We are happy to share the groundbreaking work of Cynthia Prosek at Restorative Justice Community Action (RJCA), based in the heart of downtown Minneapolis. Restorative justice (RJ) is a transformative process that empowers those who have been harmed and humanizes those who have caused harm. A paradigm shift from the traditional punitive legal system, RJ provides an opportunity for those who caused harm to engage with the community by accepting responsibility and repairing the harm directly. 
 
Cynthia Prosek has been RJCA’s Executive Director since 2012 and she has been involved in practicing restorative justice in various capacities for over 20 years. She started with RJCA as a volunteer, then joined the board when it became a nonprofit before becoming a staff member. She has been instrumental in RJCA’s focus on providing avenues for practitioners of color to be leaders in restorative justice work.
 
According to Cynthia, RJ focuses primarily on fulfilling the “victim’s” needs to have the harm repaired directly in a meaningful way.  Restorative justice also focuses on removing the label of “offender” by giving people involved in the criminal legal system a second chance when they are willing to take responsibility for the harm they have caused. RJ examines underlying root causes, such as cultural context, poverty, racial inequities, and socioeconomic disparities. RJ offers a way forward for all stakeholders to reconnect as a community while holding each other accountable. 
 
Right now, RJCA is preparing for the trials of the four Minneapolis police officers involved in the murder of Mr. George Floyd. As an organization, RJCA has been named as the node, or holder of information, for the TRUST Network in Minnesota. Together with the TRUST Network, RJCA is bringing together a multitude of community organizations to lead efforts in addressing community violence through early warning and early response with strategic nonviolent power. They are coordinating resources and information to respond to political violence in the community. RJCA’s goals include providing spaces for the community to talk about the trauma caused by law enforcement and the criminal legal process. Through collaboration, they are helping community members to understand aspects such as what is happening in the courtroom, what the trial involves, and what impact these processes have on the wider community. 
 
Dr. Erica Chenoweth, Harvard University nonviolent movement scholar and researcher indicates that it only takes 5% of a cross-section of a population who are active in a nonviolent peacebuilding campaign to create a tipping point. When this happens, unjust oppressive societal structures begin to disintegrate and transformation is set in motion. We are grateful to have RJCA as a catalyst for Minneapolis’ nonviolent transformation tipping point. 
 
Do you want to be part of this movement to transform Minneapolis’ community trauma into nonviolent power? Join us to learn strategies, skills, and concepts for positive social change at one of our upcoming virtual Introduction to Restorative Justice trainings. 
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 Learn more here! 

George Floyd's murder added to the ongoing instances of systemic police brutality across the U.S., injecting further trauma into our community. Read more about how Dr. Antony Stately is thinking about providing trauma-informed resources after the Minneapolis Uprising.

Dr. Antony Stately, CEO of Native American Community Clinic (NACC), has been involved with the Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) Training in Minnesota from the very beginning. Dr. Stately was drawn to the way STAR teaches about trauma as an intersectional spectrum, as well as how it addresses the way trauma shows up in our bodies. Having done a number of historical trauma healing workshops when he returned to Minnesota, he was intrigued by the effective and applicable methods for building resilience and healing trauma that STAR offers. He works with a community that doesn’t always have access to fancier, more expensive approaches that can be used to address trauma, such as therapy. He was impressed by the way STAR was complex and clear in its method for unpacking and understanding trauma and also straightforward in its strategies for helping. 
 
According to Dr. Stately, we have seen a lot of aspects of the cycles of violence in our communities lately. With the intense civil uprising this past summer in response to the murder of George Floyd, as well as the spotlight on broader, systemic level inequity and violence, Dr. Stately believes we need a thoughtful, trauma-informed response for law enforcement as well as the entire community. Without deliberate, neuroscience-based resources and strategies to address mass trauma, people often engage in seemingly unreasonable behaviors. STAR concepts have the capacity to help people understand what is happening “upstream” for them personally before anyone reaches for a gun or explodes outward with violence. Dr. Stately says that “we cannot psycho-educate people out of crises.” Instead, we need to ask the more challenging questions: “What does trauma look like, and how do we embody it?” “Why do we rush for control of others instead of talk and de-escalate?” “Where are the opportunities for a resilience framework to be implemented?” We need to show up differently, because when people don’t have effective tools to manage trauma, difficult, and often tragic, situations emerge. We need to build skills, acquire tools, and practice strategies that open up space for personal and community reflection and self-awareness for better decision-making in emotionally loaded situations. The virtual 5-day STAR Training and the condensed versions--STAR-Lite and Introduction to STAR--offer opportunities to reflect and to learn how to manage challenging circumstances differently. If we choose to, we can transform trauma into nonviolent power for personal and collective healing and social justice change.
 
Furthermore, Dr. Stately appreciates not only the strong focus on understanding trauma that is present in STAR, but also the strong focus on resilience, and what we each can do in our own spheres of influence. We can never completely remove traumatic events from our lives, but we can be better informed in how we deal with them. NACC’s focus is on reducing health disparities in the Native American community—spiritually, physically, emotionally, and mentally. Dr. Stately speaks of a deeply imbedded history of trauma and violence perpetrated on and within the community. In his view, one pathway out of this situation is teaching tools of resilience. STAR strategies teach people how to address trauma, understand the cycles of violence, heal, and build resilience with healthy power to bounce back and become even stronger after bad experiences. This process strengthens individuals and communities to work together for positive social justice change for all. This is Peacebuilding. 

Click here to learn more about offerings at Native American Community Clinic.

Historically, community organizing and trauma healing have not always been seen as going hand-in-hand. In this article, learn more about how one Minneapolis community organizer uses a trauma-informed approach in his work.

Tommy McBrayer has lived and worked in the Central neighborhood of south Minneapolis for 22 years. While working for the Central Area Neighborhood Development Organization (CANDO), he was forwarded an email containing MN Peacebuilding’s upcoming trainings. According to Tommy, he didn’t know a lot about trauma, its effects, or how to heal from it when he received that email. However, after becoming a victim of gun violence in early July, he soon found himself attending the STAR-Lite training. That training would play a major role in his recovery, how he viewed his situation, and how he could help others in the community that found themselves in a similar situation.
 
Tommy has experienced trauma in both his childhood and adult life, as have many of those around him. Although he had briefly opened up to others, he wasn’t sure how to process what had happened to him. He found the concepts of STAR-Lite both transformational and applicable. Being guided through the process of healing from trauma changed his understanding of his situation and helped him build resilience and prevent further violence in his life and community. He found the content and format—lecture style mixed with breakout groups—both enlightening and engaging. In particular, Tommy found the galaxy model helpful for conceptualizing the trauma healing process and helping to guide him through that process.
 
“As long as you’re human, you’ll experience trauma in your life”, Tommy said. However, although trauma is inevitable, we have power over how we respond to it. He says that since participating in the STAR-Lite training, he is able to look at situations from a different angle. Knowledge of trauma, resilience, and restorative justice have helped him develop the patience and compassion to look at the “person behind the problem”. 
 
Thank you for sharing a piece of your story with us, Tommy! ​

Pay-what-you-can spots are available for upcoming Online Introduction to Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience trainings! Click here to learn more.