For our first Community Spotlight, I interviewed Feride Castillo, Director of Advocacy and co-founder of Empower LI to discuss the incredible work she is doing with trauma-informed care within the criminal justice system in Suffolk County. Please note that responses have been adjusted for length and clarity.
How did you get started working with families affected by the ACEs/Trauma on Long Island?
I have experience working within the criminal justice system alongside judges, defense attorneys, and law enforcement. My initial work focused primarily on advocacy for survivors of domestic violence, but after I was referred a case where I met a 15-year-old young man that had been in a domestic violence shelter with his mother 10 years prior, I realized that our conversations can no longer be limited to just domestic violence and women. We needed to do more work encompassing all victims of all forms of trauma. This was the catalyst to forming an organization that focused on healing trauma from its core roots.
Can you give me a brief overview of the work you do with ACEs or trauma?
I do advocacy work on the local, state, and federal level to have the difficult conversations around policy and trauma. We do not talk about trauma enough. Trauma has to be at the forefront of how we discuss the issues we are facing today.
Who is the target audience?
We work with re-entry after incarceration for adults and adolescents, the human trafficking population, and immigrant youth and families. We work within the criminal justice system to change how defendants are viewed. Making more people aware that there is much more going on with these individuals than we can see.
Read the full interview here.
Comments (0)