Chris Nguon:
Peace community. Welcome to the CARMA Chronicles podcast, where we talk to the nation’s leading healing centered practitioners. Today’s episode is going to be a little different. We are going to change it up and spend some time breaking down the concept of CARMA. What is CARMA? Why do we call this podcast the CARMA chronicles? And how does implementing healing in our environments, in 2021, so important in youth development work. We’ll also share two recent clips from Dr. Ginwright, including a really poignant anecdote that he’s shared in the past about an experience he had working in a prison that displays how Healing work, through the CARMA model, shows up. Next.

Chris Nguon:
 First before we get started. I want to take a quick second to extend our biggest gratitude, love, and appreciation to the many, many listeners who have given us such positive feedback about this podcast since our launch two months ago. It’s been graciously overwhelming, and we are really thankful that our listeners have found some value in this space, with obviously the biggest thank you going to our guests so far – Dr. Ginwright himself, the incredibly talented Jenn Johns, the rising star Ree Botts-Ward, and the dope brother that he is Aman Sebhathu. We also want to thank our current team at Flourish Agenda and the many, many community loved ones over the years who have helped to craft this healing model, including Nedra Ginwright, Aisha B, Farima Pour Korshid, Christina V, Sai Viegel, Mizan and Sizwe, Jazz and Bhankele, and so, sooo many others. And for new listeners who are with us for the first time, please feel free to share, like, and comment on wherever you are catching this podcast, whether its Apple or Spotify, or our website, flourishagenda.com, as it helps spread this healing work to an even larger audience. Thank you. 

Chris Nguon:
Now for the Folks out here listening who work or have worked with young people, we all know how stressful life is for our young and their families. We are trained, whether we want to say traditionally or otherwise, to show up for our young people as positivity as we can, as present as we can, for as long as we can – and do it again the next day. But how many times have you, let’s say you work in a school, how many times have you come onto campus not feeling your best self? How many times did you have something on your heart? Maybe it was something personal that went down with the family, maybe it was a comment, or a decision made that rubbed you the wrong way? Maybe it was an experience of racism, or sexism, that devalued all the beautiful and wonderful humane aspects of yourself? Where do we put all of that, all of those feelings, as we walk into campus to heal young people? That’s where Healing Centered Engagement, through the CARMA model, offers an approach. 

Chris Nguon:
I want to share a short clip, it’s only about a minute long, from Dr. Ginwright that I think helps set the stage for what we are going to talk about today.

Shawn Ginwright:
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Chris Nguon:
We are living in complex times Folks. And we are on the cusp of transformation as a society, where we not only dive deep into the strategies that will best help young people and their families, but in acknowledging that those strategies should include how we, as even adult practitioners, like myself, approach our own healing work, more specifically this concept called Healing Centered Engagement, which is essentially a paradigm shift in how we think and work with young people in our systems and how it does requires a change in the adults who support them. 

Chris Nguon:
Healing Centered Engagement builds upon Trauma Informed Care. There is a collective trauma that we experience, that our young people experience. We can go from places like Detroit, New York, New Orleans, or where I grew up right here in West Oakland, there is a collective shared trauma experience that extends beyond the individual. 

Chris Nguon:
HCE centers on 3 things; it’s a perspective on how to work with young people; it’s an approach that allows us to change the eco system of where young people are and it’s a strategy of how to work with young people in the spaces that they reside – at home, school, summer camps, juvenile justice, schools, etc … HCE is a strength-based approach and centers CARMA. What is CARMA? Now CARMA is a model of practice through the lens of Healing Centered Engagement. In his recent book, Hope and Healing in Urban Education, this is how Dr. Ginwright breaks down CARMA. 

Chris Nguon:
Starting with Culture, which serves as an anchor to connect young people to a racial and ethnic identity that is both historically grounded and comtemporary releveant. This view of culture embraces the importance of a healthy ethnic identity for youth of color while at the same time celebrates the vibrancy and ingeneuinity of urban youth culture. 

Chris Nguon:
Agency, which is the collective and individual ability to act, create, and change external and personal issues. Agency compels youth to explore their personal power to transform problems into possibilities. And we’ll come back to agency too, because I think that’s a really important one. 

Chris Nguon:
Relationships, which is our capacity to create, sustain and grow healthy connections with others. Relationships build a deep, and I do mean deep, deep sense of connection and prepares youth to know themselves as part of a long history of struggle and triumph. 

Chris Nguon:
Meaning, which is discovering our purpose and building an awareness of our role in advancing justice. Meaning builds the awareness of the intersection of personal and political life by pushing youth to understand how personal struggles have profound political explanations. 

Chris Nguon:
And Aspirations, maybe the most important principle of all CARMA principles, which alluminates life’s pososiblities and acknowledges life’s explicit goals. Aspirations means to understand oppression, but not be defined by it, and it encourages youth to explore possibilities for their lives and work towards their personal and collective advancement.

