Ep. 18: Trauma-sensitive yoga effective with LGBTQ+ youth
Justice In Action
Sexual assault, bullying and harassment are traumatic for all survivors of any age. Transgender and non-binary youth are at high risk for encountering these experiences, which can lead to the development of complex trauma that may include a lack of trust in other people and even estrangement from their own bodies. About half of all transgender or non-binary youth have experienced sexual assault. As a result, many experience anxiety and depression, including suicidal thoughts, and are more likely than their cis-gender peers to live with a sense of...
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Ep. 17: Substance Use Recovery
Justice In Action
Guiding our clients toward recovery from substance use disorder The opioid epidemic has increased the demand for effective recovery services, and Justice Resource Institute’s Mary Chao is leading the organization’s training program for clinicians and other staff members to aid them in helping clients recover. Chao has been with JRI for nine years and works with the agency’s health, training and community-based services divisions, developing and coordinating substance use programming throughout the agency. She works closely with clients ages 12 to 24 and the JRI clinicians who help them...
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Ep. 16: Mental Heath Treatment for Clients with Developmental Differences
Justice In Action
Mental health clinicians are often reluctant to treat people who have intellectual and developmental differences (IDDs) for fear of doing something that could worsen rather than improve the client’s condition. In this episode of Justice in Action, two JRI clinicians, Dr. Jacquelyn Kraps, Metrowest Area Director and Clinical Director of Outpatient Services, and Bailey McCombs, Licensed Metal Health Counselor and Expressive Arts Therapist, talk about the rewards and challenges of working with children with a range of differences, from autism spectrum disorder to chromosomal differences,...
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Ep. 15: Data and research improve treatment of complex trauma
Justice In Action
Few social service agencies are as committed as JRI to improving treatment through research and data. In today’s episode of Justice in Action, we talk to Hilary Hodgdon, Research Director at Justice Resource Institute, and Lia Martin, Senior Associate Director of Quality Management. Together, they are part of a data and research division that is unusual among social service agencies for its size and scope. JRI clients suffer from complex trauma. On average, a child or adolescent seeing a JRI therapist has experienced three different types of trauma, such as neglect, physical abuse or...
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Ep. 14: Courageous Conversations
Justice In Action
Staff of Justice Resource Institute don’t shy away from talking about tough issues like racial justice, immigration policy or vaccine hesitancy.
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Ep. 13: Covid-19 pandemic boosts need for foster homes
Justice In Action
More than 8,400 Massachusetts children are in foster care, and the need is growing as the financial and emotional strain of the Covid-19 pandemic and the state’s opioid crisis continue to take a toll on children and families.
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Ep. 12: Permanent Connections are Vital for a Child’s Success
Justice In Action
We all need the people in our lives who know us and care about us, who celebrate our successes and comfort us in hard times. These are the people we call when we get a new job, lock our keys in the car or are facing a big decision.
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Ep. 11: Children's Advocacy Center
Justice In Action
CAC mental health clinicians Brittannie Moroz and Jillian Allen shared CDC data stating one in four girls and one in 13 boys under age 18 suffer trauma as a result of child sexual abuse. Those children are some of the approximately 75,000 Bristol County children age 16 and younger be-lieved to have suffered trauma from abuse, violence, addiction in their homes or other causes of childhood trauma.
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Ep. 10: Trauma-sensitive yoga w/ Jennifer Turner
Justice In Action
Trauma-sensitive yoga helps sufferers use their bodies to heal their spirits
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Ep. 9: The Wounded Healer
Justice In Action
Helping the healer when their work unearths old symptoms of trauma
info_outlineFor a child who has suffered long-term trauma from abuse or neglect, the world doesn’t feel like a safe place. And children who suffer from such complex trauma often face challenges when it comes to forming relationships with others, acting out with anger or suffering silently from depression.
Enter Meredith Norton, a licensed social worker in Massachusetts, an equine-assisted therapist and riding instructor and lifelong horse lover. She is the director of JRI’s Trot On, an equine-assisted therapy program at Furnace Brook Farm in Marshfield, MA. Trot On matches young clients suffering from complex trauma with well-trained, tranquil horses to form relationships that teach those clients emotional regulation and self-control, empathy and communication skills.
“The human/animal bond is so important because it naturally supports (emotional) regulation and naturally supports helping calm stress levels,” Norton says. “Animals naturally reduce (people’s) stress hormones when they are interacting with humans.
Children suffering from complex trauma sometimes benefit from non-traditional forms of therapy — like equine-assisted therapy.
“Horses are living biofeedback machines,” Norton says. “If you’re calm and relaxed, your horse is going to reflect that in their energy….Horses are herd animals seeking that connection” with people.
Trot On is not only about riding. Clients learn to care for their horses, communicate with them verbally and non-verbally, and learn to read their horse’s cues and respond appropriately. Those skills can help heal a wounded child.
“Think of a young child learning development tasks — learning to walk, learning to read, learning to feed themselves — and all of the brain’s energy is going into forming those developmental skills,” Norton says. “But if they’re impacted by chronic stress, the brain is going to focus on safety responses, so the brain is going to develop differently in response to all that.”
Trauma can affect a child’s ability to form and maintain relationships, succeed in school, manage her emotional state and behavior toward others. Treating that trauma is essential to healing that child.
Riding is about movement and synchronization between horse and rider. That movement can help a child better understand the cues from her own body and her horse.
“Horses are living biofeedback machines,” Norton says. “If you’re calm and relaxed, your horse is going to reflect that in their energy….Being able to form a relationship with a horse who is non-judgmental, as all animals are, can be a lovely precursor to (forming) human relationships,” Norton says.
Learn about Trot On, JRI’s equine-assisted therapy program, by visiting them at https://jri.org /trot-on