Children can help fight violence through peaceful actions. “There’s no shame in walking away from a fight and going to tell an adult,” says Dr. John Rich, a professor at Drexel University School of Public Health. He helps young people by teaching them how to deal with the emotional, social, and physical impact of violence. Dr. Rich interviewed many people to learn what victims need to heal. He wrote a book based on the interviews called Wrong Place, Wrong Time. When people get hurt physically, he says, they get hurt mentally too. Using what he learned from his research, Dr. Rich started the Center for Nonviolence and Social Justice. He joined forces with his colleague, Dr. Theodore Corbin, an emergency medicine doctor who founded Healing Hurt People, a Philadelphia program that treats patients injured by crime. Healing Hurt People helps victims in many ways, from working with their school to addressing their emotional problems. For people to fully recover from violence, they need others to care for them such as friends, teachers, and family members. Dr. John A. Rich Finding ways others can avoid harm Some young people report that if it weren’t for Healing Hurt People, they would have hurt someone else in revenge, according to Dr. Rich. He says violence does not just affect the victim, it affects the whole community. Dr. Rich says children can create more peaceful neighborhoods by helping their friends and families. If someone is affected by violence, children can help by being a good friend and listening. They can be supportive and help the person who was hurt to make good decisions. Children can help themselves, too. They should stay away from fights and should never carry a weapon. If someone makes fun of them, they should ignore it. They should “reach out to caring adults,” Dr. Rich says. Children also need a plan in case they should encounter a problem. They can write their plan down on a “safety card.” It’s sometimes hard to think of a solution on the spot, Dr. Rich says. For instance, a solution may be to walk home by a route that avoids a neighborhood bully. Dr. Rich tries to stay healthy himself. He works out at least three times a week. He tries to eat a lot of vegetables and fruits and he stays away from fast foods. “I see what it does to the body,” he says. Dr. Rich says he was inspired to be a doctor by his father. His father was a dentist who worked with people who didn’t have a lot of money.