognizes Joe Ristuccia, Ed.M., co-author of Helping Traumatized Children Learn, Edward Jacoubs with the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office in Brockton, MA, and Huntington, WV community activist and volunteer Leon White.
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