Nurture Relationships and Opportunities to Participate and Contribute

Safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments are healing. Nadine Burke Harris 

Creating and sustaining safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments can help:

  1. prevent adverse experiences, 

  2. provide a protective buffer in the context of trauma, toxic stress and/or adversity, and 

  3. help people heal and reach towards their potential (1).

The video below shares how Head Start-Trauma Smart, designed by the Crittenton Children’s Center, creates a safe stable environment for young children. It also engages all those who are in a child’s life— parents, teachers and other staff—to strengthen everyone’s ability to provide a supportive relationship.

Bonnie Bernard (she/her) reminds us that resilience research demonstrates unequivocally the power one caring adult can play in making a difference in young people’s lives. 

Sometimes it is not necessarily a parent. It can be a teacher, clergy, mentor, social worker, coach and other people in the community who play a critical supportive role to help develop the capacities that promote resilience (2).  

Watch Rita Pierson’s TedTalk on how every kid needs a champion below. 

You know, Ms. Walker, you made a difference in my life. You made it work for me. You made me feel like I was somebody, when I knew, at the bottom, I wasn’t. And I want you to just see what I’ve become (3).

Opportunities to participate and contribute our core gifts are important environmental factors that promote resilience in which people are supported to:  

  • contribute to personal power, inclusion, and self-efficacy

  • awaken the power and gifts of service, and 

  • instill responsibility, voice, and choice (4).

Oppression lingers in your psyche. One of the ways that it lingers in your psyche, is it causes you to lose touch with the power of your voice. By using our voice and sharing our experiences, we can be impactful leaders in our communities (5). Ezell Watson, III

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Example: The Black Leadership Academy offers a year-long training program that addresses personal, cultural, civic and professional needs of emerging transformative Black leaders and foster leaders who hold a lifelong commitment to fighting for racial justice and lasting change in the Black community in Portland, Oregon. 

When we act to achieve a specific goal, we foster a sense of control over our future and engagement with society. 

This sense of control over future events is perhaps one of the most important features of collective hope because it requires the community to share a vision of their future…and can facilitate positive change in the community and schools (6). Shawn Ginwright

Click here to access strategies to create safe and inclusive spaces, places, and relationships where people feel they can be themselves and build on their unique strengths and abilities.

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Example: In response to the increasing levels of trauma and stress that young people in Richmond, CA are facing, RYSE Center offered daily self-care and healing spaces (#Ilovemyself series) that center Black and Brown youth.

 

Sources:

  1. Preventing Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs): Leveraging the Best Available Evidence (2019). Division of Violence Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/preventingACES.pdf

  2. Bonnie Bernard (2004). Resiliency: What we have learned. WestEd

  3. Rita Pierson (2013). Every Kid Needs a Champion. Ted Talk. https://youtu.be/SFnMTHhKdkw

  4. Truebridge, Sara. Resilience Begins with Beliefs: Building on Student Strengths for Success in School (0) (p. 16). Teachers College Press. Kindle Edition.

  5. Bridges: African American Leadership Academy Overview. https://youtu.be/CALDQCrWirk

  6. Shawn Ginwright (2015). Hope and Healing In Urban Education (p. 23). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.