It’s easy for people — columnists, for instance — to pass judgment on persistent problems such as teen violence. Kids have guns and shoot one another out of anger or to settle beefs or to avenge a drug deal gone bad. We look for easy answers. Tracie Martin has the job of looking deeper into the deaths of Washington’s children: asking the questions of why, investigating how the District’s various agencies responded, or failed to respond. Martin is a senior fatality review program specialist for the chief medical examiner. She tries to answer the most horrible questions: How did this child die, and could the death have been prevented?
Martin has done so well that she was one of six District employes who won an award from the Cafritz Foundation for exemplary work. The award comes with $7,500. Martin stands out even among those selected as top employees, as a native Washingtonian who has excelled.
She grew up in D.C.’s Riggs Park neighborhood. Her mother worked for the federal government; her father worked for St. Elizabeths mental institution and drove a cab. Martin graduated from Coolidge High, class of 1989. She got a political science degree from Howard University and a master’s from Howard’s School of Social Work in 1998.
For the next six years, she worked for D.C.’s Child and Family Services Agency.
“Having lived in D.C. all my life, it was an eye-opener,” she tells me. “I never thought there were families who lived in such subpar conditions. No food. Toilets didn’t flush. Children with no clothing.
“It shocked me,” she says. “It continues to, to this day.”
She could have recoiled. She stayed. “It was my calling,” she says.
She went to Howard University Hospital as a social worker for a short time and then to the city council as a staffer on Adrian Fenty’s Human Services Committee. “An enriching experience,” she calls it.
Five years ago, Martin joined the staff of the Child Fatality Review Committee, a mayoral board that looks at all deaths of children, from zero to 18. Martin investigates what the schools, the social workers, the juvenile justice groups and the cops did — or should have done — to save a life.
What can she tell us?
“There’s no one answer,” she says, “but given that nearly 100 percent of the homicides are black males, we need to look at the problem culturally.”
Kids who are killed often have mental health problems that could have been addressed when they were young. “Culturally,” she says, “there’s a stigma to mental illness in the black community. We need to pull away from that.”
Infants often die in beds with their parents.
“It’s culturally accepted across the board,” she says. “But bed sharing is not that good. Parents can be intoxicated or too tired.” It’s time to change the practice.
How does Martin deal with the tragedies she sees?
“Sometimes it does become overwhelming,” she says. “I am very overprotective of my daughter.”
And she might be able to help D.C. better protect its children.
Harry Jaffe’s column appears on Tuesday and Friday. He can be contacted at [email protected].
