Best Practice Tools

Select NCTSN resources on African Americans and trauma as of December 2020. Examples include: 

• Cultural Responsiveness to Racial Trauma: Understanding Racial Trauma, Why it Matters, and What to do (2020)

• The Impact of Developmental Trauma in Communities of Color During the Pandemic (2020)

• Complex Trauma: In Urban African American Children, Youth, and Families (2017)

The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) Emergency Taskforce on Black Youth Suicide and Mental Health has released this report (2019) that outlines mental health trends among Black youth and recommends policies to address it. This report describes key research findings related to suicide among Black youth. Most importantly, it provides research, policy, and practice recommendations to address this issue

In this report, the APA Task Force on Resilience and Strength in Black Children and Adolescents encourages a paradigm shift from an emphasis on risk to exploring the complex interactive process of resilience in African-American youth. The task force offers a bold new vision of thriving optimal development in African American youth within the following domains in the contexts of peers, families, schools and communities: Identity development; Emotional development; Social development; Cognitive development; Physical health and development.