A new program will help connect vulnerable children to mental health care.
The Southern Illinois Resiliency Project is receiving a $2.1 million grant from the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority. The money will fund trauma therapists and youth advocate positions with local police departments, who will be able to identify vulnerable children and connect them with services.
Matt Buckman, executive director of the Stress and Trauma Treatment Center in El Dorado, said children that experience trauma are more like to have mental and physical health challenges as adults.
Identifying and working with children early can help them develop resiliency and may prevent problems in later life, ranging from mental illness to physical diseases like diabetes, to addiction.
“A person who has experienced six or more childhood experiences, they are 4800 times, so almost five thousand times more likely, to use an injectable opioid in their adult life,” Buckman said.
The program will be implement in Jackson, Franklin, and Saline counties. Buckman said they hope to have the services in place early in 2021.
