Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/resilience/)
The Annie E. Casey Foundation reports that shootings fell by as much as 73% in communities implementing Cure Violence, an international gun violence-prevention model focused on social inequities and relying on input from people most impacted by gun violence.
The well-established finding that a majority of youth in the juvenile justice system have been exposed to trauma has led to a clarion call for the implementation of trauma-informed practices.
However, to date, less attention has been paid to the importance of providing juvenile justice staff with the tools needed to carry out trauma-informed practices in ways that protect them from the potential risks associated with this work. In fact, recognition of such risks is relatively new; only in 2013 did the official diagnosis of post-traumatic stress first recognize that secondary exposure to another person’s trauma is a bona fide type of traumatic experience. Such secondary traumatic stress (STS) — also termed vicarious trauma or compassion fatigue — has mostly been the focus of attention among mental health professionals and first responders.
But well known in the juvenile justice community — even if not well recognized outside of it — is that working with traumatized youth and families, reading their extensive trauma histories, performing trauma screenings and delivering trauma-informed programming all bring us into contact with thoughts, feelings and images that can be difficult to put aside at the end of the day. What can be done? Self-care: strengths and limitations
To date, most of the strategies designed to prevent or intervene with STS have been focused on self-care and wellness promotion, which are certainly of value.
A friend is a foundation, a mainstay, a confidante. They are the mail and armor you don before charging valiantly into battle on your steed. Your favorite blanket enveloping you, insulating you from the cold. Friends are the incomparable beauty of all four seasons.
The Youth Today/InsideOUT Writers series these past two years has been a critical reflection on the impact of the American justice system on our youth, how these youth learn to navigate through that system and the ways in which many of these youth nevertheless find ways to humanize themselves into healthy young adults.
Emily Dickenson wasn’t too far off when she described hope as a thing with feathers. However, I would describe hope as something smoldering and blazing...
Policymakers, practitioners and advocates seeking to improve the juvenile justice system have increasingly acted on calls from youth and their families to make “no decisions about us, without us.”