Columbia City Council to vote on $21,000 mental health training contract
Haley Swaino
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The Columbia City Council is set to vote on a $21,000 contract with TMT Consulting on Monday to provide six trauma-informed and community mental health training sessions across the city.
The initiative aims to address the root causes of violence using data from past consulting work and 911 call patterns.
“We’re trying to really see root causes to violence, mitigate it, disrupt it, so that we can see prevention and intervention take root in these areas,” Office of Violence Prevention Administrator D’Markus Thomas-Brown said.
According to city documents, the two-hour sessions will focus on adverse childhood experiences, grief healing and trauma response.
“That’s going to bring education to residents who are living in areas that have had, you know, one gunshot or one traumatic, violent, traumatic encounter’s too much, but have had multiple,” Thomas-Brown said.
Training sessions will be held in four identified Neighborhood Opportunity and Community Accountability Proconsul areas, with the two remaining sessions held if demand exceeds capacity. Sessions will be held every other month until the limit of six is reached. Each session is limited to 30 participants.
Besides 911 call patterns, the city used an overlay with stressor mapping to identify where to hold sessions.
“Stressor mapping is those that don’t have access to a grocery store or fresh fruits and vegetables that we call a food desert,” Thomas-Brown said.
The city looked at other trends including income and crime.
“Community trends of those who are living at or below the poverty level, those who have kids at home who are at a certain age that are then they’re below or in that poverty level,” Thomas-Brown said. “Also those who have had certain calls and that tend to be violent calls, gunshots, robbery, different things in those maps overlaid together that then identify some of these areas.”
When he attended a training by TMT Consulting, he said he learned more about what the effects of violence can do to a community.
“What happens in a mile radius when a gunshot goes off. What happens with the communications, that child going to school and then how some of those kids are then vicarious trauma,” Thomas-Brown said.
He said brining this to Columbia could bring collaboration and healing that leads to less violence.
“There’s a quote from Malcolm X that says, ‘When I becomes we even illness becomes wellness.’ And that’s what this has the potential to help us get to. The same understanding of what we’re talking about with mental health, mental wellness and those things,” Thomas-Brown said.
Presentations given at the sessions aim to help participants understand and assess childhood trauma, teach them how trauma affects community behavior, provide them with tools to support those dealing with trauma and grief and encourage healing and long-term support.
Attendees will be taught about grief and loss while identifying personal losses through an “Adverse Childhood Experience assessment.”
Participants will practice identifying how adverse childhood experiences can influence how individuals respond and react within the community, and how the participant responds to various responses from those within the community, according to city documents.
“There’s just not one solution that fixes the issue,” Thomas-Brown said. “Yes, we need folks patrolling, but we also need those dealing with the root causes as well. The patrol doesn’t deal with the root cause, and if you just pick the fruit, it’s going to grow back.”
The first training session would be held in October.
Monday’s City Council Meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.
Check back for updates.