SPH Receives Scattergood Grant to Fund Center for Nonviolence and Social Justice

The Thomas Scattergood Behavioral Health Foundation awarded the School of Public Health a five-year $750,000 grant to establish the Center for Nonviolence and Social Justice. Joseph Pyle, President of the Scattergood Foundation, and Samuel Rhoads, Chairman of the Scattergood Foundation Board of Directors, visited the University to present the grant at a ceremony on November 28 in the Paul Peck Alumni Center.

(l-r:) Samuel Rhoads, Joseph Pyle, Prof. John Rich, MD, SPH Dean Marla J. Gold, MD

Leading efforts for the new Center is John A. Rich, MD, MPH, chair of the Department of Health Management and Policy and 2006 MacArthur Foundation grant recipient. The Center’s core staff includes Dr. Sandra Bloom, Adjunct Professor of Health Management and Policy at the School of Public Health and Dr. Theodore Corbin, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Drexel University College of Medicine.

The grant from The Thomas Scattergood Behavioral Health Foundation was followed by a grant of more than $300,000 from the California Endowment for the Center.

The new Center will focus on trauma as a public health issue. In the first phase of the planning process the Center’s core staff will build the infrastructure for the training and technical assistance that the Center will provide to emergency department clinicians and intervention staff. The grant will be used to establish the Center’s training, technical assistance and leadership development components.