--This is Part 2 of a 2-Part Webinar Series--
This presentation will engage participants in strategizing ways we as helping professionals can support continued healing, resilience and resistance within the Latinx communities we serve. This presentation will explore racial battle fatigue, spotlighting and other workplace forms of oppression that impede our long-term engagement in this work. A final outcome is for participants to end this workshop with a plan for radical self-care and critical allyship to promote our well-being as helping professionals and sustain us in this work.
Spanning two decades of research, trauma-informed (T-I) practice is seen as a new frontier in behavioral health and social services (National Council for Behavioral Health, n.d.), but more is needed to honor culturally-grounded sources for resilience and resistance when healing from substance use for Latinx individuals and communities. Building on the Critical Trauma model that addresses the role of oppression-based trauma in substance use and the unique, culturally-rooted resilience and resistance characteristics for Latinx, this presentation will propose a set of culturally sustaining practices in treating individuals impacted by substance use.
An educator for the previous decade and helping professional since 1996, Anna Nelson, LCSW, is a College Assistant Professor with NMSU School of Social Work and a Ph.D. Candidate in Educational Leadership and Administration. Ms. Nelson employs mixed-methods participatory action research grounded in Critical Race and Intersectionality theories to understand cultural, cumulative and collective trauma and its impact on communities with a strong focus on identity-driven resilience and resistance. From 2010- 2016, she served as Executive Director of the New Mexico Forum for Youth in Community, a statewide network intermediary that promoted racial, health, academic and economic justice for all youth statewide. Her professional practice emphases are youth, family and community engagement, violence prevention, trauma/healing informed culturally sustaining service systems development, and policy transformation, particularly for child welfare and juvenile justice systems.