"Kaiser Permanente's community initiatives have focused on the health and well being of youth," said Kaiser Permanente President Chris Binkley. "Through the support we are providing the Kids Alive and Loved program, we hope to make a positive impact on the young people this program will touch. As a health-care provider, Kaiser Permanente understands that violence is a public health issue which must be addressed. We are pleased to support this worthwhile endeavor and are committed to making this program a continued success."
A non-profit organization, Kaiser Permanente is Georgia's largest health maintenance organization (HMO) providing comprehensive health care for more than 180,000 people in the metropolitan Atlanta area.
Specifically, Kaiser Perma-nente support is allowing KAL staff to mobilize a coalition of community-based mental health service outreach programs. Coalition experts will advise staff in developing workshops on grief, depression and loss for adult and youth survivors. KAL may now produce and disseminate print and electronic directories of violence prevention and mental health service providers in Atlanta.
The grant also supports the development of youth survivor training workshops on coping skills, conflict resolution and peer mediation, all intended to help survivors better manage anger -- and thus prevent violence.
KAL currently sponsors weekly support meetings at Crawford Long Hospital. The financial support from Kaiser Permanente will contribute toward designing a KAL Survivor Newsletter and establishing a speakers' bureau "to disseminate the violence prevention message in neighborhood, church and school forums," said Stephen B. Thomas, principal investigator of the KAL Program and director of the Minority Health Research Laboratory at the School of Public Health.
The Kaiser Permanente grant will be used to hire paid program staff for the campaign and to recruit at least 200 youth survivors of violence over the next two years.
"We believe that violence is a public health issue," said Thomas, associate professor of behavioral sciences and health education. "Resolving conflict with violence is a learned behavior and can therefore be unlearned. The KAL approach takes advantage of the credibility of survivors based on their life experiences. They can be trained to disseminate accurate information about violence prevention using the `each one teach one' peer education model. The immediate mental health needs of youth survivors must first be addressed. The purpose of KAL is to enact the
community-based outreach network needed to deliver mental health services and training to youth survivors of violence and their families."
-- Lorri Preston