The Restorative and Transformative Family and Community Institute is a community based mental health and equity intervention. This intervention builds community based partnerships from various sectors to address service gaps and provide more effective access, services and resources delivery. The peace keeping circle model provides a safe place to engage participants in deep and difficult conversations around various areas of trauma and issues of equity.

Our framework for understanding trauma, equity and oppression is based on nine areas and discussed from a historical and cultural perspective. Our collaborative partners provide support and teach skills that help develop coping mechanisms, healing strategies and helps participants understand how to build resilience.

Mental health interventions delivered by nonprofessional for non-severe mental health illnesses have been proven effective in low-and middle income countries and communities according to the American Psychiatric Association. According to the report community based services can be crucial in raising mental health awareness, reducing stigma and discrimination, supporting recovery and bring about social inclusion.

 

It is particularly important to determine how to effectively work in communities and with community based service providers for mental health care delivery in low resource settings. Since the inception of COVID-19, children and adults have suffered from traumatic experiences ranging from critical sicknesses, loss of
family members and social isolation. This has only added to the problems of traumatic experiences they were already existing that adversely affected the home, school and community.

These traumatic experiences have been showing up in Health and Human Services with epidemic proportions of children taken from homes, substance abuse, child neglect and abuse, It has shown up in child care centers with pre-k suspension due to diagnosed and undiagnosed toddlers and pre-k children with conduct and behavior disorders, in our public schools settings with school shootings, bullying, fighting and violence, leading to school based arrests, suspensions and expulsions.

 

This trauma is exposing itself through the many cases of criminal court adjudications against children and adults leading to an overrepresentation of individuals with disabilities in the prison system The mission of Mary Magdalene Ministries is a far reaching one to break the vicious Home/School/Prison Cycle and restore and transform families and communities. In effort to do this mental health must be addressed at the community based level along side of a myriad of other professional service providers.

 

This means organizations and service providers must work collaboratively to meet the needs of their communities. In effort to do this we must first identify the problems within organization and agency programs and services that render them ineffective maintaining systems of oppression. Because of the scarcity of mental health providers, educators, counselors, social workers, we have already began to think and act differently. We are thinking outside of the box and have identified solutions that address trauma from a historical and cultural
perspective.

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