2021 COMBAT Mid-Year Funding: $41,054.00

In Mattie Rhodes Center's Own Words

Violence is traumatic and disproportionately affects those living in low-income, disinvested neighborhoods. Mattie Rhodes Center VIP program is guided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s framework for violence preventions: The Social-Ecological Model. This model reflects the complex interplay between individual, relationship, community, and societal factors and the necessity to act across multiple levels to reduce and prevent violence.

The goal of these supports is to assist youth and families in making significant changes in their behavior to stop the cycle of violence, seek supportive/ intervention services,   prevent youth from engaging in future acts of violence resulting in long-term and widespread changes in the Northeast community, resulting in significant, and lasting effects.

 There is a distinct correlation between domestic violence and level of income, the lower the income, the higher the prevalence of domestic violence. When poverty and domestic violence intertwine, the consequences for a family in poverty can be devastating.

Unfortunately, poverty and economic hardship often increase intimate partner violent behaviors. Intimate partners who otherwise would keep their violent tendencies self-regulated, crack under pressure, and violent behaviors are expressed through both mental and physical violence. There is undoubtedly a link between poverty and violence, but to imply that reducing violence is necessary to reduce poverty is backward. Violence does not cause poverty. Violence is a symptom of poverty.

The COVID-19 pandemic has added pressure to families in poverty already suffering economic hardship. Children from low-income families have most acutely felt the disruptions to daily life, the associated stresses of lives on pause. Many of them live in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods, plagued by a rise in gun violence, and disproportionately high coronavirus infection rates.

While most children bounce back from isolation and remote learning, childhood development experts said, those growing up amid other adversities like domestic violence, abuse, and poverty are struggling to cope and face greater obstacles in recovering.

The historic Northeast community has suffered since the economic downturn in the mid to late 20th century, as white affluent populations moved from the city to suburbs. This shift began the pattern of decline and disinvestment, poverty, crime, and blight resulting in poor health outcomes.

On a scale of one to five, with five being the worst, and based on the area’s social determinants of health, kchealthmatters.org gave the historic Northeast community a five. Families have a median household income of $27,887, and for some, their income dips below $20,000. Prior to the pandemic, 37% of children in the historic Northeast lived in poverty—nearly three times the state average and twice over the national average.

Studies indicate that children who grow up in violent households may exhibit a host of adverse behaviors and emotions, including becoming violent themselves, develop eating disorders, suffer from anxiety, depression, poor social skills, and drug and alcohol abuse. Even in situations where children are not the direct recipients of violence and abuse, they are still victims of its toxic presence. Violence is learned from society and/or in the home.

Violence is traumatic and disproportionately affects those living in low-income, disinvested neighborhoods. Based on data released from the “Jackson County COMBAT report,” the Northeast community is one of 19 areas of interest, marked for violence prevention and intervention. The added component of a behavioral therapist to the VIP Program will assist in meeting the needs of youth exposed to violence in the home and/or community.