Trauma unchecked in community, SEEDS to bridge gap
Mental health within the Black community has come to the forefront of conversations over recent years, and have included concerns for Black youth.
Mental Health America reports that Black teenagers are more likely to attempt suicide than their white counterparts and that Blacks of all ages are more likely to be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder because of their increased exposure to violence.
In an attempt to combat this problem, Affirming YOUth Foundation will start a 12-week after-school program called SEEDS to help inner-city youth deal with emotional problems.
Jonathan Spikes, executive director of the Affirming YOUth Foundation, said one goal of the program is to partner with the youth.
“One thing about our program is that we don’t have all the answers,” Spikes said. “And so instead of telling them what to do, we create a partnership who then makes plans, and we meet them where they are.”
Spikes said it’s important for youth to learn how to cope with the trauma they face, which is something he dealt with while growing up in Liberty City. At just 6 years old, Spikes’ 14-year-old brother was shot in the knee while taking out the trash. When Spikes hit 21, his 28-year-old brother was shot and murdered on Northwest 68 Terrace and 15 Avenue.
“It has a big impact because when those things happened to me and going through those traumas, we didn’t talk about it; we acted like it didn’t exist,” Spikes said.
In March 2015, Spikes was asked to speak at a memorial service at Booker T. Washington Senior High School for Richard Hallman, a 16-year-old student who died of gunshot injuries.
“When I did the memorial service and had the mic, so many students and parents came and expressed their feelings about their family that were murdered in the streets,” Spikes said. “There was nothing for them to do, no kind of grief counseling, bereavement. They just went on with their lives. We had to do something because this cannot continue to happen in our communities where people are walking around with trauma, and they’re not aware that that’s an abnormal way of living.”
SEEDS, or Social Emotional Enhance and Development for Success, aims to work with students to deal with their emotional trauma and increase social and academic success. During the 12 weeks, students will be able to take advantage of the foundation’s computer lab, get academic homework assistance and receive counseling services. Up to 100 students can participate in the program at a time, and they will be switched out every 12 weeks.
The SEEDS program is a new addition to Affirming YOUth Foundation’s other services. It has implemented a conflict resolution program, a grieving program and has engaged youth in the arts through a stage play. According to its website, the foundation has worked with 17 schools and served 230 youth in 2017.
Spikes said Affirming YOUth Foundation is working with the Miami-Dade County Public Schools system’s Together for Children initiative to select students for the program. Students who show early warning indicators, which include fighting in school, a high amount of absences and getting involved with the police, may receive a referral from their school to participate in the program.
Joyce Davis, a licensed clinical social worker and school counselor at Miami-Dade County Public Schools, helped to put the curriculum together for SEEDS. She has worked on other curricula for the school system in the past.
Davis said when creating the program, she had to consider the cultural relevancy of it because teens in the inner city face issues that teens in other communities do not face.
“In our community, we have an issue with teen violence, gun violence in particular. That’s not an issue for all teens, but in our community, it’s a relevant issue,” she said. “We want to have concepts that our kids can relate to. A 13-year-old child that lives in the inner city is not the same as a 13-year-old that lives in a rural environment, so we have to take that into consideration.”
Spikes said many organizations come into Liberty City to try to implement programs that aren’t relevant to the teens that live there. Affirming YOUth Foundation, focuses on social, emotional and academic programs. The foundation will host the grand opening of its center 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 4 at 150 NW 79th St. in Liberty City.
“Sometimes you get people who come in here, but you don’t understand the culture. They try to shove programs down the kids’ throat, but it don’t work,” he said.