Violence Reduction Begins and Ends With Love

By Zanetia Henry

I started a nonprofit aimed at supporting grieving parents just months before my own son Dre Charles was murdered in 2019.

I couldn’t have known that the grief I’d seen around me and set out to help alleviate would become my own, let alone that it would become mine so soon. But it was.

Losing Dre Charles and walking alongside mourning parents here in Cobb County with Operation Recovery has made it clearer to me than ever before that protecting the next generation begins with deeply understanding the problems they face — and equipping them to build a different, safer future.

Part of that is making sure that survivors of crime understand their rights, and that the community can and will help secure them.

Our Thriving Survivors Support Group supports survivors of crime, particularly homicide.. It’s a trauma-informed healing support group, focused on providing survivors with strategies and tools to help regain a sense of normalcy after being affected by tragedy.

It’s held monthly for families that have been affected by homicide or who have lost a loved one and are struggling with grief. Each month the group is led by a certified grief coach, licensed therapist or reputable guest speaker. Grieving individuals leave with strategies and tools to navigate the journey.

We also provide mothers who have lost their children to homicide with survivors baskets, assistance completing the victims’ compensation application, support during court, help writing the Victims Impact Statement, one-on-one grief support and check-in calls.

This year we are hosting our first-ever Thriving Survivors Support Luncheon to kick off National Crime Victims’ Rights Week on April 19, where survivors will be able to gather, console each other and share what moving forward looks like for them. They will also be able to hear from three survivors who we’ve invited to speak about how they found the strength, courage and support to press on in their own lives.

Healing requires community events like these, and it takes work.

That’s why we partner with therapists and local law enforcement. We visit schools to encourage the youth to choose peace, each year for the Day of ¹National Concern and speak out on behalf of the children we’ve lost during National Crime Victims’ Rights Week every year.

We also partner with Voices of Black Mothers United (VBMU) to help build stronger families for the children we seek to empower and protect. We push as hard as we can to make sure every parent has the emotional and social tools they need to be loving, present parents even in the face of unthinkable grief.

Investing in just one person can bring about tremendous change.

So many bereaved moms have come to me and told me that seeing someone else move forward after loss gave them hope they could do the same. They’re working as local advocates. They’re starting foundations. They are loving their communities and mourning their children, all because they simply saw that it was possible.

Most importantly, we aim to love others better, to meet every person exactly where they are and bring them towards a future with shared safety, connection and peace.

That’s a future Dre Charles would have wanted. It’s a future where he would still be with me. And that future starts now. It starts with us. It starts with our children. Help us build it.