How do we heal from trauma and integrate collective healing practices into the work of systems change?
Broader awareness of historical, intergenerational, and collective trauma in our systems could be transformative for mainstream social and environmental problem solving efforts. Yet trauma healing remains almost entirely absent from the discourse and the practice of systems change.
Our Healing-Centered Systems Change Team, led by Dr. Laura Calderón de la Barca, along with our partner organizations, are introducing a special series titled “Stories of What is Possible in Systemic Healing,” featuring five cases that place healing at the center of systems change and, as a result, are seeing movement in the direction of transformed systems.
These five stories are from different places and occur in different contexts, but they all share the common thread of catalyzing collective action and healing, leading to systems change. Through these examples, we aim to spark conversations, foster deeper reflection, and encourage more communities and organizations to take bold steps of centering healing in their efforts to advance equity and justice in communities and across the world.
We invite you to engage with “Stories of What is Possible in Systemic Healing.” Let’s continue this journey of reflection and action—together.
The Stories
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Creative Alternatives for Peace and in Colombia: Corporacion Dunna
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A Healing Approach to Systems Change in New Zealand: Haumanu
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Mobilizing Survivor Leadership: Futures Without Violence in partnership with Women Transforming Families, UJIMA, and Latinos United for Peace and Equity
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Systems Mapping of Intergenerational Trauma: Rural Opportunity Institute
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Racial Healing in Communities across the U.S: Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation
Healing Systems
How recognizing trauma in ourselves, other people, and the systems around us can open up new pathways to solving social problems.
Watch the three-part webinar series on collective healing for systems change, in partnership with The Wellbeing Project, here.
Short on time? Check out the highlight video and webinar quotes here.
The Collective Change Lab and The Wellbeing Project recently co-hosted a series of webinars on collective healing for systems change. Read through the quotes and stories shared by renown social change leaders who participated in the webinar series.
Quotes & Insights
Healing from Trauma
In this episode of "It's Not Your Money," Capital Collaborative Senior Advisor Jessamyn Shams-Lau sits down with CCL’s John Kania & Katherine Milligan to discuss the topic of trauma, how it shows up in philanthropy, how to integrate collective healing practices into the work of systems change, and how to get the conversation started.
Collective Healing & Systems Change
What do we learn when we integrate the perspectives of trauma and systems change? Why is a trauma-informed lens absent from the mainstream discourse about social and environmental problem solving and what changes when we bring that lens from the periphery to the mainstream?
This episode of Resiliency Within dives into an exploration of how trauma shows up as a force to be reckoned with in systems that touch our lives.
