The Stand
I pray this email finds you in good health. The purpose of this correspondence is to express a few issues I take with the article recently published (“Surviving Trauma,” October 2016).
I feel that it is important to clarify that the crisis plan implemented at Dr. King was the result of what was gathered from participants’ overwhelming response on what they believed was needed to help them grieve and be successful in school; they needed a process to grieve.
Also, the plan was initially started during this past year’s summer school program after a young man was murdered in the tenement houses adjacent to the school. As the administrator of that program, the crisis plan was implemented with my team at that time. The intent this year is to implement the same crisis plan schoolwide.
Secondly, you place Kate in the middle of a feature article on me. The information she offers is valuable, but personally I believe it should have been a stand-alone article, as the trauma being addressed with our students is specific to neighborhood violence. The article reads as if she is attached to the work I’m doing; she’s not. I am aware of her work, but the Trauma Response Team and Street Addiction Institute, Inc., directly work with us at Dr. King addressing neighborhood trauma.
It is important to acknowledge current organizations we work with.
For the integrity of the article, I do believe that the above concerns need to be clarified.
Respectfully,
Najah
