Yesterday I attended an event that crystallized some thoughts I have been having. It was a symposium hosted by Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute as a part of their social determinants of health initiative. The focus of the symposium was healing from community trauma. The thesis of the entire event was that we need to develop trauma-informed systems to combat environments in which both children and adults experience traumatic experiences on a regular basis. Unless we have schools, courts, hospitals, churches, and governments that are sensitive to the needs of those who regularly exposed to jarring experiences, it was continuously argued, we will not only be ineffective in dealing the issues in urban communities, we also run the risk of re-traumatizing those we had hoped to serve.

I have been acutely aware of the ways that my own experience of childhood trauma are impacting my health as an adult. Many…