2023-07-15 11:56:42
His strength and courage are inversely proportional to his frail and slender physique. Céline Gréco is a fighter. A victim of physical and psychological abuse from a father who forced her to play the piano forty-five hours a week, then placed in a home, she is now head of the pain and palliative medicine department at the Necker-Enfants Malades hospital in Paris.
Céline Gréco could have selfishly enjoyed this success without looking back on her painful past, but she knows what she owes to the school nurse who spotted her and to Childhood Social Assistance (ASE): “The placement saved my lifeshe confides without pathos. I was very lucky to get out of it, even if there are still consequences. »
The impact of violence on health and education
Helping young victims of violence has become his ” assignment “. “I know the flaws in the system, I’ve seen everything that didn’t work, everything that was absurd, she explains, from her hospital office. In foster care, I never consulted a doctor, when I weighed 31 kg, and I never had tutoring. »
This journey gives the author Excessiveness (Max Milo, 2013), a book in which she tells her story, a legitimacy to help child victims of abuse like her. “Today, my voice can be heard to defend them”, hopes the one who set up, in 2017, a “child health” commission within the framework of the National Council for Child Protection (CNPE). “The idea was to create mobile teams at the hospital to identify these young people,” she recalls. Funded by the Hospital Foundation, these teams will be integrated in 2021 into the Pediatric Reception Units for Children at Risk (UAPED).
“The UAPEDs do prevention and identification but cannot follow the children. However, we know that violence has devastating long-term effects on health, recalls the doctor, still physically scarred. Studies show that if these children are not taken care of, they will lose twenty years of life expectancy, between illnesses and suicide attempts, 37 times higher among the victims. »
“45% of homeless young people come from the ASE”
The consequences are also very heavy on schooling., she warns: “Less than 5% of children go to higher education, 70% leave school without a diploma and we know that 45% of young homeless people come from ASE. » To make up for this lack, Céline Gréco has just founded l’association IM’PACTSwhich intends to take care of children, adolescents and young adults, both in terms of health and education.
The association hopes to quickly open a first child support center in Île-de-France, on the model of what is done in San Francisco, under the aegis of pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris, specialist in psychotrauma, to follow the children “over the long term” In “a coordinated and personalized course that allows you to heal the after-effects”.
Preparing for autonomy
Beyond the psychological and medical follow-up, this structure will offer three major programs to “strengthen the educational ambition and promote access to culture for young people aged 5 to 25”. On the menu, school support, artistic expression courses, cultural outings, language stays, mentoring, bibliotherapy, work placements for 13-18 year olds and “preparation for autonomy” seminars. for 18-25 year olds.
“Young adults will be able to benefit from a scholarship and will leave withand “future kit” composed of a computer, a telephone and a digital safe since many find themselves homeless, even on the street”, says Céline Greco. They will also be able to pass the driving license and take part in a job dating with partner companies to find a first job or a student job.
The objective, insists Céline Gréco with the enthusiasm of those who want to change the world, is “to bring these young people towards a chosen, serene and fulfilled professional future, which also presupposes being in good health”. Initially, 4,000 young people placed and 12,000 others entrusted to host families in Île-de-France will be able to benefit from these programs, but the doctor has the ambition, in the long term, to deploy IM’PACTES on the whole territory.
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A kinder world for children
“What guides me is the desire to help child victims of violence, placed in Child Welfare, as I was. I would like to allow them to live in a more welcoming, gentler and safer world. My role model in this field is the American pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris. She overcame many obstacles and greatly contributed to improving the health and education of these children.
The sentence uttered by Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations, sums up the mission I have set myself: ” Nothing is more important than building a world in which all our children have the opportunity to reach their full potential and grow up healthy, peaceful and with dignity.. »
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