Courtney Campuzano

The authors of this article are a graduate student and supervisor (PhD in Psychology) with a background in research focusing on Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) framework, underserved communities, and trauma interventions. The goal of this article was to review fifteen different studies done in the US, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia on interventions for historical and current trauma used in Native communities. The researchers utilized systemic review to create this article, only including peer-reviewed, empirical studies including non-adapted, culturally adapted, and culturally grounded trauma interventions. The researchers also excluded studies not reporting data from Native people separately from non-native samples as well as interventions not reporting outcome data. This article would be beneficial to anyone working with Native populations both for internships and professionally when considering best-practices for interventions. 

This article reviews and discusses historical trauma, current trauma, early childhood trauma, barriers to mental health services, evidence-based treatments (EBTs), and culturally relevant interventions used and best-implemented in these studies with native and non-native populations. It also reviews the methods and outcomes of the research articles being used in relation to these topics and how they can be improved. This article is advancing practice by discussing the methods used to bridge community values and knowledge with Western academics and knowledge and how to better serve Native communities when it comes to treating historical, current, and early childhood trauma in Native communities. It also emphasizes the importance of utilizing community participation in research and treatments and how Western research can better build trust with communities. Further discussions and research can be found in the quoted articles in this study as well as within Native communities, and with researchers, and practitioners in community with Native populations.

The producers and hosts of this podcast are native from Lisjan, Ohlone, and Chemehuevi descent and communities in what is currently California. They sought to explore the history of colonization in California and the historical trauma it caused in their own families as well as for the land, people, and communities who were affected. Corrine Gould is a co-founder of the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust and grassroots organization ‘Indian People Organizing for Change’ and Cara Romero is an award-winning photographer and co-host of the podcast Bioneers. In my opinion, as a social work bachelors student, this resource would be supplemental for anyone working with Indigenous populations, and is important to be used to understand the experiences and attitudes held toward historical trauma, and the scale of what California natives have specifically experienced. I would find this to be especially useful for anyone working with clients face-to-face or organizing events for communities indigenous to California.

More conversations like this and providing more context and opinions can be found on the Bioneers website, as well as within community, Native American Studies courses and organizations at Cal Poly Humboldt, and other websites hosted by California natives.