Embedded Files
Tip sheets and toolkits on how to start race conversations with children and youth.
Bibliotherapy recommendations (e.g. Black Lives Matter reading room)
Guides for parents/caregivers
Best practice recommendations on helping clients heal or cope with racial-ethnic trauma or race-based traumatic stress.
Resources for healing
Anti-racism tip sheets
Anti-racism resources for providers and organizations
Mental health resource guides for BIPOC communities
Integrating the three R's model into our work
Integrating the three R's model into our work
In the midst of continuing to work through this COVID-19 crisis, the events of the past months make us realize that “We are (also) living in a Racism Pandemic (Shullman, APA president)." From the racial confrontation in Central Park to the deadly shooting of jogger Ahmaud Arbery; to acts of police violence resulting in the deaths of Daniel Prude, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many other African Americans; to the protests these brutal deaths have provoked in cities around the country. These devastating and heart-wrenching events are taking a heavy psychological toll, and likely perpetuating racial trauma, on our Black/African American community; and the Black/African American children, youth, and families we serve.
As behavioral health professionals, we are in a unique position to contribute to the efforts of interrupting and stopping racism through the work we do with our children and youth clients. To echo Dr. Bennett's (SFDPH Health Equity Director) statement, "There can be no spectators. Addressing racism is a core part of everyone's work." Our course of action is to be both culturally competent and culturally responsive. We need to deeply reflect and address the impact of these prejudicial incidents on families we serve especially our Black/African-American clients and other ethnic minority clients. As best practice, we need to initiate and facilitate conversations on race, racism, and racial injustice; and potentially intervene with racial trauma in our clients. I recommend using Perry's (2013) three R's model as a trauma-informed developmental lens in navigating this work. Just click on the links below to access the resources.
Regulate
Regulate
As you help your clients through a variety of mindfulness, breathing, distress tolerance, grounding, emotion regulation, and self-care activities; model regulation by engaging in your own self-care. A couple of these might help you and some of your clients:
Black Lives Matter Meditations by Dr. Candice Nicole to help reduce stress and heal racial trauma.
Mindfulness of Injustice by Megan Sweet and Argos Gonzales (Mindful Schools).
Using Mindfulness for Racial Healing - confronting the rage, soothing the exhaustion, healing the grief
Self-Care in the Face of Racial Injustice by Dr. Joy Harden Bradford (podcast host of Therapy for Black Girls)
Radical Self-Care in the Face of Mounting Racial Stress: Cultivating hope through acts of affirmation
Liberate app with leading BIPOC meditation teachers.
Mindful Books about Equality and Racial Justice (mindful.org)
Relate
Relate
Find opportunities and create spaces to reflect and validate the emotions and experiences of your clients with these recent tragedies, where they can process their anger, sadness, distress, grief, and trauma. Especially for your clients experiencing racial trauma in light of these events, find ways to convey to them, "I see you, I value you and I support you."
Reason
Reason
Reflect on these questions and cultivate in yourself deliberate practice - to proactively integrate race, racism, and racial injustice conversations in your work with children/youth clients and their families.
Why is it important to talk with children (and youth) about what happened to George Floyd and other incidents of police brutality or racism in the news?
Does COVID-19 warrant avoiding these conversations, given many children (and youth) are already struggling with fear, anxiety and uncertainty?
How do I start these conversations and how does that change depending on the age of their children?
Should these conversations be different depending on the race of the child?
Please find below a couple of resources, that help address these questions, which you can integrate in your work with children and youth clients; and also encourage families you work with to engage in these conversations.
Supporting Kids of Color in The Wake of Racialized Violence Part 1 and Part 2 (by Embracerace)
Racism and Violence: How to Help Kids Handle the News and A Clinical Perspective on Talking to Kids About Racism (Child Mind Institute)
Talking With Children About Racism, Police Brutality and Protests (from Aha! Parenting.com). This includes developmentally appropriate guidelines on how facilitate these conversations with toddlers, preschoolers, school-age kids, tweens, and teens. Referenced here is the infographic on They're Not too Young to Talk about Race.
George Floyd. Ahmaud Arbery. Breonna Taylor. What do we tell our children? This article addressed the questions above, and many more, through the expertise of Beverly Daniel Tatum, author of "Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race" and Erlanger Turner.
'Raising White Kids' Author On How White Parents Can Talk About Race. In this NPR podcast, Michel Martin talks to Jennifer Harvey, author of Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America, about how to talk with white kids about racially charged events. Related to this is a webinar tonight on "How do I make sure I'm not raising the next Amy Cooper?" with Jennifer Harvey and Embracerace.
Say Their Names: A toolkit to help foster productive conversations about race and civil disobedience
Utilizing Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as a Framework for Addressing Cultural Trauma in African American Children and Adolescents (Phipps & Thorne, 2019). This proposed intervention includes a mentoring program focused on the use of TF-CBT to help African American children and adolescents and their families in constructing positive self-images that support resilience and empowerment.
EMBRace: Developing a Racial Socialization Intervention to Reduce Racial Stress and Enhance Racial Coping among Black Parents and Adolescents (Anderson et al., 2019)
the Safe Place app, which gives information on mental illnesses, self-care tips, black mental health statistics, a mental health directory, an open group forum, and more.
Bibliotherapy is a powerful medium on how to model and start these conversations. You can refer to guidelines and books by APA's RESilience; Embracerace; Social Justice Books; Charis Books and More. A personal favorite is Something Happened in Our Town: A Child's Story About Racial Injustice. The story is about two families — one White, one Black — as they discuss a police shooting of a Black man in their community. The story aims to answer children's questions about such traumatic events, and to help children identify and counter racial injustice in their own lives.
Other websites worth exploring
Other websites worth exploring
Talking about Race (launched by the National Museum of African American History and Culture on May 31, 2020) is an online portal designed to help individuals, families, and communities talk about racism, racial identity and the way these forces shape every aspect of society, from the economy and politics to the broader American culture.
RESilience: Uplifting Youth Through Healthy Communication About Race. (APA). Racial and Ethnic Socialization (RES)
Racism, Bias, and Discrimination Resources (American Psychological Association)
Anti-Racism Now and Forever More Resources (National Association of Social Workers)
Racism resources (American Counseling Association)
Antiracism Resources (EMDR International Association, 2020)
Social Justice: Anti-Racism Resources (Cal State East Bay)
Anti-racism resources (Yale African American Affinity Group)
Racism Resources (Harvard Center on the Developing Child)
44 Mental Health Resources for Black People Trying to Survive in This Country (Barnes, 2020)
Lifting Black Voices: Therapy, Trust, and Racial Trauma (Clearly Clinical, 2020)
Persistent Trauma of Systemic Racial Inequities and the Perils of COVID-19 (ADAA)
Racial Trauma & PTSD Reading List (by Monica Williams, PhD)
Racial Trauma: Theory, Research, and Healing (open access article by Comas-Díaz et al., 2019). The entire special issue is open access, which includes useful readings on American Indian historical trauma healing, Healing ethno-racial trauma in Latinx immigrant communities, Japanese American wartime incarceration racial trauma, and RECASTing racial stress and trauma: Theorizing the healing potential of racial socialization in families (a model by Anderson and Stevenson).
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