Kennedy Krieger Institute hosting Trauma Conference, thinks systemic racism is a pandemic

And how to heal ethno-racial trauma in a time of hate

The Kennedy Krieger Institute is set to hold its 8th Biennial Trauma Conference this Fall. The focus of this year’s conference will be specifically on mitigating the city’s rising rates of youths being harmed by gunfire.

Per The Sun, as of late July, 25 city youths had been shot this year, marking a 50% increase over last year. One of those youths was a five year-old who was taking a bath when he was struck by a bullet fired outside his home.

To address this growing problem, Kennedy Krieger Institute director Danielle Gregg described how strategies are needed to address three concurrent pandemics: COVID-19, structural racism, and mental health.

Per Gregg, “This year's focus is about strategies in managing concurrent pandemics,” she went on, "And those three things are COVID-19, of course, structural racism, and also, the increased mental health challenges that people have been experiencing as a result of both of these things."

Notably absent from the conference’s priorities as relates reducing gun violence, were such concepts as the nuclear family and an effective, empowered police force.

In previous years, some of the conference’s workshops included the below:

• Healing Entho-Racial Trauma in a Time of Hate

• Silence Does Not Always Equal Safety: Parenting a Transgender Child

• First Do No Harm: Recognizing & Addressing the Impact of Microaggression in Therapy

• Repairing African American Mental Health impacted by the Historical Trauma of Slavery