For over a year, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel economics reporter John Schmid dug into some of Milwaukee’s most pressing social issues through the lens of trauma, including poverty, crime, and unemployment. The result of his groundbreaking deep dive is a five-part series, “A Time to Heal,” produced through a fellowship funded by the Sheldon B. Lubar Fund for Public Policy Research at Marquette University’s Law School.

 Shattered Dreams Shatter Families

The purpose of the series is to explore the economic reality of Milwaukee, one of the nation’s most impoverished cities. To do that, Schmid spoke to a diverse cross-section of individuals, including some whose families originally moved north to Milwaukee in the 1960s to find work in its booming industries. That is until the boom went bust. 

 In his introductory piece, Schmid writes, “As jobs disappeared, so did many of the dreams that came with them. And . . . people and their families began to break.”

 The Cycle of Trauma is Hard to Stop  

Also in the introductory story, Schmid says that Milwaukee isn’t in economic disarray only due to the obvious factors – lack of jobs, high crime rates, and low graduation rates – but also because of generational trauma.

 The families who began to break under financial stress sometimes became violent or started to simply neglect their children. As Schmid writes, “The seeds of distress were planted years ago when the current generation of adults were children. [Experts] say new seeds are being planted right now.”

It’s a phenomenon he calls the “epidemic of childhood trauma,” which dates back about a half a century in Milwaukee. But perhaps the bigger question Schmid sets out to answer is what can be done to end generational trauma – and what are the real costs if it can’t be stopped?

 This blog post originally appeared here: SaintA Honored to Contribute to "A Time to Heal"