DECATUR, Ill. (WAND) - Community leaders are brainstorming ways to support local teens and break the cycle of violence with a Wednesday night peace summit in Decatur.
Heather Canuel shared her raw experience with students at the summit. She was jailed in 2003 and gave birth shackled to a hospital bed. Now, she's turned that pain into purpose, creating the organization Art From The Heart.
"We want to make sure that youth understand that art is also a way to express their emotions. And that there are lots of ways for them to get grants for poetry, for art, for murals," Canuel told WAND News.
These are the kinds of programs Dr. Keyria Rodgers is working to bring to Macon County to help prevent violence and heal youth in the community.
"Post-pandemic, a lot of programs that used to be there may not necessarily have the same resources that they had before. So now we just come together and figure out what we can do to service the community," Rodgers explained.
She hopes to highlight existing programs that support the one in eight children in Macon County who have an incarcerated parent and the teens who find themselves in juvenile detention.
"Definitely spending some time looking for resources for them, to continue the work that they do. And also providing community wide training to actually make sure people know what they do," Rodgers told WAND News.
She also plans to use her experience as a Millikin professor and grant writer to help secure funding for new programs to better address the violence children in Decatur are witnessing.
"A whole wrap around, so instead of focusing on one or two individuals of the family, they have resources to provide and focus on the whole entire family," Rodgers added.
She said future programs could be up and running before the end of the year.
"Giving them that inspiration, giving them that hope dealing and giving them the tools so they can utilize untapped skills," Canuel added.
Both hope to see programs focused on restorative justice, including getting help for jailed teens in order to get them back on track and out of the juvenile detention system.
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