On behalf of our staff members and our colleagues in the Maryland Homicide Survivors Network who provide services for the loved ones of homicide victims throughout Maryland, thank you Baltimore Sun and Andrea K. McDaniels for shining a spotlight last month on the long term effects of violence ("Relatives of Baltimore murder victims struggle with grief," Dec. 20). With your interviews and photographs, you effectively presented real people living with this tragedy.
The Pro Bono Counseling Project is one of the seven organizations sharing the funding that the Maryland legislature decided during last year's session to divert from executions to victims' care. Some of that funding is helping to create this network of counseling and supportive services. We want anyone who has experienced a loved one's homicide to contact this network or any of our programs individually. We don't want anyone to suffer alone.
The Pro Bono Counseling Project is in its 24th year of linking therapists in private practice throughout Maryland with folks who are unable to access care. Psychologists, psychiatrists, nurse psychotherapists, marriage and family therapists, professional counselors and social workers — all of the licensed mental health professionals in Maryland have agreed to take at least one case annually that we refer to them. For the past 16 years, we have received funding from the federal government to focus on victims of crimes. Most years, we assist more than 1,000 people to receive therapy and additional services that they may need — legal, dental, medical, transportation, etc. We work closely with law enforcement, criminal justice, hospitals, Maryland Crime Victims Resource Center, Roberta's House, the Baltimore Bereavement Center, etc.
We are also grateful for the timing of your articles so that legislators during this year's session may agree that it is valuable to continue to fund our work with the loved ones of homicides. I hope they read your articles. They showed ways that we are helping to heal.
Barbara K. Anderson, Baltimore
The writer is executive director of The Pro Bono Counseling Project.