Chris Nguon:
Now here is where I want to share a really memorable story that Dr. Ginwright provides, it’s about 10 minutes or so, about a time he did some work in a prison and how the practice of CARMA can show up anywhere in a person’s healing journey. Check it out.

Shawn Ginwright:
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Chris Nguon:
That was Dr. Ginwright, on a recent talk he did with a cohort of youth development practitioners, really lifting up how even in the most inhumane of spaces, like a prison environment often is, can still offer a sense of self agency that values how the individual contextualizes their environment in a healing space, even for just a moment.

Chris Nguon:
Now we talk about healing, we know it’s nuanced because healing also means trauma came before it. And when we think about trauma, we often think about it through the lens of PTSD, which certainly is a vital form of thinking about trauma in our communities. But what healing through the CARMA model encourages is to look at trauma from the lens of what is called Persistent Traumatic Stress Environment (PTSE), which is an idea that trauma is a result of laws, policies, and practices that are embedded in our institutions that re-produce harm in our young people AND adults. We have to assume that everyone has experienced some form of trauma because we know trauma doesn’t go away after 18 years old or after you leave high school, or after you get a job.

Chris Nguon:
Now when we think about CARMA, we can think about CARMA as a value system of how to go about integrating healing centered care into your work with young people. Think about how honoring culture, holding space for agency, focusing on relationships, searching for meaning, and actualizing aspirations creates a space that allows communities to heal. 

Chris Nguon:
James Gabarino, in this book, (Raising Children in a socially toxic environment), introduces this concept called social toxicity, which like physical toxins, such as asbestos, can over time infiltrate and embed negative aspects that society offers that hinder our ability to be our best selves. Now Dr. Ginwright offers that we should think about social toxicity as rain clouds and rain drops that come from the -isms, what are the isms? – heterosexism, ageism, racism, colonialism. And that identifying what these are, how they sink down on us, like rain drops, collectively, and how it shows up, allows space to center the CARMA model in this collective healing practice. 

Chris Nguon:
Now we also know that research shows that when we engage with young people to produce a sense of agency that doesn’t limit their ability to foster an individual and collective aspiration, this process of really lifting up agency for young people creates and cultivates well-being. In order for young people to be well, the adult allies have to be well, too. We call that a parallel process of well-being where the adult is engaged in their own healing along with the young person – and where we as adults question our racial biases, we examine our privilege, where we get underneath our own perceptions and undercover those things that might be preventing us from being more human to one another.

Chris Nguon:
Now over the course of 30 years, our work family at Flourish Agenda, and I do mean family y’all in so many ways because Flourish Agenda’s family is so extended, have seen the impact that healing work has had on young people at leadership excellence, through Oakland Freedom Schools, Camp Akili and most recently through Akili Family Camp (which we’ll talk about on an upcoming episode). Healing work, for a lack of a better term, works. That’s why we wanted to start this podcast, to not only talk about our work at Flourish Agenda, but to share all the deep and resonating work that so many people in our communities around the world have already implemented.  And we’ve already highlighted four practitioners who have done just that on this podcast.

Chris Nguon:
Now some of our listeners have asked how to we learn more about our healing work? And how to integrate it into their agency and their work? Flourish Agenda recently, in February of 2021, launched our Healing Centered Engagement certification training program, which is an online certification course for youth development workers, teachers, social workers, and other youth development professionals, that can be taken anywhere at any time as long as you have a computer The beauty of the course is that it is self-paced, includes videos, animated scenarios, Q&As, along with interactive and reflective learning activities. This certification is a way for practitioners in the field to really dive into healing centered engagement and all that comes with it. And at the end of the course, every participant will receive a Healing Centered Engagement certification as an HCE practitioner, signed by Dr. Ginwright. You can find more information on Flourish’s website, flourishagenda.com. 

Chris Nguon:
We hope that these ideas, the context that it provides, gives you a pathway towards healing our young people. The certification aims to also foster a learning space where ideas and tools that you yourself, the youth development professional, can cultivate in relation to your setting with your young people, as we know no two spaces are exactly the same. 

Chris Nguon:
And ultimately our collective hope, our shared vision of what could be, is that collectively, we offer a healing centered space for all young people, all around the world, in the spirit of Ubuntu, so that young people can heal from their trauma and flourish together.

Chris Nguon:
So that wraps it up for this episode Folks. We’ll be back next episode with another awesome guest. And a reminder that you can find our work on social media at @flourishagenda on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and our website flourishagenda.com. Feel free to like, comment, send us a direct message. We love having conversations about healing because this is what we do, this is our passion, and we love to spread healing work in all of our communities.

Chris Nguon:
Until next time my good peoples, peace and love, thank you so much for listening.