Category: Diversity / Social & Cultural Competence Category: Diversity / Social & Cultural Competence (show less) Other: New Jersey Other: New Jersey (show less)

The United States is experiencing a clash of ideologies. There is a movement focused on promulgating anti-racism and pushing the country towards acknowledging that Black Lives Matter. There is also a movement focused on using misinformation to destroy truth telling and on asking individuals to rewrite history and believe in a false narrative about the country’s origins and trajectory during the previous 400-plus years. These differences are important because they reflect why race-based trauma is ingrained in our society and impacts the daily lives of Black people in the United States. Race-based trauma is insidious. It is so embedded that its impact and consequences are often willfully ignored or unintentionally not noticed.

This plenary will provide an overview of the types of historical and present-day race-based trauma that impact Black people in America. There will be a focus on identifying the impact of race-based trauma across multiple levels (e.g., individual, family, intergenerational, and community). Highlighted will be implications for failing to address race-based trauma at those levels. Finally, there will be an exploration of strategies that we as social workers can utilize as best practices when working with Black people in the United States.

Learning Objectives
1. Attendees will learn what forms race-based trauma, which impacts Blacks in the United States, can take and how history can influence current experiences and eventual outcomes.
2. Attendees will learn how race-based trauma can impact Blacks in the United States as individuals, family members, inter-generationally, and community members.
3. Attendees will be challenged to identify strategies they can learn, create, and employ that will lead to change in their own practice and that can serve as a foundation upon which to build new ideas and skills.