An opportunity to do more to help victims of violence

In June of 2024 20-year-old Quanajia “Q” Riggs-Reed was shot six times while walking to the store. Her extensive wounds were treated at the Trauma Center at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where she spent three days recovering from surgeries that removed the bullets and repaired injuries to her legs.

When she first woke up after her procedures, some of the first hospital staff she met were a psychiatrist and a violence recovery specialist from the Penn Trauma Violence Recovery Program (PTVRP).

“They introduced themselves and asked if I wanted any mental health services,” Riggs-Reed recalled. “I accepted with open arms.”

More than a year later, Riggs-Reed’s injuries have healed, and she has rebuilt her life after the shooting. She works at Eddie’s House in Philadelphia, and recently moved into her own apartment. She remains in regular contact with Rodney Babb, MSW, Lead Violence Recovery Specialist with the PTVRP.

“We text back and forth all the time,” she said. “They helped with everything: transportation to physical therapy, they got me set up with talk therapy, they helped me find my job, they even provided me with the deposit for my new apartment. I am so grateful for them.”

This month, a Pennsylvania state grant program invested $3 million into hospital violence intervention programs across the Commonwealth, including the one at Penn that helped Riggs-Reed. Lieutenant Governor Austin Davis announced the funding at a press conference held Dec. 11 at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.

“Our program simply would not exist without the support from the Commonwealth,” said Elinore Kaufman, MD, MSHP, an assistant professor of Surgery in the Division of Trauma, and Medical Director for the PTVRP. “We are so fortunate that with the investment from PCCD we have been able to build partnerships here in Penn Medicine and with funders and community partners throughout the region to continue to grow our program to meet the needs of our community.”

Founded in 2021, the Penn Trauma Violence Recovery Program is a hospital-based violence intervention program that provides support to survivors of violent injury—like gunshot wound or stabbing—that goes beyond medical care. The program was initially funded by a grant from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD), which is also the funder of the newly announced $3 million in statewide grants.

“We started the Penn Trauma Violence Recovery Program because we heard from community members, organizations, and patients, that they needed more. That the level of physical and psychological trauma in Philadelphia communities was just too high,” said Kaufman in remarks at the press conference.

The program provides a familiar face, a listening ear, psychosocial support and the case management services that patients need to connect them to resources that can address their holistic needs—help navigating the medical system after discharge, and just as importantly, help getting back to school, getting job training, getting top-notch mental health care, getting housing and relocation which so many patients need for safety. 

“When I care for a patient injured by gunshots, my goal, along with my clinical team, is to repair physical damage: to use all the resources and skills that we have at Penn Trauma to transform life threatening injuries into something that can heal,” Kaufman said. “Success for me is a clean operation, an uneventful medical recovery, and a patient who can walk out of the hospital: discharged home.

“But for so many of our patients, discharge home is not success if their home isn’t safe because the shooter knows where they live. If they can’t keep the lights on because the electric bill is too high. If their injury put them out of work and now they are behind on rent and at risk of eviction. If they have nightmares and flashbacks and don’t feel safe leaving the house. If they can’t get to their follow-up appointments because they have no transportation. And on and on, because gun violence is a structurally determined health problem that, like asthma, strokes, and so many health problems, is concentrated in social disadvantaged communities. The reality is that many of our patients were struggling before they got hurt, but the experience of injury only makes it worse. And unfortunately we see those results when our patients come back to the office and are struggling, or worse, when they come back to the trauma bay because they got hurt again.”

With the support of funders like PCCD, the PTVRP has continued to expand the services it provides and reach more patients. The program has grown from one to four violence recovery specialists, and has extended their already extensive list of resources to help patients ease the burden of their injury through mental health counseling, access to physical therapy, transportation to appointments, and can even provide rent assistance, like providing funds for a deposit on a new apartment for Riggs-Reed.

Since 2021, the PTVRP has connected with more than 835 patients, enrolled 259 patients in long-term violence recovery services, made over 500 referrals to essential services and community resources, and provided more than 550 therapy sessions.

The new round of funding announced this month will allow the PTVRP to increase its community presence and amp up mental health programming. This funding continues to support bringing therapists into the hospital to meet with patients and to work with them in a sustained way after discharge.

“You can do all the physical therapy in the world, but if you’re not also taking care of your mental health, you’re not going to fully recover,” said Babb, underscoring the critical need for mental health services after a violent injury.

Together with partners from the Lincoln Center and the Chester County Coalition, who also received PCCD funding, the PTVRP will be able to broaden programs and focus on patients from Delaware County, who no longer have a trauma center—to make sure that these patients don’t slip through the cracks, and can get the services they need.

“When a patient comes to see us—even when they never wanted to—I believe it’s an opportunity,” said Kaufman. “It’s an opportunity to address the injury that brought them in, but I like to think it’s an opportunity to do a little bit more—to help them heal, to help make their life a little bit better, to help prevent the next injury, and to help make our community a little bit stronger.”