Campus
responds to wave of violence
in Floyd's wake
(Sidebar:
Three years later, Hurricane Floyd still puts community resources, service
learning to test)
When
Hurricane Floyd roared through eastern North Carolina, it left devastating
flooding in its wake. Fifty-two people were killed. Homes, businesses
and entire neighborhoods were destroyed across a 6,700-square-mile region.
Even now -- almost three years later -- many families are still displaced
and living in temporary housing.
Perhaps one of the most lasting impacts of the flood -- even more disruptive
and devastating than the loss of homes and jobs - is the skyrocketing
incidence of domestic violence. In Sampson County alone, domestic violence
rates are up nearly 40 percent over the past year, and six people have
lost their lives.
Pam Frasier, a research assistant professor with the School of Medicine's
Department of Family Medicine, has had an up-close look at the problem.
Through a CDC grant to the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention's
(HPDP) Health Works for Women project, Frasier was asked to focus on
intimate partner violence and its effect on the workplace.
According to Warren Newton, chairman of the Department of Family Medicine,
the timing positioned Frasier to collect "remarkable data about the
impact of disaster on social pathology.
"Because
the Health Works for Women staff was working in the community before
the flood, they now have before-and-after data that demonstrate the
impact of a natural disaster on human relations -- something to keep
in mind as we work through other devastating events, like September
11 and the outbreak of anthrax," Newton said.
In many ways, the problems in eastern North Carolina mirror the experiences
of other communities in the aftermath of a natural disaster.
"The
steady rise in reported incidents of domestic violence after Hurricane
Floyd is typical," Frasier said. "Homes, transportation and child care
resources are disrupted. People feel lost and powerless. Before the
flood, victims could seek shelter with a friend or family member. After
the flood, friends and family members were homeless, and victims often
had no place to go and no way to safely leave."
Contrary to the experiences of other communities, though, the rise of
domestic violence in eastern North Carolina has not leveled off over
time.
According to Pamela Gonzalez, executive director of the UCARE Domestic
Violence and Sexual Assault Organization in Sampson County, the loss
of shelter and basic necessities has been compounded by local plant
closings and layoffs. "Adding the loss of jobs to the other outcomes
of the hurricane has compounded the stress that people are living with
daily," she said.
To help combat the problem, Frasier has conducted workplace training
for businesses ranging from Carolina Turkey and its 2,600 employees
to Cordset Designs with 120.
"I'm
especially amazed at what these smaller workplaces have done to demonstrate
support for their employees," Frasier said. "Cordset Designs, for example,
asked us to train every employee in the plant. They did this on company
time during a tough period economically."
Frasier said that Cordset`s human resources manager, Rose Walker, helped
her organize small group sessions that were offered in English and Spanish,
with information tailored to the company's policies and employee needs.
At Carolina Turkey the company supported her efforts to offer language-specific
materials to employees who spoke Spanish, Chinese and Korean.
Expanding
the effort, involving others
As
Frasier worked with the nonprofits who deal daily with the problem of
domestic violence, she realized that the very organizations being barraged
by new clients were also victims of the flood.
"Two
of the shelters had direct damage from the hurricane," Frasier said.
"Staff members had friends and family who lost their homes." Even the
rise in domestic violence struck a personal note, with a shelter manager
in Sampson County losing her daughter in a homicide.
Frasier's experiences staying at UCARE's shelter while she conducted
training in the workplace and broader exposure to the problem led her
to believe that even more needed to be done. With seed money from the
Carolina Center for Public Service and student and staff volunteers
from the University, she partnered with nonprofits in Duplin and Sampson
counties to launch a community-wide domestic violence awareness campaign.
Posters and brochures originally printed for workplace training were
reprinted for broader use. Carolina students and community members identified
highways with the highest traffic count, and billboards went up in each
of the three counties. Frasier also helped launch a "friendraiser" on
April 19 and a fundraising effort to benefit the domestic violence agencies.
Promotional banners were hung across city streets, and articles and
editorials appeared in local newspapers to draw attention to the continuing
rise in domestic violence.
The broader effort turned into a true family affair for Carolina.
Department of Family Medicine staffers Janet Newcity, Teresa Brooks
and Fay Gibson were actively involved.
School of Public Health students Matt Streng and Carla Carrillo co-authored
a proposal with Frasier that led to support from the Carolina Center
for Public Service.
School of Nursing student Jill Parker joined with Margo Karriker from
the School of Pharmacy and University affiliate Young Hee Jang to conduct
blood pressure and diabetes screenings at one of the shelters. As an
Interdisciplinary Rural Health Team class project, the three spent the
night in the Sampson County UCARE shelter and went through the intake
process as a "client." They established a small medical aid room in
another shelter, Sarah's Refuge in Duplin County, where they worked
with a part-time nurse and a community outreach staff member.
