by Dr. Meagan Corrado

Meagan Corrado, DSW, LCSW, will be presenting, “Storiez: Trauma Narratives with Youth” on Tuesday, October 15 at this year’s JuST (Juvenile Sex Trafficking) Conference in Cincinnati, OH. Visit justconference.org/just2019 to review our workshop agenda and for more information on how to register. 

Read Meagan’s blog post below:

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In a world of dissension, conflict, abuse, and trauma, it is easy to feel discouraged. Individuals, families, and communities face tremendous obstacles. In addition to the individual adversities people strive to overcome, they also encounter community, cultural, and systemic barriers. Stories of trauma abound. But wherever there are stories of trauma, there are also stories of strength and resilience.

As we support trauma survivors in processing their experiences, it is important that we focus not only on the pain but also on the strength. For every story of falling, there is a story of getting back up. For every story of despair, there is a story of perseverance. For every story of abuse, there is a story of creative survival. If we look for stories of trauma, we will find them. But if we look for stories of strength and resilience, we will find those too.

I am a Doctor of Social Work, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, and the creator of the Storiez Trauma Narrative Intervention. I am also a survivor of complex trauma. For the past ten years, I have provided individual, family, and group treatment to urban youth who have experienced trauma. I have heard many stories of adversity. These stories are jarring and painful. Colleagues often ask me how I survive the emotional and psychological impact of this intense work. My answer? I look for strength.

This starkly opposes our cultural paradigms and our systemic models. We are taught to blame and shame. We are taught to diagnose and dissect. We are taught to label and punish. This leads to a depressing, hopeless view of trauma recovery. It leaves both clients and helpers feeling defeated and disempowered.
But what if we looked for strength and resilience with the same fervor that we searched for pathology? What if we celebrated survival with the same energy that we devoted to diagnosis? What if we honored not only the narratives of shame but the narratives of empowerment?

In my attempt to provide a strengths-based approach to trauma treatment, I created the Storiez Trauma Narrative intervention. Storiez guides trauma survivors through the process of creating, voicing, and honoring their narratives. Storiez is grounded in trauma theory and social work principles. Trauma survivors reflect on the positive and negative elements of their stories, creatively express their experiences, and identify how they would like to shape their future.

Is there pain in these narratives? Yes. These narratives are riddled with danger and fear, but in every narrative, there is also strength. Wherever there are stories of trauma, there are always stories of strength and resilience.

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Meagan Corrado is a Doctor of Social Work and a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. She is the creator of the Storiez Trauma Narrative intervention and has authored seven books. She is a full-time faculty member at Bryn Mawr College’s Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research. She provides therapy to inner city youth in the Philadelphia and Camden, NJ areas. She earned her DSW from the University of Pennsylvania in 2016 and her Masters of Social Services from Bryn Mawr College in 2009. She specializes in work with children and teenagers who are survivors of complex trauma. Dr. Meagan is also a mixed media mosaic artist. She creates layered artwork to express inner emotions, personal experiences, and elements of her life narrative as a survivor of complex trauma.

By Natasha Paradeshi

Natasha Paradeshi, MPP will be presenting, “Importance of the Drop-In Center Model in Identifying Victims of Human Trafficking” on Tuesday, October 15 at this year’s JuST (Juvenile Sex Trafficking) Conference in Cincinnati, OH. Visit justconference.org/just2019 to review our workshop agenda and for more information on how to register. Read Natasha’s blog post below:

Trust is not something that appears overnight. Building trust takes time, persistence, and vulnerability. Trust is ultimately built through creating relationships.

I think about the relationship between my husband and me. When we first started dating, we both guarded our hearts because we didn’t quite know how much we could trust the other person. But through friendship, we got to know the good, the bad, and the ugly. Over time, we were able to get to the level of trust where we unclasped the tight grip we had on our hearts. Only then were we able to move forward in a marriage built on trust.Trust finds its roots in solid, positive relationships – the kind of relationship that a victim of trafficking may never have experienced. Or maybe they thought they had a good relationship with someone, but that person broke their trust. This is exactly why it’s so hard for a victim of trafficking to trust service providers when we reach out our hands. Because they haven’t seen a reason to trust us yet, they may not tell us the full story, which often means we don’t identify them as a victim of trafficking. This can lead to them not getting the most appropriate services for their levels of trauma.

How do we create these positive relationships so we can serve survivors better? The great paradox is that it is at once incredibly difficult and yet so simple: we create positive relationships by being loving, helpful and truthful with survivors. We must have open and honest communication. We try our best to say the most helpful thing and provide the best services, even though we may not always get it right.

One of the best ways we’ve found to build trust is through drop-in centers, which are safe, accessible and non-judgmental – places where trust is built. We create positive relationships by opening our doors at our drop-in center, The Landing, which is based in Houston, TX. Drop-in centers not only provide basic needs and continual support, but are also the stepping stone for victims to get further help, resources, and referrals from other service providers. By not judging someone because of their circumstances or choices they have made because of those circumstances. By offering a safe place to rest for an exhausted woman after a night of being picked up and dropped off on the streets. By having an art station ready for the little girl whose mom has been in and out of jail. But most importantly, by listening to what each survivor has to say.

