Sacramento’s youth are being traumatized by COVID-19. Here’s who is trying to help
Editor’s note: This story is part an ongoing series of journalism produced as part a collaboration between The Sacramento Bee, Sol Collective and other community organizations called the “Community to Newsroom Pipeline.” To learn more or to contribute, email us at voices@sacbee.com.
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Trauma affects us all. Even if you do not experience it first hand, vicarious trauma, also known as secondary trauma, can mean that you experience the same physical and mental effects as someone who experienced the trauma.
It’s safe to say that the global pandemic we are all experiencing is a traumatic event. And while some of us have the tools and community support to cope, marginalized people, in particular our young marginalized people, and their needs are being drowned out by COVID-19 news.
According to a January Fortune magazine report, 40 percent of American families are living one paycheck or financial emergency from poverty. Millions of Americans who work multiple jobs and still struggle were severely impacted by the stay-at-home order. No one was prepared for the countrywide loss of jobs, the impact on the health care system and a forced digital shift within our education system. No one was more ill-prepared than our young people.
In the age of coronavirus, youth in poverty are at war battling with profound loss, and a lack of hope and opportunity. The amount of stressors due to lack of access to transportation, food and technology has increased, and the anxiety due to an uncertainty about jobs, finances, education and the future has skyrocketed. The physical and mental effects lead to depression, because it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and difficult to find means to cope.
The reality is regardless of class, not every child is safe. When you layer that with common traumatic experiences that are not exclusive to the experience of children in poverty – such as medical trauma, child abuse, increased substance abuse, and violence at home, in the community and on the internet in the form of viral videos – the impact of COVID-19 is exponentially multiplied.
Just this past month in Dallas, a child was found with his hands tied sleeping in a shed for six days after schools were shut down. Closer to home, the police beat up a 14-year-old boy in Rancho Cordova during an arrest and a video of the beating went viral. In Sacramento County, multiple youth have committed suicide because of despair. Our young people are engaged in a war that has real consequences for their generation.
While some youth have looked to rebel and resist, turning to drugs and alcohol and spring breaking despite the warnings, others refuse to throw in the towel. Sometimes fighting against these forces that you cannot control looks like TikTok dances, drive-by birthday parties and acts of service.
Simple acts of community and searching for joy are also acts of solidarity.
Our young people need to know that they are not in this alone. Adults have struggled with adjusting and coping with the same issues. Many adults have responded in the same ways that our youth have.
Help for young people traumatized by coronavirus
Dealing with your trauma as an adult using the same tools for youth engagement doesn’t make you juvenile, it makes you human. That’s why the work of teachers, community educators and youth development practitioners is so important. They are finding creative solutions to really complex problems.
Folks like Sarah Michael Gaston of Youth Forward are creating smart solutions to improve health, education and well-being for Sacramento’s most vulnerable youth. People like Jackie Cole of Veritable Good Consulting, Faith McKinnie from the Crocker Art Museum and Kiara Reed of Uptown Studios have teamed up to create online community conversations about environmental justice that center the voices of young people, artists, activists and experts.
Greg Garcia of Cities Rise and Adrian Ruiz of the Youth Development Network are building a coalition of mental health advocates and popular Sacramento artists to share information about mental health resources for youth in distress.
Local nonprofit organizations have also stepped up in a major way and need to be protected and supported at all costs. Organizations like Sol Collective are providing free and low cost art workshops, as well as classes on how to eat healthy on a budget. 21 Reasons is connecting youth and families in Oak Park and South Sacramento to resources for youth engagement, food and health care. Miss Tee Sandifer of Studio T Dance is providing weekly options and opportunities for young people to take dance classes online and be part of an inspiring, motivated and tightly connected dance community.
There are a lot of people and organizations who are doing amazing work in Sacramento to support vulnerable and marginalized people. They need your support, time and attention. The hardest obstacle for these grassroots folks isn’t getting people to care. It’s getting people’s attention. Sacramento cares deeply about its own, but Sacramento is not as connected as it thinks.
During times when our government locally and federally looks to tighten budgets and make cuts, we need to stick together and reach out to those in need – the people who are overlooked and forgotten.
The people at the margins have to become the people at the center, because we can rebuild an economy but we can’t rebuild a life when it’s gone.
To support the organizations mentioned in this article, please view their websites and information here: