Our Opportunity 2 Love + Heal, We Wear Orange Event 2024
Statement in response to Reynolds Shooting
Meeting The Current Moment: Support Community-Led Solutions to Prevent Violence and Heal Together
Our hearts break to hear of another incident of gun violence at one of our Winston-Salem schools. Our thoughts, prayers, and support are with the young man, who we have close proximity to through our partnership with Full Circle Mentoring (FCM). This young man has come a long way thanks to the work of our mentors and advocates. He is an aspiring basketball player, who participated in FCM’s community basketball league, and currently competes on local AAU teams. He is an example of what can happen when people from the community are equipped with the resources they need to work with young people in the community who are most impacted by the inequities that we are striving together to change.
We know that inequities in education, economic opportunities, housing, healthcare, food security, and transportation are deeply rooted in generations of practices that were designed to privilege the few to the disadvantage of the many. Our school district invests millions of dollars in metal detectors and school resource officers, and yet these shootings still happen. The failed practices of the past – blaming parents, expecting police officers and educators to be social workers and mental health care professionals, and admonishing poor people to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” – will only ensure that these inequities persist. We have to do something different if we want to see different results!
Locally, we have examples of this “different” work being done daily in partnerships such as We Heal Together (a collaborative between Action4Equity, Crossnore’s Center for Trauma Resilient Communities, and Forsyth Futures), My Brothers Keeper Winston-Salem (part of the national MBK Alliance and inclusive of leaders from city government, the school district, Winston-Salem State University, Love Literacy, Crosby Scholars, Crossnore Communities for Children, Triad Restorative Justice (TRJ), School Justice Partnership, and Parenting Path), and an entire school district department dedicated to implementing trauma-informed / healing centered support initiatives. The district-based Cares Beyond Coaching Program and the volunteer mentoring partnership with the local chapter of Big Brothers Big Sisters are two more examples of targeted interventions. Also the Our Opportunity 2 Love + Heal Coalition, working to prevent community violence.
The reality remains, however, that these efforts are only reaching a small fraction of those young people and families who desperately need the support because the work is under-funded and under-resourced. In the schools where restorative practices are present, long-standing conflicts – like the one which may have led to Tuesday’s shooting – are being resolved, and unmet needs are being addressed; furthermore, data from other communities plagued by similar violence have shown that implementing restorative practices can lead to substantial reductions in student arrests for violent offenses.
We need the resources to plant these restorative initiatives in every single school!
In these moments of trauma and outrage, some are quick to look for scapegoats, especially on social media platforms where the tyranny of misinformation often prevails. Instead, we implore every member of our community who cares about our youth to volunteer for one of the initiatives listed above, and invest their rhetoric in facts, such as these:
- The Juvenile Crime Prevention Council – which supports interventions by community based organizations TRJ, Parenting Path, YWCA Teen Court, Family Services and others – is perpetually underfunded by the same North Carolina State Legislature that continues to rebuke calls to fully fund our public schools according to the Leandro plan;
- The Forsyth County Board of Commissioners has for the past two years refused to fully fund the budget request submitted by the school district, creating a barrier to expanding effective behavioral support services;
Additionally, there are resources available through the state and federal Offices of Gun Violence Prevention. We have the answers to the problems that plague our communities. Now we must organize together to participate in solutions, and advocate for the investment and policies that will support these practices and save our youth. Together, we can provide greater support to the work that actually addresses the root causes of violence, targets unmet needs, and increases a sense of belonging and community in order to combat the social alienation and isolation that leads to conflict.
If you are ready to be a part of the solution, take five minutes to complete this form, so that we can include you in planning for the next steps that we need to take as a people committed to creating a more just and equitable society.
