Philadelphia Violence Prevention Activist Scott Charles One Of Ten Americans Chosen To Receive $125,000 National Award For Improving Local Health Conditions

PRINCETON, NJ (October 27, 2008) – The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation today announced Scott Charles, trauma outreach coordinator at Temple University Hospital, as
one of ten exemplary Americans who will receive the Community Health Leaders Award for 2008. The distinguished annual award honors extraordinary men and women from all over the country who conquer huge obstacles and take commanding action in local communities to tackle some of the most challenging health and health care problems facing the nation. Awardees are celebrated with national recognition and $125,000.

This year, more than 800 nominations were submitted from across the United States. Through a rigorous process, the Foundation selected ten outstanding individuals, all of whom have worked to improve health conditions in their communities with exceptional creativity, courage and commitment. The Foundation chose Charles this year for creating Cradle to Grave, an especially graphic and emotional violence prevention program at Temple University Hospital exposing troubled at-risk youth in Philadelphia to the real-life experience of being shot and inspiring them to avoid engaging in gun violence, which kills a resident of the city almost daily. Charles will accept his award on October 29 at a special ceremony honoring each of the 2008 recipients during the Community Health Leaders Annual Meeting in San Diego.

"Scott Charles is addressing one of the country’s major public health problems: violence," said Janice Ford Griffin, national program director for the award. "His creative approach utilizes the hospital environment in a uniquely graphic and emotionally intense experience that has proven to be an effective tool. His leadership is helping to build a stronger alliance between the hospital and the surrounding community."

Through the Cradle to Grave program, Charles brings Philadelphia teenagers who are constantly surrounded by violence, despair, arrests and poverty into one of the busiest trauma centers in the city to walk them through the last day in the life of a 16-year-old boy who died there after being shot 14 times and suffering 24 bullet holes. Participants are taken first to the emergency entrance of the hospital where the victim was brought in by an ambulance, then to an operating room where a trauma surgeon re-enacts the hospital’s unsuccessful attempts to save him on a volunteer "victim" and, finally, to the morgue. The teenagers witness gunshot wound markings and, through audio and video recordings, tearful outbursts of the boy’s grieving family agonizing over his death. The two-hour program includes reflective exercises where the young people imagine their own families suffering through such grief and heartache over their
shooting death.

Temple’s chief trauma surgeon, Dr. Amy Goldberg, who treats more than 500 shooting victims a year at the hospital, charged Charles with developing Cradle to Grave in an effort to convince young people to have a radically different outlook on gun violence, the devastation it inflicts on families and the broader ramifications it has on communities. In taking teenagers through the grueling process that surrounds the experience of getting shot, he helps them equate gun violence with unnecessary pain, misery, anguish and destruction while inspiring them to remove themselves from situations that put their lives at risk. In many cases, Charles says, young people are shamed or humiliated into acting violently. Therefore, he works to change nonchalant attitudes they appear to have about pulling a trigger and motivate them to think seriously and carefully about the consequences of their actions. Ultimately, Charles helps them understand that personal embarrassment does not warrant taking a life.

"Receiving this award is a tremendous honor for me - easily the greatest honor I’ve ever received - and one that I am pleased to share with Dr. Goldberg and all hospital employees whose quiet contributions make this program possible," said Charles. "Because violence is currently an epidemic within Philadelphia’s most economically-depressed communities, there is a tendency to view it through a social or cultural prism. This award will help us continue to address violence as the public health crisis it represents."

More than 2,000 teens have participated in the Cradle to Grave program since its inception at the hospital in 2005. A pilot study using pre and post-program survey data to measure the program’s efficacy revealed that following their participation in Cradle to Grave, public school students demonstrated a reduced proclivity toward violence. So far, none of the participants have returned to the hospital as trauma patients as a result of a shooting. In a letter of recommendation supporting Charles’ nomination for the award, Goldberg wrote that Charles does everything he can with Cradle to Grave to prevent young people from "becoming a homicide statistic or a wasted life" noting that "I have ... operated on and pronounced dead more young minority males than I care to remember."

Charles and each of the 2008 awardees will join the ranks of 153 Community Health Leaders in 45 states and Puerto Rico honored since 1993. The $125,000 award consists of a $20,000 personal gift and $105,000 to support their work. In addition to Charles in Pennsylvania, this year, Community Health Leaders hail from Minnesota, California, Alabama, North Dakota, Massachusetts, Utah, New York and Hawaii. Nominations can be submitted for the 2009 Community Health Leaders Award through November 7, 2008. For details on how to submit a nomination, including eligibility requirements and selection criteria, visit www.communityhealthleaders.org.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on the pressing health and health care issues facing our country. As the nation’s largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans, the Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, meaningful and timely change. For more than 35 years, the Foundation has brought experience, commitment, and a rigorous, balanced approach to the problems that affect the health and health care of those it serves. When it comes to helping Americans lead healthier lives and get the care they need, the Foundation expects to make a difference in your lifetime. For more information, visit www.rwjf.org.

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