Notably, living in a community with high rates of gun violence is associated with increased levels of trauma amongst youth (Rajan et al., 2019). Trauma is considered harmful social, physical, and/or spiritual impacts of an event on one's life (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMSHA], 2014). Given the community level trauma faced in Gainesville, it is important to increase community resilience especially amongst youth. Significant trauma in youth has been tied to adverse childhood experiences, which can put these individuals at a significantly increased risk for heart disease, cancer, and other serious ailments (Danese & McEwen, 2012; Rajan et al., 2019). Core factors of community resilience include forms of peer connection and resources (Redford, 2016), both of which have been evidenced as outcomes of arts engagement (Fancourt & Finn, 2019). In fact, a review relative to the role of arts activities in developing resilience and mental wellbeing in youth has also shown that arts participation can positively impact self-esteem, self-confidence, relationship building, and a sense of belonging (Zarobe & Bungay, 2017).
Overall, this project aims to support youth who have been affected by local gun violence. The project first aims to promote forms of resilience through arts participation, more specifically mural making, amongst the priority population. Second, it aims to raise awareness about the issue of gun violence in the community as well as its traumatic effects. Third, the project seeks to amplify youth voices regarding the impact of local gun violence on their lives. To assess the achievement of these aims, quantitative survey data and qualitative focus group data will be collected, analyzed, and interpreted.
Project Activities:
In total, 25 local youth will be engaged in phase one and two, while the culminating event will engage at least 200 local residents. Youth in the priority population will engage in the design and execution of a set of collaborative mural installations over a six-month period. First, the arts engagement itself will promote key factors of resilience such as connection and wellbeing. Second, the mural design will center on the topic of gun violence, and therefore act as a form of health communication to raise awareness about the issue in the community. Finally, a culminating event will allow for youth to reflect on their experience and present individual artwork of any form to express their perspective on the impact of gun violence on youth. Each of these components will utilize trauma informed principles in their execution to both promote resilience and mitigate the harmful impacts of trauma.
The mural design and location will be chosen by the advisory board based on youth submissions. The mural outlines will be sketched in phase one, and phase two will consist of youth from within the region painting the sketched design. A professional muralist will be hired on to facilitate both phase one and phase two. This phased design allows for youth who may not feel comfortable in their visual art skills to engage in whichever phases feel most approachable to them. Finally, after the mural installation is complete, a youth empowerment celebration will occur at the mural site which will consist of youth sharing their experiences with the project, food trucks, as well as an art exhibition of individual works by youth focused on gun violence. The art for the exhibition will be collected through an open call to the Alachua County Public School System.
Public Health Framework:
Utilizing a trauma-informed approach in conjunction with a public health framework allows for both healing and resilience to be centered in a community focused process (Philanthropy Network of Greater Philadelphia, 2018). More specifically, by integrating concepts related to how resilience buffers against adverse childhood experiences and trauma, public health focused programs can achieve greater impact through increased forethought and collaboration (Philanthropy Network of Greater Philadelphia, 2018). Conceptually, trauma-preventative policies have the potential to reduce trauma and promote resilience despite not having the explicit intention of addressing trauma (Philanthropy Network of Greater Philadelphia, 2018). Trauma-informed policies have a clear reflection of trauma prevalence and its effects (Philanthropy Network of Greater Philadelphia, 2018). Finally, trauma-specific policies promote access to programs or interventions which both address the impact of trauma exposure while also promoting recovery (Philanthropy Network of Greater Philadelphia, 2018). Each of these concepts align with public health forms of prevention – primary prevention which seeks to prevent, secondary prevention which seeks to address risk, and tertiary prevention which seeks to treat (Philanthropy Network of Greater Philadelphia, 2018).
As it pertains to this project in particular, a trauma-informed approach is being applied in combination with all three levels of public health prevention strategies. Notably, the arts participation component intends to utilize tertiary prevention as it can mitigate effects of trauma exposure through self-expression while also promoting resilience and recovery amongst participants. Additionally, the health communication component will utilize primary prevention as it will not necessarily address traumatic stress, but it intends to garner community awareness so that the community has a greater potential to reduce trauma exposure related to gun violence. Finally, the community event will encompass all three levels of prevention given the diversity of the event – health communication, self-expression, and reflecting knowledge about the prevalence of the issue.
