Chicago-based documentary team to host a screening and panel discussion featuring the Executive Director, Co-Producers, local professors, and a mother who lost her adult son to gun violence

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“What’s Left Behind?” Documentary releases a story about nine mothers who lost their children, mostly to gun violence in Chicago. A public screening and panel discussion about the documentary is December 7 at The Logan Center

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CHICAGO -- What’s Left Behind?: The Documentary delves into the enduring trauma and the limited resources available to families impacted by gun violence in Chicago. Co-Producers Lisa Butler, a Clinical Social Worker based in Chicago, and Dr. Ruby Mendenhall, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Executive Director and Documentarian Dr. Janice Collins, offer an exploration of the lives of individuals lost to gun violence through the voices of their families.

 

On December 7, a public screening of the documentary and a panel will be hosted at Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, located at The University of Chicago, 915 East 60th Street, Suite 122. Doors will open at 2:30 p.m. with the screening beginning at 3:00 p.m. A panel will follow at 4 pm featuring Co-Producer and Co-Director Lisa Butler, AM LCSW, Co-Producer and Co-Director Dr. Ruby Mendenhall, and Executive Director Dr. Janice Collins, to discuss the mission and goal of the documentary. The panel will also feature Dr. Deborah Gorman-Smith, Dean and Professor at University of Illinois’s Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy and Practice; Dr. Selwyn Rogers, Executive Vice President of Community Health Engagement and Founding Director of UChicago’s Medicine’s Trauma Center; and Dr. Charisma Pryor, Owner of Inspirations of Courage and mother of Raymond Pryor, murdered in Chicago in 2016. The panel will be followed by a reception.

 

The message to the general public carries an important purpose, as told by Butler, who conceptualized the documentary. “The larger goal is to make gun violence a public health crisis and receive resources to end it,” Butler said. “By highlighting the mental and physical toll of gun violence, the documentary seeks to foster dialogue and collective action towards addressing the social inequalities that contribute to this pervasive issue. And just as important, I felt that although their murders are no longer in the news, who they are and what they meant to their families, their children, as well as their communities will not be Left Behind."

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Executive Director Dr. Collins said that featuring the voices of family members who lost loved ones to violence is intentional, in the documentary and on the discussion panels.

 

“It is a way to humanize the victims, challenge misconceptions about Black youth, and advocate for public policy changes to support those affected by these tragedies,” said Dr. Collins.

 

“The goal is to convey the humanity of these young people and how their families and the larger community are vulnerable to depression, anxiety, continuous traumatic-stress disorder, and other health challenges due to grief, trauma and stress. In addition to bearing witness to the mental and physical costs of gun violence, this documentary seeks to create spaces where we can collectively work together to dismantle the social inequality that often fosters gun violence.” Dr. Mendenhall

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The screening and panel is free and open to the public. The event is made possible through a partnership with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Chicago, Carle Illinois College of Medicine, Illinois Innovation Network and the MacArthur Foundation.

 

For media inquiries and to schedule interviews, contact the documentary’s Publicist,

Vee L. Harrison, at 331-258-4962 and veelharrison@gmail.com