Resources in the Wake of Community Trauma and Beyond

Trauma resources for children and families

• After a Crisis: How Young Children Heal (The National Child Traumatic Stress Network, NCTSN) — The NCTSN offers tips to parents on how to help young children, toddlers, and preschoolers heal after a traumatic event.
• Restoring a Sense of Well-Being in Children after Disaster (Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress, CSTS) — Provides tips and language for adults to effectively support children and provide sense of safety.
• Complex Trauma: In Urban African-American Children, Youth, and Families (NCTSN) — Discusses how families living in racially and economically segregated communities must also cope with the effects of historical trauma and intergenerational racism, and presents the specific barriers that African-Americans face in obtaining needed services.
• Understanding Child Trauma (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, SAMHSA) — This web page identifies events that children and youth may experience as traumatic, statistics on traumatic experiences and their effects on children and youth, signs of traumatic stress in children and youth of various ages, and tips for parents and other important adults in the lives of children and youth for helping children and youth to cope with trauma. Links to resources for more information and support are also provided.
• Age-related Reactions to a Traumatic Event (NCTSN) — The NCTSN provides an overview of how children and adolescents may react to natural and human-caused disasters that they experience as traumatic. It describes reactions typical within specific age ranges and offers tips for parents and other caregivers, school personnel, healthcare practitioners, and community members to help children and adolescents cope.
• Helping Youth After Community Trauma: Tips for Educators (NCTSN) — In this one-page tip sheet, the NCTSN identifies 10 ways in which youth may react to community traumas, such as natural or human-caused disasters and suggests ways for educators to respond to these reactions and support youth in coping. The tip sheet also advises educators to find professional mental health support for youth—and for themselves—as needed.
• How to Talk to Kids About Tragedies in the Media (Child Development Institute)
• Helping Children Cope with Frightening News (Child Mind Institute)
• Helping Children Regain Their Emotional Safety After a Tragedy (KidPower)

Race and mental health

• In the Wake of Violence | Mental Health in African American Youth (University of Minnesota Extension, Children, Youth and Family Consortium) — Video featuring panel from two events titled "In the Wake of Violence: Perspectives of Black Men Who Are Therapists". These events were sponsored by the Trauma Recovery Project Behavioral Health Practitioners Workgroup.
• Call to Mind: Spotlight On Black Trauma And Policing (Minnesota Public Radio, MPR) — Call to Mind and MPR News with Angela Davis hosted Special Broadcast: Spotlight on Black Trauma and Policing | New Hampshire Public Radio (nhpr.org), a live virtual community conversation. Angela was joined by community leaders and cultural trauma experts including Resmaa Menakem, LICSW, cultural trauma expert and founder of Justice Leadership Solutions in Minneapolis and Justin Terrell, executive director of Minnesota Council for Minnesotans of African Heritage. They discussed the killing of George Floyd, the most recent high-profile incident to become an example of historic racial injustice. How does racial and cultural trauma affect Black Americans and others? What are the needed supports and treatments to promote healing? How can a trauma-informed approach de-escalate interactions and help prevent future deadly incidents?
• Decentering Whiteness and Creating Inclusive and Equitable Conferences: A Tip Sheet — A guide to creating more equitable and inclusive spaces that value the participation and contributions of a diversity of people and challenge established power hierarchies.
• Racism: The Ultimate Underlying Condition — This American Public Health Association webinar examines racism and its historic and present-day impact on health and wellbeing. Presenters identify the multiple levels on which racism operates; describe the physiological impacts of racism and discrimination on health; and explore the principles for and barriers to achieving health equity.

Children and families

Tools for talking about race and racism

• How to Talk to Kids About Race and Racism (Public Broadcasting Service, PBS) — Includes practical resources and language about how to talk with and raise race-conscious children, why to talk about racism, lists of books that talk about racism, and more. 
• Something Happened in our Town Read-Aloud — This online resource list accompanies the book Something Happened in Our Town, a picture book for young children. The book also includes information for parents or caretakers to help them encourage children to value diversity.
• Beyond the Gold Rule, A Parent’s Guide to Preventing and Responding to Prejudice (Teaching Tolerance)
• What White Children Need to Know About Race (National Association of Independent Schools) — Why white parents need to discuss race with children and key messages to include.
• Teaching about Race, Racism and Police Violence (Teaching Tolerance)
• Teaching about Controversial or Difficult Issues (Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility)