RIVERSIDE, CA, May 02, 2022 /24-7PressRelease/ — Dr. Amber D. Gray, DBH of Riverside County, was an award honoree for four service awards during the National Organization for Victim Assistance’s, National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, and Global Volunteer month. Dr. Gray has been volunteering 5 to 10 hours a month, for the last 2 years, to help social services agencies that are having a difficult time with funding and staffing.
Dr. Gray’s early years were shaped by her parents. Both parents were philanthropist and volunteers. They donated to charities like St. Jude, the Sickle Cell Foundation, and Feed the Children. Dr. Gray stated in an interview, “A lot of my volunteering habits stem directly from my mother and father, however, Id have to have another entire life, to match the contributions my parents have made.”
Dr. Gray, who is the CEO of Gray’s Trauma-Informed Care Services Corp and the Co-Founder for the Freedom Train Project Incorporated, also works as the Director of Violence Prevention and Victim Advocacy for the Freedom Train Project. She has been working in violence prevention and victim advocacy for nearly three decades. Dr. Gray took a hiatus from direct care, and changed her subject of focus to professional and leadership development. In this capacity, Dr. Gray works as an integrated healthcare educator, and professional and leadership developer and behavioral health consultant. Dr. Gray has been training providers who service victims of violence on how to care for victims appropriately. She also teaches providers how to keep themselves safe, in the event they are working with dangerous offenders. She states that being trauma-informed with a victim, could mean the difference between life and death. She feels being trauma-informed is imperative.
Her work with the Freedom Train Project Incorporated is very similar to what she does at Gray’s Trauma-Informed Care Services Corp. Tabitha M. Chapman, MFT and Dr. Amber D. Gray, DBH founded the organization in an effort to provide appropriate services and resources to victims of cultic abuse. Ms. Chapman, the Executive Director of the Freedom Train Project Incorporated, and Dr. Gray, along with the organization’s staff, Summer Cooke, Ashley McLean, Lynn Beisner, Rebecca Ax, and Andrew Morrison, work tirelessly to triage, and resources clients that call their organization’s hotline or that fill out their online intake. The Freedom Train Project Incorporated is still a burgeoning organization, and does not have the appropriate funding it needs to be at full operations. Still, with dedication and fervor, this incredible team, pushes forward, and gets individuals to safety, the best ways they are able to.
In addition to all of this, Dr. Amber D. Gray, is also a sponsor of four children who live overseas. Dr. Gray encourages individuals to donate monies to organizations that have child sponsorship, because it offers the child a chance at getting appropriate medical care and food for their families. For all of her efforts, Dr. Gray is an award honoree for The Morton Bard Allied Professional Award, as well as the Edith Surgan Victim Activist Award. Dr. Gray and Tabitha M. Chapman’s organization, The Freedom Train Project Incorporated was the recipient of an honorary award for distinguished victim service program.
Finally, Dr. Gray is a Daily Point of Light Honoree, for her efforts with volunteerism and philanthropy. Points of Light is a nonpartisan, global nonprofit organization that inspires, equips and mobilizes millions of people to take action that changes the world. Points of Light envisions a world in which every individual discovers the power to make a difference, creating healthy communities in vibrant, participatory societies. The Daily Point of Light Award honors those who are helping to meet critical needs in their communities and creating change every day, and celebrates the power of people to take action that improves the world. Dr. Gray embodies this effort in all that she does.
We asked Dr. Gray, what would she want others to know. Dr. Gray encouraged people to donate to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, the RAINN Network, Children International, The Freedom Train Project Incorporated, as local domestic violence shelters. Dr Gray states, “Times are hard right now, and organizations and people could really use help. A little help could go a long way.” We congratulate, Dr. Amber D. Gray on all of her achievements and wish her the best in all of her endeavors.
The Freedom Train Project Incorporated helps survivors of coercion to recreate their lives with the organizations signature “Destinations” program, designed to assist in planning an escape, to the process of leaving, and on to the journey to healing. We utilize unique partnerships with victim advocacy agencies, law firms, law enforcement, therapy with qualified therapists, cult education, basic needs supplies, and community resources for housing and employment. The services provided are highly targeted to the needs of these survivors during their different phases of recovery.
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Gray’s Trauma-Informed Care Services Corp, founded in 2017, was created in response for the need for all providers who treat patients/clients to be trauma-informed. All too often, providers are leaving their schools, unprepared to deal with the plethora of scenarios and situations that working with patients/clients brings. Being trauma-informed is also mistakenly confused with mental health only. On the contrary, medical, mental health, non-sworn law enforcement, law enforcement, first responders and educators should be trauma-informed.
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