Healing from Racial Trauma: Lessons from a Public Health Intervention

For youth and adults of color, prolonged exposure to racial discrimination may result in debilitating psychological, behavioral, and health outcomes. To help their children prepare for and prevent the deleterious consequences of discrimination, many parents of color utilize racial socialization, or communication about racialized experiences. Given heightened awareness to discrimination plaguing Black communities, better understanding of how racial socialization processes and skills development can help youth and parents heal from the effects of past, current, and future racial trauma is important. Greater racial socialization competency is proposed as achievable through intentional and mindful practice, thus, this workshop will explore theories and practices important in the healing processes of racial trauma.