BALTIMORE — Operation Respond is a crisis management intervention team that helps communities hit hardest by gun violence. Now expanding their reach, the team is going mobile to meet people where they are.
“We look at activating the senses of people when they come on before we start engaging them about the trauma they’re experiencing,” said Dante Johnson, a Community Safety Initiatives Director for Living Classrooms Foundation.
Johnson describes the RV as a haven for healing with lavender aromatics, soothing music and a massage chair.
“The windows we kept uncovered on purpose because people have a sense of paranoia sometimes,” said Johnson.
It’s a space he wish he had growing up.
“I've been through a hell of a [lot of] things. I've been to prison. I’ve been through some challenges of my life. I don’t come from a silver spoon, I come from here. I’m from Baltimore,” said Johnson.
The team of social workers and case managers travel into communities making services like career counseling and job training more accessible.
“A lot of people are looking for jobs, but without jobs some people don’t have the G.E.D., or ID or social. We refer all those, we can get you your ID, social, birth certificate and we pay for it,” said Quandra Ward-Holt, a Resource Navigator for Living Classrooms Foundation.
Also on board is a licensed mental health clinician to provide people with free therapy, especially for those impacted by gun violence.
“In this area right now a lot of people have been shot. I have been shot myself and I can relate to them,” said Ward-Holt.
“They might not be able to put a finger on what the trauma is. We’ve been living in this all of our lives. We think it’s normal. We think we got a resilient spirit, because we Black and come up in the hood. We think that because we’ve been through all of this, we supposed to get shot,” said Johnson.
Johnson says they are the “what’s next." The support people need after a crisis. Over the past 10 months, Operation Respond has helped nearly 2,000 people. The hope is that this RV will expand their reach.
Operation Respond was created by Living Classrooms Foundation. The organization expands access to more equitable education, workforce, health, and wellness opportunities for Baltimore and Washington D.C.
“I was one of those people hanging out on the streets, being out on the corner, until something happened. Now I’m trying to change my life. So for me, seeing that you can change from being in the streets to a whole different person, it’s true nothing is impossible,” said Ward-Holt.
