#shawn ginwright

[sociologicallyinsignificant]

While the term trauma informed care is important, it is incomplete. First, trauma informed care correctly highlights the specific needs for individual young people who have exposure to trauma. However, current formulations of trauma informed care presumes that the trauma is an individual experience, rather than a collective one.  Second, trauma informed care requires that we treat trauma in people but provides very little insight into how we might address the root causes of trauma in neighborhoods, families, and schools. If trauma is collectively experienced, this means that we also have to consider the environmental context that caused the harm in the first place. By only treating the individual we only address half of the equation leaving the toxic systems, policies and practices neatly intact. Third, the term trauma informed care runs the risk of focusing on the treatment of pathology (trauma), rather than fostering the possibility (well-being). However, just like the absence of disease doesn’t constitute health, nor the absence of violence constitute peace, the reduction pathology (anxiety, anger, fear, sadness, distrust, triggers) doesn’t constitute well-being (hope, happiness, imagination, aspirations, trust). Everyone wants to be happy, not just have less misery.  A shift from trauma informed care to healing centered engagement (HCE) is more than a semantic play with words, but rather a tectonic shift in how we view trauma, its causes and its intervention. HCE is strength based, advances a collective view of healing, and re-centers culture as a central feature in well-being. A healing centered approach to addressing trauma requires a different question that moves beyond “what happened to you” to “what’s right with you” and views those exposed to trauma as agents in the creation of their own well-being rather than victims of traumatic events.

Shawn Ginwright, PhD The Future of Healing

[eveewing]

“I vaguely remembered an essay titled ‘The Creative Process' by James Baldwin, from an undergraduate course years ago. After re-reading this essay, I was inspired and reminded of my role as a scholar as it relates to social change. Baldwin, in his eloquent and relentless precision for which his writing is known, gives us a blueprint for the role of an artist. He says, ‘The precise role of the artist, then, is to illuminate that darkness, blaze roads through the vast forest, so that we will not, in all our doing, lose sight of its purpose, which is after all, to make the world a more human dwelling place’ (Baldwin, 1985).... I am becoming more convinced that the role of a scholar should be more closely aligned with Baldwin's conceptualization of an artist. That is, our role should be not only to inform, but also to inspire and to foster a collective imagination about how to make the world a more human dwelling place.” - Shawn Ginwright, “Collective Radical Imagination”