How Organizations Can Build Resilience Into Education And Career Pathways

VECTORKNIGHT/SHUTTERSTOCK

Fear. Loss. Uncertainty. Isolation. Many fear that the pandemic will result in a new “Lost Generation.” The impact of COVID-19 is particularly pronounced among Black, brown and Indigenous children and youth whose communities have faced the highest rates of infection, death and economic hardship as a result of mandated closures, stay-at-home orders and other public health and safety measures. 

For vulnerable individuals, the pandemic has intensified the harm caused by violence and abuse, racism and poverty. If unaddressed, the resulting trauma will have a profound impact on young people’s ability to access and succeed in their educational and career pursuits and live safe and healthy lives. 

But why pay attention to trauma? There is a commonly held belief that children are universally resilient, but science tells us that while some children develop the ability to overcome serious hardships, others do not. Children are particularly at risk of lasting harm due to adversity given the way in which trauma can impair their developing brains. 

Being in a prolonged state of fight-flight-freeze puts immense stress on the body’s systems, which can lead to lifelong physical, emotional and cognitive impairments. Trauma can affect how a person relates to others, processes information and withstands their environments, and ultimately impacts their ability to thrive if not properly supported. In fact, research has found that individuals with histories of child trauma are 2.34 times more likely to drop out of school and 2.3 times as likely to be unemployed. 

When young people are derailed from these critical pathways to economic opportunity, they become more vulnerable to violence and exploitation by abusive individuals — whether human traffickers or abusive partners — who prey on economic desperation and leverage economic insecurity to gain and maintain control. For young people experiencing intimate partner violence, not only is trauma a potential obstacle to achieving economic stability, their abusive partners also intentionally interfere with their ability to go to school or work as a means to control them and prevent them from becoming independent.  

6 principles of trauma-informed practices

The good news is that healing is possible and young people are capable of overcoming the harmful impacts of trauma that have the potential to obstruct their progress and success. Education, training and employment programs can play a pivotal role in this recovery by striving to create safe and supportive environments that promote accessibility for all students and job seekers and support their resilience and well-being. To advance inclusivity and support healing, programs should reflect on their policies and practices to ascertain whether these policies impede or encourage progress and should consider new partnerships to create a robust system of support. 

From intake and enrollment to post-program services, programs should consider how program design and policies may become an obstacle to those who may be coping with the physical, psychological and cognitive impacts of trauma and establish structures that allow for healing. Programs can do this by incorporating the six principles of trauma-informed practices – Safety, Transparency and Trust; Collaboration and Mutuality; Peer Support; Empowerment, Voice and Choice; and Gender, Culture and Historical Issues – into program design and administration. Here are some key elements to consider:

• Safety: Safety is the foundation. Programs can promote physical and emotional safety by destigmatizing mental health impacts and trauma and normalizing help-seeking and support. Provide training to all staff on leading with empathy and suspending judgment to foster more appropriate responses to individuals experiencing trauma. Too often individuals are blamed for what happened to them, have their experiences minimalized or are told to “get over it.” This disregard for trauma and the real harm it causes can compound their experiences and further push them off the pathway to progress and healing. When students and job seekers feel safe, they can more openly reach out for help without fear of the consequences. 
• Transparency and trust: Programs can build trust by being transparent and consistent in sharing what programs can and cannot do to help. Educate staff and program participants on all processes related to seeking safety and support and share information on available accommodations and resources related to current or previous victimization. Much like with safety, if individuals in crisis do not believe they will be supported or worry about what may happen if they do seek help, they are at greater risk of becoming disconnected, dropping out and experiencing further harm.
• Peer support: Those who are coping with trauma often find themselves feeling isolated, either due to the impacts of trauma itself or a lack of understanding from those around them. Building a community of support and healing is key. Cultivate mentors and other leaders who share similar lived experiences, identities and backgrounds with students and job seekers to help create opportunities for connection and peer support. This not only helps with healing, but also can help individuals navigate the obstacles they may face as a result of violence, historic and systemic discrimination, poverty or other factors. 
• Collaboration and mutuality: Foster an organizational culture that promotes dignity, agency, collaboration and respect. Individuals who are impacted by trauma and violence are the experts on their own experiences and understand what they need to thrive. Work with those you serve to review current policies and practices and identify those that may be problematic for individuals with histories of trauma and generate solutions together. Such a level of engagement not only helps build a deep sense of connection and feelings of meaning and purpose, but will also strengthen the framework upon which your program is built. 
• Empowerment, voice and choice: Experiences of trauma are often linked to a lack of power, control and certainty. This is especially true for individuals who experienced child abuse or gender-based violence. Empower students and job seekers with a meaningful voice and information-driven choice in determining the education and career pathways that are best suited to their needs and skills. This can sometimes be a challenge for those who are still in survival mode, which can lead to a foreshortened sense of the future. Creating a sense of safety and providing support and time for healing can help provide the stability and certainty necessary to allow a survivor to look ahead.  
• Gender, culture and historical issues: A person’s race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion or other identity can make them a target of violence, discrimination and oppression. This not only leads to trauma responses, but can compound other harmful experiences. In addition, many of our systems are built on the foundation of harmful racist and sexist policies that were meant to exclude Black, Indigenous, other persons of color and women. Identify and dismantle policies and practices that have disproportionately led to the exclusion of marginalized communities and work collaboratively to repair harm done to build equity, inclusion and opportunities for all. 

Efforts to create a trauma-responsive program will be more successful if done in partnership with agencies and institutions that possess the knowledge, expertise and resources to help form a comprehensive network of support. Victim services agencies, in particular, are a key ally in this work. 

Organizations such as local domestic violence, sexual violence and anti-trafficking programs not only provide therapeutic support to those who have experienced trauma, but they can also provide training for front-line workers, case managers, faculty and other staff as a way to help develop their competency to provide trauma-responsive support and employ strategies that support resilience. 

Training and technical assistance projects like Futures Without Violence’s Promoting Employment Opportunities for Survivors of Trafficking can help support the development of such multidisciplinary collaborations, the development and implementation of trauma-responsive practices and can provide assistance in designing empowerment programming through web-based, phone-based and in-person support as well as peer training and mentorship opportunities. 

Through the thoughtful integration of the six principles of trauma-informed practices in service design and delivery, collaboration with victim service agencies with expertise in trauma and healing and the development of a network of referral partners to meet a broad range of student and job seeker needs, educational and employment support programs can better promote the resilience and success of young people who have histories of trauma. By adopting a trauma-responsive lens, we can help mitigate the impacts of the many traumatic events young people are experiencing and prevent today’s children and youth from being the next “Lost Generation.”

Sarah Gonzalez Bocinski is a program manager at Futures Without Violence. She helps lead its initiatives relating to economic justice and security, safety and gender equity in the workplace and improving access to economic opportunity for survivors of trafficking and gender-based violence.