New Tools to Support Young Leaders with System Experience Heal while Advocating

During the month of May, advocates turn their attention to those with experience in the foster care/family regulation system. What is the impact on youth mental health after surviving these systems? What approaches allow for trauma-informed collaboration to center youth mental health needs? Juvenile Law Center’s Youth Advocacy Program has developed two new tools to help advocacy organizations incorporate a trauma-informed lens into their advocacy efforts.  

Juvenile Law Center’s Youth Advocacy Program prepares young people to lead advocacy and policy reform efforts in their local communities and beyond. Over the years, we have grounded this advocacy in practices of healing and wellness with the support of the VanAmeringen Foundation, Stoneleigh Foundation, W. Clement and Jessie V. Stone Foundation, and the Rosenthal Foundation.  

At the core of any youth-led advocacy efforts lives a story of personal harm driving the young person to engage in reform. Youth who engage in advocacy efforts rooted in their own experience are prone to re-traumatization; therefore, professionals in the field must strive to build a network of support for those who engage in these efforts to ensure they can prepare for events, debrief engagements, build social/emotional skills, and find a community to bolster support and healing.  

Trauma-informed practices have allowed youth in our program to experience their own wellness and advocacy journeys as they engage in this work. For our Youth Advocacy Program, trauma-informed practice involves centering these values: access, consent, collaboration, and restorative accountability. These values were identified in collaboration with youth in the program who expressed a need to feel in charge of their wellness decisions; to be free to participate or not in programs; to choose how, if at all, they discuss their lived experiences; and to grow in their understanding of forms of accountability that do not center a carceral logic.

This definition guides Youth Advocacy program staff’s approach: “Trauma-Informed Care is a strengths-based framework that is grounded in an understanding of and responsiveness to the impact of trauma, that emphasizes physical, psychological, and emotional safety for both providers and survivors, and that creates opportunities for survivors to rebuild a sense of control and empowerment.” 

In reflecting on her own experiences accessing support, Ciani, a youth advocate with our program, shared: “I think that all children deserve to know that they have advocates and programs to keep them on the right track. As a child in the system, building relationships with people who dedicated themselves to improving my life gave the ultimate sense of relief.”

Juvenile Law Center’s Youth Advocacy Toolkit provides guiding principles for supporting youth-led advocacy; we have just added two new tools to it that offer youth-serving organizations and their advocates a pathway to deepen their commitment to support youth mental health and holistic well-being.  

The tools are grounded in our experience centering the wholeness of youth’s lived experiences. Beginning with community agreements, youth learn how to be accountable to one another and build a community where each of their sense of agency is respected. Through the space of restorative community circles and skills workshops, youth reflect on their advocacy in ways that promote healing from those experiences. Aniya, a youth advocate with our program, shared what it could mean for youth to learn from each other: “If youth see a room full of people their age or around their age who are going through the same situation they are in or similar situations, then they can become support systems for each other.”  

Download the Space Setting Practices Toolkit

Download the Trauma Informed Reflection Toolkit

Hopper, E. K., Bassuk, E. L., & Olivet, J. (2010). Shelter from the storm: Trauma-informed care in homeless service settings. The Open Health Services and Policy Journal, 3, 80-100.: (PDF) Shelter from the Storm: Trauma-Informed Care in Homelessness Services Settings~!2009-08-20~!2009-09-28~!2010-03-22~!