ATLANTA — On any given night, gunshot victims are taken to Grady Memorial Hospital, the only Level One trauma center in Atlanta. But for the past year, a special program has been in place where hospital staff not only work to heal the physical injuries from that violence, they're on a mission to address the root cause.
"We understand that violence does not happen in isolation," Dr. Randi Smith explained. "We're looking at all social determinants of health. How they live, how they work, how they play, that goes into that."
11Alive reported on the plans for Grady's hospital-based violence intervention program last year, a move Smith at the time said "is the start of violence reduction on a large scale."
The Interrupting Violence in Youth and Young Adults program, or IVYY as it's called, launched thereafter in January 2023 -- an effort to reach 14- to 24-year-olds who come to Grady after being injured by gun violence. The goal is to reduce the risk of re-injury and a cycle of gun violence by employing a "bedside-clinic-community" model.
The result is a new effort at intervention, starting at a patient's bedside. That's where Chee'Tara Alexander steps in.
"We are not doctors and we're not nurses," Alexander said. "But we have the same level of understanding, and we're available to help."
Alexander's background is not in medicine. Rather, she has years of experience in violence prevention, but the mission to help those who come through Grady's trauma center is an especially personal one.
"Being that I lost one of my siblings here, and I saw the work that [doctors] did to try to save him, I figured that if I could come back myself and give that type of service to our community I would," Alexander told 11Alive.
The death of her brother fuels Alexander's mission to save other families such heartache. She's part of IVYY's team of messengers, a special outreach effort to offer patients resources and support as they heal from their injuries. Then a "warm handoff" takes place as community groups like Hope Hustlers work to extend that support.
"Hospitals, communities, schools, courts. It's an ecosystem," Leonard Dungee of Hope Hustlers said. "We have to work together."
With Grady data showing two-thirds of IVYY participants face issues like food insecurity, housing issues and financial instability, the community outreach is a necessary part of the program's success. Meeting such basic needs, Dungee said, is not only about recovery but an effort to prevent such violence in the first place.
"No one is slipping through the cracks anymore," he added. "Once they get to the hospital, there's still an intervention piece."
Such collaboration is also seeing success. While gun violence victims are often prone to reinjury or retaliation, Grady data shows only 1 percent of IVYY participants have been reinjured in the past year.
Dr. Smith credits her team, including Alexander, for the win as IVVY participants are getting new jobs and having babies. For many, participation has resulted in an alternate path forward.
"For us, it's about more than preventing reinjury," Smith said. "It's giving people hope."