Hidalgo County, UTRGV partnering to address childhood trauma

Representatives from Hidalgo County, UTRGV and the Hidalgo County Mental Health Coalition gathered at the university’s CESS building in Edinburg on Thursday, Oct. 27, 2022, to announce a new initiative addressing childhood trauma. (Monitor Photo)

EDINBURG — Hidalgo County announced a new initiative Thursday morning that is aimed at addressing childhood trauma throughout the county.

The initiative, “Handle With Care,” was announced in partnership with the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley during a news conference in the meeting room at the UTRGV Community Engagement & Student Success (CESS) building.

“The Handle With Care initiative is a very simple program,” Hidalgo County Judge Richard F. Cortez said after the announcement. “What we have found out is that a lot of our children are involved sometimes in very traumatic experiences.”

Cortez said that the initiative is designed to help create a direct line of communication between law enforcement and school districts to better identify children who may be in need of special attention.

“When there is a policeman or some law enforcement that goes and investigates an incident, and they see that a child was there or witnessed it, all we want law enforcement to do is notify the school district to let them know that this child in the last 24 hours has been involved or seen a traumatic event,” he explained. “We believe that this will help them identify to all the school people to take extra care with this child because they have just been through something that requires extra attention.”

UTRGV School Psychology Program Coordinator Dr. Nancy Razo introduced the initiative to the Hidalgo County Mental Health Coalition.

“It seemed like a no-brainer type of initiative, and I knew that I was going to need partnerships to be able to make this happen,” Razo said. “In expressing this program and talking about this program to my dean, to our community engagement involvement people here at UTRGV, they were very excited to put it on and very excited to do it.”

She said that the initiative was met with excitement from the Hidalgo County Mental Health Coalition, who then brought the initiative to Cortez.

“It truly grew into a partnership,” Razo said. “Here at the university we are very connected with the school districts, and Judge Cortez is connected to everybody, especially to the city officials, chiefs of police and things like that. We knew that this had to be a partnership.”

Razo said that the university has used resources from the University of Texas Health San Antonio, particularly the Salud America! Program, to help the Handle With Care initiative get off the ground.

The program is still in the early stages of development. The county and the university will be hosting a follow-up meeting on Nov. 10, which will provide an opportunity for ideas to be brought forth to better execute the program.

“It’s a very easy program. It’s a no-brainer. It costs nothing. So it really is just taking on the initiative to make this happen for our kids,” Razo said. “It’s got to be a partnership between school districts and law enforcement agencies.”