Thoughts on Trauma Work as I Say Farewell to the Alaska Resilience Initiative

The following letter went out to the list serve of the Alaska Resilience Initiative on Monday, February 24th. I am sharing it here, upon the recommendation of a mentor in the Trauma and Resilience Movement, because the reflections on lessons learned may be useful to those in the broader ACEs movement: 

 

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Dear Alaska Resilience Initiative Family,

 

I am writing you to announce my resignation as the Director of the Alaska Resilience Initiative, and as an employee of the Alaska Children’s Trust. I write this with a heavy heart, because the work to prevent child maltreatment, intergenerational and systemic trauma, and to build a healthy, just, resilient Alaska is the work that I love. It is work that I have so enjoyed doing in collaboration with all of you across Alaska. However, I also write this with hope, because I know that these efforts will continue to be led by your schools, tribes, organizations, businesses, government departments, communities, and faith communities, by you as individuals, and by the Alaska Children’s Trust. I also feel confident that our paths will cross again as we work for a better Alaska.

 

As I go, I want to share with you a few of the things I have learned from working with you over the past four years in this role. You have reinforced to me or taught me that:

 

* Locally-led change can transform the fabric and culture of communities, and can change the way systems work together. Communities can learn from each other and borrow state or national tools and strategies to do this, but the strategies have to be locally-relevant and grounded in community knowledge in order to succeed.

 

* Language matters, as it reflects our beliefs and values to others, and it shapes the way we conceive of and do our work. We were deliberate about language early on in ARI, asking “How do we communicate that child trauma doesn’t occur in a vacuum, and that we have to address historical and ongoing systemic trauma, cultural and collective forms of trauma – and healing?” We then were gifted pieces of language by ARI members that I believe were crucial for our development – for example, La quen náay (Liz) Medicine Crow’s language of “linking arms” and the idea of intentional collaboration as “being good relatives to one another.” Using this language rather than the more common Collective Impact jargon felt different. It changed the way I thought and felt about our work. It asked all of us to think with our heads and our hearts. It positioned Alaska Native values and ways of knowing at the center rather than the margins. I am grateful for this language and this collective process of finding the right language.

 

* Many heads are better than one. While it is true that collective processes take time and can be challenging, and that sometimes we can be the quickest and most agile on our own, it is abundantly clear to me that the greatest ideas are the ones we generate together. The History and Hope curriculum, for example, was born out of the collective wisdom of the 40-something Alaska Native and Native American trauma experts who gathered in May of 2016 to help set the direction for the Initiative and for future curriculum development. It was shaped by the few dozen who participated actively in coming up with the narrative structure, ideas, design, and language of the curriculum in the winter of 2017 - 2018. It was refined by the feedback of the hundreds of people who completed evaluation forms throughout 2018 and 2019, by the wisdom of every new trainer who offered constructive critique and additions, by the energy and ideas of ARI interns, by the contributions of ancestral knowledge holders and by neurobiologists and education experts and photographers and illustrators. If the curriculum has an impact, it’s because it is born of so many smart people. It is because together we know more than we do on our own.

 

* A humble, self-reflective, open heart and mind are essential. Addressing complex social problems such intergenerational trauma is not easy work. There are so many ways to go about it, so many theories of change, so many levels on which change needs to occur – intrapersonal healing, family systems, institutions, policy and funding, etc. The only unifying theory I have been able to come up with about these change processes, and the lesson I have learned from you all, is: Stay open, keep my heart soft, and put my ego aside. Seek and welcome feedback, grow from it. Hold firm to my principles and skills, but don’t be too married to being right when there are so many rich opportunities to learn. Most important, perhaps: an ethic of self-reflection and of welcoming feedback creates safety, creates a trauma-informed environment. And so, it is both a tool for growth, and a way of walking the walk on trauma-informed, culturally-responsive care.