By: Anya Carter & Deasy Huynh
November 20th, 2023The number of gun deaths and gun related crimes have declined over the past year, but every day you can turn on the news and see the most recent victim of a gun related incident whether it be gang related activity, robberies, or just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In fact, Philadelphia is ranked ninth on Drexel’s brief on Gun Deaths in Big Cities. Amidst this crisis, many organizations have come forward to provide information, aid the people most affected by tending to their mental health, and to make their complaints known.
CeaseFirePa is a gun control advocacy group that lends resources and information about gun violence to communities in Philadelphia. Their main goal is to bring people together to hold people in power responsible for all of the deaths caused by the lack of proper legislation against guns.
“We create policies and legislation so that people higher up and in legislation can pass bills to prevent people from getting firearms,” Roz Pichardo, CeaseFire’s “Invest in Safer Communities” Coordinator said. “To push more red flag laws so that people who shouldn't have a firearm, are not able to get them without passing these basic background checks.”
A vigil organized by Roz Pichardo to bring awareness to how essential gun control would be to making safer communities.
Pichardo has been affected by gun violence in the past, which in turn has inspired her to join groups against gun violence and start her own organization, "Operation Save Our City", a volunteer organization that supports families who've suffered from homicide. CeaseFire doesn’t restrict its outreach to just victims of things like homicide or assault, but also those that have been affected by suicide, a commonly understated result of poor gun laws.
“I think that we can prevent both suicides and community violence with civil background checks and simple gun laws to make it preventable for people to get these firearms,” Pichard says. “You need a license and registration to drive. Why wouldn’t you need a license and registration to get a firearm?”
Laws and legislation are a big step towards ending gun violence, and it takes a lot of convincing. In the meantime, there are many organizations that aid people who have lost loved ones, especially due to gun violence. The Uplift Center for Grieving Children in Philadelphia provides free therapeutic grief support groups for kids in Kindergarten all the way up to 12th grade. Their counseling is exclusively group therapy, with a focus on building a sense of comfort and unity among their young people.
“We think that grief is something that really lends itself well to processing it in a group space, because grief can be really isolating,” Katherine Streit, Uplift’s Associate Director of School Services & Professional Trainings said. “When we lose someone really profound in our life, our life kind of turns upside down and it can feel like we are all alone in it. And so it can be a real experience for kids and teens to come together with other people who have also experienced a really profound loss.”
Uplift works with schools to find students who may be suffering from any kind of loss, a large portion of which tend to be caused by gun violence in some way.
“We will partner with school counselors or school social workers who identify the students, and then we go into the school buildings during the school day and bring grief groups into the school because we know that kids and teens and families have a lot going on.” Streit says. Uplift also prides themselves with being available to Non-English speakers, providing young people with counselors trained in Spanish!
"Memory Frame" crafts done by students at Uplift to honestly remember the people that they've lost. "We are allowed to remember our people who have died forever. It’s also okay to remember them as the real, imperfect people they were. We don’t have to pretend they were perfect after they died," Katherine Streit said.
Lydia S., therapist recommended by Resources for Human Development.
Amongst more places intent on helping trauma victims, RHD (Resources for Human Development) is a social services agency that links people with multiple mental health agencies and grief centers. Agencies like Peter’s Place, a youth and family grief agency are listed in their resources, as well as Uplift. In Philly, the topic of gun violence comes up as a common issue, and so do the life-changing after effects.
“Some children exhibit erratic behaviors, they are disruptive, they're not compliant. They leave from the classroom, they leave from the school. They punched walls, things like that. And then you have some students who don't come to school for a while who are isolated and don't feel like being bothered,” Lydia S. said.
Sometimes people are left feeling like they don’t have many options when it comes to things like mental healthcare, or don’t know where to look. In regards to gun violence and grief, finding counseling that's just right for you is very important.
Gun violence continues to be an ever-present issue in Philadelphia. Many peoples’ lives have been affected by it in some way, and it’s truly a testament to human nature that people rise to the occasion and lend help to them! Whether you’ve lost a loved one to gang violence or suicide, there are plenty of groups that can assist you. There’s also plenty of organizations that want to put an end to gun violence, that do so by letting people in power know that their negligence won't stand. All of these contributions can limit the effects of gun violence significantly. We all deserve to live in a safe city that doesn’t allow this much loss to happen.
“I think the key is all of us sharing our stories of what kind of violence is done to us. I think we should be sharing and people have got to understand that nobody is exempt from this,” Roz Pichardo said. “Everyone thinks that it can't happen to me, but it can absolutely happen to anyone.”
Resources Mentioned (for students seeking grief counseling):
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