Soul Sistas
There is undoubtable race related trauma in the Black community. However, for Black women, this existence in two minority groups, race and gender, can be even more detrimental. Especially when those identities are comorbid with others including SES, sexuality and ability. Trauma is playing a role in the lives and death of how black people black women navigate the world and there is a necessary shift to be created in communities where black women exist. Essentially black women are dying at an alarming rate. One interview with Ijeoma Oluo (Oluo's, 2017) discusses how this “death” is beginning at an early age. Specifically through the school to prison pipeline which encourages the mistreatment of black and brown children. This mistreatment is especially affecting black girls in that they are four times more likely to be suspended for committing an act identical to a white peer. This policing carries over into adulthood and eventually leads to a societal bias against black women in that they are more likely to be the victim and witness of community violence. After this trauma “Survivors may report psychological distress, increased rates of aggression diminished physical health and additional challenges in their parental roles. Despite these challenges, they have developed a variety of coping strategies.” (Jenkins, 2008) These coping mechanisms include binge eating and adopting a “Strong Black Woman” ideology one study finds. (Harrington, Crowther, Shipherd, 2010) This study is particularly interesting as it notes the societal responsibility that black women feel as well as the toll it takes on their relationship with their own self and food. In total, when Black women are being strong for everyone else, who is being strong for them? I think it is important to foster actual resilience in Black women while also noting the way their reality shapes their day to day health and experiences. Soul Sistas is an intervention that will directly target Black women. Specifically, Black women aged 18-40. This project will operate in two parts: the “learning” stage and the “doing” stage. The learning stage focuses primarily on introducing the women involved with the program to different resources as they learn about their own experience with race and gender related trauma while also listening to others’. In this stage participants will engage in group therapy and workshops. In the early stages resistance to therapy and the program is expected, thus this therapy will intend to play a more active role. For example, therapy sessions may include yoga, and painting to introduce the ideas of healthy coping mechanisms and self care. The workshops will focus on leadership and community building skills. Ideally, as participants go through the therapy and workshops, resistance will fade. Towards the end of the learning stage participants will be having a more traditional group and individual therapy sessions to guide participants through their experiences with trauma and empower them to share their stories which is crucial for the next stage. In the “doing” stage, participants will put the tools from the learning stage into practice as they create their own workshops for the rest of the community. As participants will only represent a small subset of the majority of black women in the community, the women, now prepared to share with their families and communities, will host their own events to share coping mechanisms, and preventative measures that reflect the goals of learning about race and gender-related trauma while also learning about how to spot, prevent and stop them from happening. This directly addresses the statement of need because these are women who already are or are rising to be leaders in their community. They are respected and trusted and after receiving their own training the community will trust the information they share. The participants will also be able to learn about their own experience so outside of the training they give they are prepared to recognize risks and correct them within themselves.
This intervention has implications to address every level of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Social Ecological Model (CDC,2014) , however, the two that the intervention will directly target are the individual and the interpersonal levels. We will begin with the individual level. Through the use of workshops and individual/ therapy, Black women will be able to directly face and conquer traumatic experiences and the effect those traumatic experiences have had on them. Through their direct utilization of resources, the goal is to make direct internal changes within the service users to promote resilience. The next section of the intervention will focus on the service users from an interpersonal level. As the next section focuses on community education on the behalf of the women who go through part one this is directly reflecting the interpersonal level. Essentially in the second stage, the women from the first stage will act as community health educators and plan and create their own workshops to address the issues in their community. Simultaneously these women will share the coping mechanisms and practices they found helpful in their individual therapy sessions. This is in an effort to have the community fully educated about after-effects of trauma, symptoms of said after effects and resources using their peers as a medium.
Similarly, to the levels of the social ecological model, I think this intervention has an implied usage of every trauma informed principle. The three that are most obviously highlighted are, peer support and mutual self help, collaboration and mutuality, and cultural, historical and gender issues. Beginning with peer support and mutual self help, women in this program are directly immersed in the goals for this principle which include “story telling by individuals with lived experience” and “develop solutions to vicarious trauma” these concepts are the foundation for the intervention. Black women will be learning about themselves, working together and sharing their experience with their community all while having a community of other black women who support them and have gone through the workshops in the 1st part of the program. Next this intervention heavily emphasizes collaboration and mutuality. The second half focuses primarily on the women who went through the first section of therapy and education coming together to create their own relevant workshops to address the issues they see in their community. This is with the idea that the women in the community would have the best idea of what those problems are and the tools they gain will help them fix them, together. The last of the main principles that will be utilized is cultural, historical and gender issues. This is an obvious priority as we will be working with black women and it is important to consider the role the intersection between their race and gender plays in the way trauma manifests and resilience is built.
It is important that we are reaching as many people as possible with this intervention regardless of their association with trauma. In terms of a primary preventative method, this intervention will utilize women who have gone through treatment and educational workshops to share the information with the entirety of the community. This way, whether the people in the community have individually experienced trauma or not they will still be equipped with resources and knowledge. When thinking about secondary prevention this intervention is rooted in this stage. The women who will partake in the learning stage of the intervention will be those who are directly at risk in their communities. These will be women who have experienced trauma and run the risk of developing socially inept behaviors. As the research from previous sections implies, since Black women often use “strength” as an excuse to not get proper treatment, this intervention is important to give the women the strength to deal with their trauma and not hide it behind the guise of being “strong.” Finally, the tertiary preventative measure will occur, once we have those women selected. As mentioned previously, the tertiary step will focus on learning and providing resources. These resources include group settings but will also focus on an individual journey to resilience and healing. These women will have direct access to mental health resources that allow them to confront their trauma and learn how to express what they’ve learned to the rest of their community.
Sources:
Adapted from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), The Social Ecological Model: A Framework for Prevention, http://www.cdc.gov/violencepre...ecologicalmodel.html (retrieved April 21, 2014).
Esther J. Jenkins PhD (2002) Black Women and Community Violence, Women & Therapy,25:3- 4, 29-44, DOI: 10.1300/J015v25n03_03 Harrington, E. F., Crowther, J. H., & Shipherd, J. C. (2010). Trauma, binge eating, and the “strong Black woman”. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 78(4), 469-479. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0019174 Oluo's, I. (2017, Feb 23). 'Black Women Need to be Recognized for the Work They Do': A Conversation with Ijeoma Olulo. ACES Connection. (A. Doktor, Interviewer)
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