Healing Through Empowerment
Urban communities are often shaped by structural inequity. This poverty and violence has a damaging effect on people, especially the youth in the community. Researcher-activist Dr. Shawn Ginwright proposes we take a new approach to dealing with this trauma – an approach he calls healing-centered engagement.
[00:00:00] From the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, this is Road to Resilience, a podcast about facing adversity. I'm your host Stephen Calabria, Mount Sinai's Director of Podcasting.
[00:00:12] On this episode, we welcome Sean Ginwright, Ph.D. Dr. Ginwright is a professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education. He's also the CEO for Flourish Agenda, a nonprofit consulting firm that works with youths of color, schools, youth-serving organizations, foundations, and local governments to build and implement strategies that allow young people to flourish.
[00:00:33] Dr. Ginwright's efforts have often focused on community resilience-- the that underprivileged communities may heal from their traumatic pasts through empowerment and trauma-informed therapy.
[00:00:43] His research and work illustrate the degree to which our collective successes are intertwined, and the possibilities for success that continue to exist for society's most vulnerable. We're honored to welcome Dr. Sean Ginwright to the show.
[00:00:59] Stephen Calabria: Dr. Sean Genwright, welcome to Road to Resilience, sir.
[00:01:02] Shawn Ginwright: Glad to be here. Glad to be here, Stephen.
[00:01:05] Stephen Calabria: If you would, could you kick us off with a bit about your background?
[00:01:09] Shawn Ginwright: Well, I started my career really working with young people when I was in college at, at San Diego State.
[00:01:16] And, that was a, a million years ago, right? It was in the, it was in the, um, late eighties, early nineties. When I began working with young people and began to understand that what was happening in San Diego with Black You was new.
[00:01:33] We hadn't seen it before, but it was happening in many urban cities, and that is sort of the influx of crack cocaine and the violence that sort of came from that.
[00:01:41] Unfortunately, I lost a young man during that time. And, from then on, I think I've been fascinated with trying to understand what are the constraints and barriers and challenges that young people face in their neighborhoods and their schools and their communities.