ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — St. Petersburg community members received a lesson Monday night about the dangers of concussions in young children and domestic violence victims.

The forum, titled "A Message of Hope and Healing," was a part of the education component linked to Jordan’s Law.

Lawmakers say even though the bill hasn’t passed yet, there's valuable information there the community needs to know right away. 

About a dozen people filled the room at St. Pete College’s Midtown campus for the event. They learned more about what happens to the brain when someone gets a concussion and the effects of a concussion in a child under the age of six years old.

Clinical Neuropsychologist Dr. Jim Lewis created and hosted the forum. Lewis helped Representative Chris Latvala and Senator Daryl Rousson draft the portion of the law that focuses on head trauma in young children. 

“Kids that are getting concussed, little kids getting smacked or hit in the face, the parent has no idea of what damage it’s doing until after the fact,” Lewis said. “The whole purpose of this is to reverse this whole educational process."

"Typically parents hurt a child, get in the child welfare system, then they have to go to a parenting class and find out what they should’ve done, what they didn’t do," he went on. "This is different. This lets us get to the community before something happens.”

Chantala Simmons attended the course and said the information was valuable. After Jordan’s death, she was inspired to start a nonprofit organization called "A Mother’s Arms."

Her hope is to help take the burden off of young mothers and in return educate them.

“Sometimes people say things are 'common sense.' It’s not common sense when you don’t understand it,” Simmons said. 

Simmons said she’s determined to learn more from courses like this one. She said she’s even talked to Jordan Belliveau's mother, Charisse Stinson, who awaits trial for her son’s murder, to pick her brain about what went wrong.

“She writes me, she lets me know what are some of the issues she was going with, so I know that I can get to these young mothers and try to address those issues,” Simmons said.

The information from this forum, as well as the forum provided to child welfare professionals in October is all available online. To learn more, visit https://www.braininjuryeducationproject.org.