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What will it take? Children of Color & Access to Quality, Responsive, Trauma Informed Mental Health Care.
According to the American Psychological Association, a DSM5 diagnosis of PTSD may be utilized for racial trauma when there is an identifiable index of symptoms for an individual. Largely, I wonder if this may someday also apply to families and communities who have endured racial trauma intergenerationally, domestically, or through the transmission of trauma.
I write as a social worker, a mother, a community leader and organizer, and an advocate for children of color from marginalized populations everywhere in this country. I write to all colleagues in my field, from the wealthy private practitioners in the yuppie parts of the city, suburbs and on the North Shore. I write to the PhDs in the ivory towers. I write to the policy analysts, the bold community organizers, the non profit executive directors, the school social workers, child welfare workers, and the crisis workers on the ground 24/7 at domestic abuse shelters and sexual assault centers, hotlines, and clinics, refugee workers at the border, violence interrupters on the south and west sides, and holistic justice attorneys representing police brutality survivors and parents working through drug courts down in Markham.
