Erie County Medical Trauma Recovery Center Opens
ECMC’s Violent Crime Victim Support Program is the Second NYS Office of Victims Services-funded program in the state to attain national designation from the National Alliance of Trauma Recovery Centers
ECMC celebrated the opening of its new satellite Trauma Recovery Center, that is affiliated with the institution’s BRAVE (Buffalo Rising Against Violence) initiative, which is a hospital-based violence intervention trauma recovery effort that serves individuals who have experienced acute victimization and violence.
In October 2023, ECMC’s BRAVE program achieved designation/certification as Western New York’s only Trauma Recovery Center (TRC). It is only the second NYS Office of Victims Services(OVS)- funded program in the state to attain that distinction from the National Alliance of Trauma Recovery Centers (NATRC); the other TRC in the state is located in Brooklyn. There are only 52 TRCs in the United States. It’s a successful model that treats victims of violence holistically and proactively through comprehensive case management and assertive outreach. The goal is to meet people where they are and ensure they have basic needs met (stable housing, food, healthcare), so they can move from surviving trauma to healing. Developed in 2001, the evidence-based Trauma Recovery Center (TRC) model is designed to provide emergency support, clinical care, and wraparound case management to help survivors in communities most impacted by violence stabilize in moments of crisis, heal from trauma, and address their needs in the wake of victimization.
Thomas J. Quatroche Jr., PhD, ECMC President and CEO said, “Since the inception of the BRAVE program in 2019, and now with the national Trauma Recovery Center designation, our dedicated caregivers provide holistic therapeutic services for individuals who have experienced an acute violent victimization. As our region’s only Level 1 Adult Trauma Center, these services through BRAVE and the TRC are critically important in victims’ recovery and building patients’ lives back after such destabilizing events.