Levels of Social Ecological Model:
The social ecological model (SEM) provides research and programming the ability to understand environmental causes driving a behavior, identify environmentally focused interventions, and look beyond the individual (McLeroy et al.,1988), Notably, it considers the social environment within nested, interacting levels (McLeroy et al.,1988). As it pertains to ACEs, the literature has shown evidence in the utility of employing a multilevel approach to effectively improve population level health (Danielson & Saxena, 2019). Further, efforts to build resilience across multiple levels of the social ecological model has been deemed most effective (Danielson & Saxena, 2019). Therefore, to both fully prevent and treat ACEs while building resilience, efforts should strive to address all levels of the social ecological model.
Relative to the SEM developed by McLeroy et al. (1988), this project will address the individual, interpersonal, and organizational levels as each of these levels can be addressed effectively within the scope of the project. To address the individual level, youth engaged in any project phase will be given the opportunity to be referred out to trauma informed counseling services. In addition to this, trauma informed counselors will be onsite for each event as a preventative measure. Phase one of the project will serve to address the interpersonal level as resilience alongside counter-ACEs will be promoted through the collaborative creation of murals bringing awareness to the issue of gun violence in the community. The organizational level will be addressed as each entity involved in facilitating the project will be trained to implement trauma informed practices and will also identify how they can utilize these strategies across all their work.
Trauma-Informed Principles:
To effectively provide guidance surrounding the implementation of trauma-informed approaches, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) developed six trauma-informed principles which include safety, trustworthiness and transparency, peer support, collaboration and mutuality, empowerment, voice and choice, as well as cultural, historical and gender issues (SAMHSA, 2014). Notably, the principle of safety pertains to the importance of both staff, and those they serve, feeling physically and psychologically safe throughout all facets of an organization or system (SAMHSA, 2014). Considerations for physical safety should include creating spaces or settings which are not only inviting, but also resist re-traumatization (SAMHSA, 2014). Additionally, psychologically safe considerations should focus on ensuring safe and approachable interpersonal interactions are commonplace (SAMHSA, 2014). The principle of collaboration and mutuality focuses on true partnerships and intentional leveling of power between or amongst both staff and those they serve (SAMHSA, 2014). It is essential that when employing this principle, at the forefront is the concept that everyone within an organization, from medical providers to front facing staff, has a role or responsibility in the efficacy of employing a trauma-informed approach (King, 2023).
Both the principles of safety and collaboration and mutuality will be incorporated into this program. Regarding safety, during the mural painting session safety will first be established by setting ground rules for the group which could help to ensure that conversations are respectful. Additionally, it is important to consider types of imagery which may be triggering or re-traumatizing for youth engaged in the painting process so that they can be effectively avoided. Relating to collaboration and mutuality, active efforts will be made throughout the project to adjust power dynamics in equitable ways. For instance, the youth will be given the opportunity to design and lead meetings leading up to an art-making event and be leaders for certain activities onsite.
References
Danese, A., & McEwen, B. S. (2012). Adverse childhood experiences, allostasis, allostatic load, and age-related disease. Physiology & Behavior, 106(1), 29–39. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2011.08.019Links to an external site.
Danielson, R., & Saxena, D. (2019). Connecting adverse childhood experiences and community health to promote health equity. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 13(7), e12486. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12486
Fancourt, D., & Finn, S. (2019). What is the evidence on the role of the arts in improving health and well-being?: A scoping review (Health Evidence Network Synthesis Report No. 67; pp. 1–146). World Health Organization. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK553773/
King, L. (2023). A Social Ecological Approach to Address Trauma [PowerPoint presentation]. University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, United States.
McLeroy, K. R., Bibeau, D., Steckler, A., & Glanz, K. (1988). An Ecological Perspective on Health Promotion Programs. Health Education Quarterly, 15(4), 351–377. https://doi.org/10.1177/109019818801500401Links to an external site.
Philanthropy Network of Greater Philadelphia. (2018). Trauma-Informed Philanthropy. https://philanthropynetwork.or...raumaGUIDE_Final.pdf
Rajan, S., Branas, C. C., Myers, D., & Agrawal, N. (2019). Youth exposure to violence involving a gun: evidence for adverse childhood experience classification. Journal of behavioral medicine, 42(4), 646–657. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-019-00053-0
Redford, J. (Director). (2016). Resilienece: The biology of stress and the science of hope. https://kpjrfilms.co/resilience/
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA]. (2014). SAMHSA’s Concept of Trauma and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach. 27.
Zarobe, L., & Bungay, H. (2017). The role of arts activities in developing resilience and mental wellbeing in children and young people a rapid review of the literature. Perspectives in Public Health, 137(6), 337–347. https://doi.org/10.1177/1757913917712283
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