After Community Organizer Damian Turner was fatally shot minutes from UChicago Medicine, a top-ranked medical center on the city’s South Side, community leaders rallied for an adult Level 1 Trauma Center. 

A partnership between UChicago Medicine and local faith leaders led to a Community Advisory Council (CAC), which engaged South Siders in designing the trauma center, including developing the nation’s first hospital-based violence intervention recovery program.  

“We saw this as an opportunity to be in relationship together—something more than simply ‘winning’ a trauma center as organizers,” said MDiv, Senior Pastor of University Church Chicago; Former Inaugural Chair of the CAC Julian DeShazier. 

The trauma center treated more than 18,400 patients in its first five years. It also seeks to end cycles of physical and mental trauma by engaging violence intervention organizations and expanding a medical-legal partnership that expedites access to crime victim compensation and other public benefits. 

“We meet weekly to discuss neighborhood incidents, connect patients with advocates, and have outreach workers who observe conflict and mediate harm in the community,” said PhD, MPH, Executive Director of UChicago Medicine’s Center for Youth Violence Prevention Franklin Cosey-Gay. “We’re proud to recognize that healing is both behavioral and structural.”