Tackling Unhealed Trauma

Many young people growing up in American cities and neighborhoods shaped by violence experience persistent traumatic stress which impacts their learning, development, and mental health, through no fault of their own. The scope and complexity of the problem means there will never be enough therapists to cope with it, according to Shawn Ginwright, a Harvard Graduate School of Education scholar.

Instead, Ginwright has a different vision: democratizing access to mental health care so that conversations focused on emotional well-being can occur wherever young people gather with other peers or adults, whether that be in a barbershop, a beauty salon, a basketball court, or on a bus.

Ginwright’s idea stems from a practice he developed in recent years called healing-centered engagement which offers a holistic view of recovery from traumatic experiences, for young people of color and the communities they live in.

Ginwrights’ nonprofit, Flourish Agenda, is currently training educators in healing-centered engagement practices in the Philadelphia School District.

Ginwright’s social-emotional learning approach equips educators, administrators, youth workers, caregivers, and students with culturally appropriate techniques to promote healing, self-esteem, and well-being, and also creates positive conditions for academic achievement.

Key insights

1. Use strategies that focus on a person’s assets.

Ginwright says conversations about mental and behavioral health, particularly in communities of color, often start from a deficit perspective — “something’s broken with you.” He says his work with healing-centered engagement involves shifting the perspective to “something’s right with you,” and then asking the question: “How do we build upon the thing that’s right for you so that you can have a positive impact on the world?”

2. Use systems and practices that foster a sense of well-being in the classroom.

Educators should encourage emotional check-ins with students. Ginwright suggests taking 10 minutes out of every day or a few times a week, before starting a formal lesson, to allow young people to talk about what is happening in their lives.

Writing prompts can be used to help students ask themselves deeper questions “about what’s inside of them and what needs to come out.”

3. Help students build emotional vocabulary.

Emotional check-ins can help young people develop emotional vocabulary and get beyond what Ginwright describes as the typical, “I’m cool, I’m all right” response — when a person struggles to find words to express their true feelings. Ginwright faced this particular challenge with his own son who lost a friend to gun violence. “It took some time for me to ask questions, to talk to him, and to just be present,” he says, while also showing love, care, and support.

4. Address educators’ mental health concerns.

Self-care practices are needed in schools, says Ginwright who is a proponent of wellness days for teachers and finding opportunities within the professional development setting to practice well-being. These practices are important because educators can unintentionally bring their own personal traumas into classroom settings and create a “toxic impact,” if they are not addressed.

5. Develop asset-driven outcomes.

Focus on the positive outcomes you want to see — youth who develop a sense of belonging, connection, peacefulness, hope and optimism, for example, versus deficit-based results such as violence reduction and a decrease in bullying.

Excerpted from “Tackling Unhealed Trauma” in Usable Knowledge from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Read the full post online.