Because of this emphasis on building trust, we have been able to increase victim identification, which is the first step in getting help for survivors, many of whom are falling through the gaps.  At The Landing, we are coming up on our four year anniversary. In that time, we’ve served over 500 survivors of trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. Over 60% of these survivors have been identified as victims of sex trafficking. This shows that building relationships is key for survivors to open up about the extent of the trauma they have, which, in turn, allows them to heal. And the stories of increased hope, confidence and mental well-being are incredible! I think of April, who has been coming to The Landing’s drop-in center for two years. Recently, she was diagnosed with cancer. Facing such a life-threatening sickness alone is terrifying. But because we were able to build a trusting relationship with her, she has a community to support her through this journey. We get to be her family in her time of need, giving her hope. I think of Juanita, who was trafficked in the cantinas and came to us for counseling, case management, and other services. We were able to be there for her when she recently graduated from college! The first time she came to The Landing she was shy, soft-spoken, and seemed unsure of herself. But now, she is a confident young woman who voluntarily introduces herself to other clients at The Landing, welcoming them with warm smiles.

Consider drop-in centers when you think of valuable resources. This model is reliable in building relationships and trust so that we can help identify and serve more victims of trafficking. And when a survivor of trafficking is ready to leave their abuser – they have somewhere and someone to turn to.

Natasha Paradeshi serves as the Executive Director/Co-founder of The Landing, Houston’s first drop-in center for survivors of human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. She believes that this model helps increase trust with survivors, giving them greater access and hope for freedom. She is responsible for strategy direction, development implementation, program oversight, and community engagement. Over the past 8 years, she has been passionate about creatively filling needs and forming strategic partnerships so that more survivors can get access to the services they need. Natasha graduated from the University of Southern California with a Masters of Public Policy degree and from the University of Texas with a Bachelor of Business Administration and a Bachelor of Liberal Arts.

Jennifer Swets will be presenting, “Effects of Trauma on the Mind, Body and Soul and How Movement and Meditation Facilitates Healing” on Tuesday, October 15 at this year’s JuST (Juvenile Sex Trafficking) Conference in Cincinnati, OH. Visit justconference.org/just2019 to review our workshop agenda and for more information on how to register.

Read Jennifer’s blog below:

Effects of Trauma on the Mind, Body and Soul and How Movement and Meditation Facilitates Healing

By: Jennifer Swets, MA, RYT, Executive Director, Mending Nets

Sigmund Freud said in 1895, “I think this man is suffering from memories.”

How true those words ring today. People who experienced trauma relive that traumatic event or events over and over. Their mind, body, and soul are affected long after the initial event. They are, in truth, suffering from memories.

When someone goes through a traumatic situation, their body is a crime scene. It does not feel safe, so trauma survivors try to spend as much time outside their body as they can. Also, many are mentally tormented by shame they feel in the present about events that have occurred in the past. They feel shame for how they acted or didn’t act at the time and try to numb those feelings anyway they can. And there is a loss of self. Some survivors feel defined by the trauma. They become what the abuser says they are or what society deems them to be.

Trauma Needs to be Witnessed

In my line of work, I have seen that suffering needs to be witnessed and validated before it can be openly addressed. David Emmerson states in his book Overcoming Trauma through Yoga: Reclaiming Your Body, that when suffering is minimized or shamed, it doesn’t go away. It goes underground. It goes beneath the surface, into the body and mind, and stays there wreaking havoc until it can be released.

Also, most trauma survivors are unable to tell anybody what exactly happened immediately following the event. Those emotions, thoughts, and memories go unprocessed and get dumped into the body.

The Body Speaks What the Mind Can’t:

When emotions, thoughts, and memories go unprocessed, they can show up as emotional and physical symptoms. And seek validation through flashbacks, unexplained rage, uncontrollable outburst, poor impulse control, racing thoughts, depression, body aches, and pain.

Mending Mind, Body and Soul

While talk therapy is an essential step in the healing process, many are finding that it is not enough. We must address the way trauma is held in the body to make the healing process more complete.

For real change to take place, according to Bessel VanDerKolk of “The Body Keeps the Score,” the body needs to learn the danger has passed and to live in the reality of the present. When survivors are triggered or reminded of the past, their right brain reacts as if the traumatic event were happening at that moment. And because their left brain is unable to process the situation due to trauma, they may not be aware they are “suffering from memories.”

Bridging the Gap with Yoga and Meditation

In working with trauma survivors, I have found that yoga and meditation can bridge the gap of helping survivors safely process their thoughts and emotions and move them into a space of healing.

Yoga is a series of bilateral integration — right and left motions. Movement in yoga builds connections from the right brain to the left brain. Through bilateral integration, the brain is rebuilding broken connections, thus bringing memories to the surface of consciousness.

Yoga can help survivors create a safe place in which they process those memories.

Meditation also allows the brain to rewire and heal. We spend most of our time thinking about the future or reflecting on the past. Meditation is a way to train the mind on the present. Meditation helps bring the focus inward to increase calmness, concentration, and emotional balance.

During meditation stress hormones decrease, blood pressure decreases, brain waves increase, dopamine is released, and concentration and clarity are improved.
Trauma-informed yoga and meditation are great ways to bring survivors into the present moment and it can help them learn how to trust and accept their body. And can help release what has been stored and unprocessed for so long.

With warm authenticity, engaging storytelling and bold humor, Jennifer Swets creates a bridge of safety and discovery in which she invites her audiences to cross. Jennifer is passionate about helping others experience mind, body and spiritual healing. She has a heart for ministering to those who are often overlooked or undeserved. Jennifer has a B.A. in Psychology and a Master’s Degree in Gerontology.  She worked with the Illinois Department of Aging as a case manager and then Director of Social Services.  And is also a certified yoga teacher.  Being a trauma survivor herself, she empathetically shares many of the truths she’s discovered on her own path to wholeness. Jennifer inspires her audiences to show up authentically, to connect spiritually and to leave profoundly changed.