Claudia Gana, accepted in the School of Social Work for fall 2002, joined
the effort as a volunteer and worked the entire weekend.
Through the undergraduate service-learning program, APPLES, journalism
students Christina Hayes and Allison Strong authored public service
announcements and press releases that ran in local media.
Teams from the University have been involved with the broader flood
relief effort from the beginning. In fact, the Carolina Center for Public
Service sponsored a two-year initiative to help with the recovery effort,
supporting faculty, staff and students volunteering in the area.
"What
we've been able to accomplish would not have happened without the support
of the Carolina Center for Public Service and the Department of Family
Medicine," Frasier said. "And the Community Advisory Committee for HPDP's
Health Works for Women project really saw the problem and invited us
to the community."
"We've
all learned from the experience," Frasier added. It's easy to step in
and think that we're there to fix something. But to borrow from Rachel
Naomi Remen's Kitchen Table Wisdom, when we `fix' we don't see the wholeness
in other people or trust the integrity of their lives. As representatives
of the University, we are there not to fix -- but to serve, to respond
and to collaborate at the invitation of the community."
Three
years later, Hurricane Floyd still puts community resources, service
learning to test
It
was a clear, sunny day when Warren Newton drove into the small, eastern
North Carolina town of Bethel in the summer of 1999 -- a sharp and ironic
contrast to what he saw around him. Hurricane Floyd had just drenched
the area with 22 inches of rain, and homes and businesses were under
water. Roads and bridges were washed out, making travel a challenge.
"It
was clear that there was enormous disruption, and I began to get a sense
clinically of what we were going to encounter," said Newton, William
B. Aycock chair of the Department of Family Medicine. "It was apparent
there would be both short-term and long-term problems."
Newton's instincts couldn't have been more accurate. As the third-year
anniversary of the flood approaches, his department still is actively
engaged in public health issues in the area, long after public attention
has moved on to other issues.
"It's
the mission of the Department of Family Medicine to promote public health
through clinical practice, medical education, research and community
service," he said. "The department has a special commitment to the underserved
-- mothers and children, the elderly and other populations at risk.
That's what we found in eastern North Carolina. It was those who were
the poorest and who lived closest to the river banks who were hit, as
though the disaster selected the neediest for destruction."
Immediate
outreach
In
the immediate aftermath of the flood, Newton headed up clinical outreach
in the area, partnering with East Carolina University to establish acute
medical care coverage. Carolina set up two clinics -- one near Princeville
and another south of Greenville, staffed by multidisciplinary teams
from the Schools of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy and Public Health, the
Department of Pediatrics and UNC Hospitals.
Working 18-hour shifts for five to seven days at a time, they provided
a much-needed service to flood victims, many of whom lost their prescriptions
and medications during the flood and were unable to reach their routine
sources of medical care.
A good two-thirds of the volunteers from Carolina who helped with the
effort were students, Newton said. "Service learning is something we
believe in very strongly. We particularly drew on upper level residents
who could work fairly independently in a clinical setting," he added.
In addition to the clinical work that Newton coordinated, dozens of
departments and organizations across the University were involved in
the relief effort, supported by the Carolina Center for Public Service.
Volunteers back at home took over the responsibilities of their co-workers,
freeing them to spend extended time in the flood zone.
"The
real experience of our institution is the power of working across disciplines,"
Newton said. The flood relief effort was a case in point.
Three
years later
Nearly
three years after the flood, hundreds of eastern North Carolina residents
are still in temporary housing. They struggle to make a living in an
area where businesses have closed and the unemployment rates are among
the highest in the nation. And instances of domestic violence have soared
by nearly 40 percent.
Newton himself witnessed children being beaten in the aftermath of the
flood -- a function, he believes, of the stress people experienced as
their lives were disrupted. "The social pathologies associated with
that disruption are still taking their toll," he said.
In addition to ongoing wellness work in eastern North Carolina, the
Department of Family Medicine is actively involved in addressing the
domestic violence issue -- leading workplace training programs, conducting
community awareness campaigns and supporting local domestic violence
organizations.
For Newton, the work is central to his department's public service mission.
"There
are people in eastern North Carolina who are among the poorest in the
country," he said. "For me, one of the lessons learned over the past
few years is that despite the economic gains we've made in the state,
the number of people who are vulnerable has changed very little. They
are no longer on the public radar screen, and we have an important role
to play in making certain they get the support they need."
University Gazette
The
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
