(PS6-97) Identifying Racial Trauma Treatment Gaps with Community Members of Color through the Healing-Centered Engagement Framework

Abstract Text:

Introduction: Recent research on the adverse impacts of racism have highlighted how strengths-based, culturally-attuned, and social justice-oriented approaches to mental health treatment may be beneficial for treating the detrimental impacts of racial trauma in people of color. Healing-centered engagement (HCE: Ginwright, 2018), a theory that posits that healing trauma in communities of color should be explicitly political, grounded in culture, focused on wellbeing, and include resources to sustain wellbeing in providers and clients, has potential clinical applicability but had not been previously studied in clinical spaces. We aimed to define and develop novel HCE approaches for treating racial trauma through community member insights and consensus.

Method: The study utilized a modified version of the Delphi method- a structured, iterative research approach in which a set of subject matter experts develop consensus on a specific topic. Across three rounds of data collection, community members of color generated ideas for HCE therapeutic approaches, chose the most important approaches, and ranked them. Data was analyzed through a mixed-method approach combining directed content analysis and consensus analysis.

Results: After generating 11 initial HCE approaches that clinicians should utilize in their work, participants then ranked the six most important healing-centered approaches for clinicians to use when treating racial trauma: Access to resources for survival; General focus on wellbeing and self-care; Tools for advocacy and systems change; Culturally tailored and grounded treatment; Collective care in an individualistic society; and Emphasis on strengths. Though Kendall’s W was 0.233, indicating low ranking agreement, the rich qualitative data and overall findings from the study indicate encouraging support for community members’ understanding, acceptance, and ability to contribute to the development of the HCE framework for racial trauma treatment. The findings also spotlight the utility of HCE as a translatable and robust framework for clinicians to utilize and integrate with evidence-based treatments for clients of color who have experienced racial trauma.

Conclusion: Community members of color provided uniquely meaningful insights for clarifying the HCE framework and developing new treatment ideas for addressing racial trauma. Importantly, we found that providing resources for survival and tools for advocacy and systems change, as well as integrating a focus on wellbeing, culture, collective care, and strengths into mental health treatment are important for clinician utility and desired by consumers.