Assistant Professor Taylor Geyton, PhD, MSW, is currently evaluating the Multnomah County Gun-Gang Violence Initiative. Multnomah County Department of Health established the program in response to high rates of gang and gun violence throughout the county. Geyton’s program evaluation is intended to determine how the program is succeeding or falling short of its stated goals and purpose and in this instance, is also adding to the justification for the Multnomah County Health Department to continue to fund this initiative.
According to the Multnomah County Program Offer Report, “The Gun Violence Behavioral Health Response team includes three Mental Health Consultants (African American knowledge skills and abilities (KSA), Latinx KSA, and African Refugee KSA), a Program Specialist Senior and a Program Supervisor providing mental health services to those impacted by gun violence”. The behavioral health response team operates throughout Multnomah County through a community-based service model, this means that the clinicians see their clients and families in their homes or other locations throughout the community. They are a mental health response team that encompasses social workers and counselors from other disciplines. Clinicians of this team must be residents of Multnomah County. Geyton is evaluating the Gun-Gang Violence Initiative these individuals created in order to determine its success or shortcomings.
The Gun-Gang Violence Initiative is a community-based mental health response team specific to youth, Multnomah County civilians, and their families, who have been impacted by gun and gang violence. They also employ specific-care based on ethnic backgrounds and are assigned certain roles in order to offer specified care to each individual. The initiative was proposed in 2021 and has been operational since 2022. In Multnomah County, there is a significant immigrant population impacted by Gun violence and they are often missed in blanket interventions by virtue of being a closed community.
Geyton is a great candidate to conduct research on this program as she has twelve years of experience working in mental health with children, youth, and families. She is a researcher committed to exploring cultural determinants of health which is a term to describe how culture impacts the way patients and healthcare providers view health problems or seek help. Geyton also owns and operates a private therapy practice where she employs culturally specific modalities working with Black women. She has experience working with youth impacted by community violence and with the community-based service delivery model that the program employs. Her evaluation is accomplished through several methods; She conducts focus groups with important county stakeholders, one-on-one in-depth interviews with service users, a systematic review of extant literature on best practices,evaluative tools,and culturally specific and relevant interventions.
With Geyton’s current findings, she explains the program is still working to get funded in order to sustain space and continue their initiative. She also concluded that in order to sustain the program, the program will need to have an intentional employment structure. Meaning the employers of the program should employ applicants who can serve as representation for specific cultures and demographics. She futhers this statement by explaining Latinx and Somali culture are large demographics that have been affected by gun/gang violence in Multnomah County. However, if there is no representation on staff, Somali and Latinx cultures can’t be included in the program.
In relation to representation, Geyton encourages the need to understand the differences between specific refugees in America. Geyton explains, “There is a difference from someone who has immigrated from Nigeria than from somewhere else in Africa. There has to be an understanding of the difference between refugees from Canada and people from Peru. Gun violence is broad. There's a completely different approach to help survivors of a school shooting than a youth who has witnessed a community violence to firearms. One preliminary data point is that cultural specificity regarding treatment modalities is dynamic. There is a great need for culturally and ethnically diverse clinicians to provide culturally relevant care”.
Geyton is still in the process of her evaluation, but is working to evaluate specific interventions for youth and families who have been impacted and specific measures with the Trauma Inventory Scale which is a survey that assesses the experiences of traumatic events and the presence of PTSD symptoms. These assessment measures are important for the program in identifying appropriate responses to the client's experiences and in measuring the impact of their program. Ideally, Geyton says the project will be completed in February 2024. Geyton advocates, in order to help this program, it is important for students, faculty, or other members of the Multnomah County to refer any youth or community members that have been affected by gun/gang violence to the Gun/Gang Violence Initiative and to vote for community care within your county.