CLEVELAND – Dozens of people gathered on Wednesday night at the 4600 block of Euclid in Cleveland, many of them seeking to heal from some form of trauma including gun violence.
Nicole Grady was in the group on Wednesday night, Her 9-year-old son Jaymere was the victim of a hit-and-run hit-and-run in Cleveland’s downtown neighborhood last week.
“I have to come see his body tomorrow and then take him to rest on May 6 and his father passed away on May 7, 2013,” Grady said. “I’m doing the best I can.”
Walter Patton created the weekly event he calls “Ghetto Therapy.”
“I used to go out to the front yard every day and see teddy bears and bottles everywhere, you know what that happens when you go through the city and see all these memorials,” says Patton. about this death,” Patton said.
Every Wednesday at 6 p.m., Patton invites four licensed therapists in to create a space for his neighbors who hear and see so much to breathe and talk.
“There’s a stigma in our community that people in the inner city, poor communities don’t come to therapy, so I thought because we weren’t going, so I’m going to bring them here,” he said. Patton added.
Billie Gilliam is one of four licensed trauma release therapists.
“The memorials, we’re used to seeing that we’re not sensitive to it, it’s just something that we drive through,” Gilliam said. “If it becomes as normal as seeing a stop sign, then we are trying to keep all that hurt. We don’t treat it, especially in the vicinity where we see it from block to block, that the trauma needs to be treated. “
“My mission is to heal the wounds of generations,” says Patton. “We believe trauma happens overnight and I was born this way, but it’s not, it comes from generations.”
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