Anti-Black Racism and Historical Trauma: Pushing the Positive Youth Development Paradigm

CURRENT KNOWLEDGE BASE: The Positive Youth Development (PYD) framework transformed the direction of youth work in the United States twenty years ago (Lerner, Fisher, & Weinberg, 2000). PYD, while embraced in many sectors of youth work, has faced criticism for its emphasis on positive personal change and adaptation without an emphasis on social justice and culture, which are especially relevant for African Americans (Travis & Leech, 2014). Additional models of PYD have emerged to address these conceptual gaps by supporting Black youth to develop critical consciousness through critical thinking, reflection, and action to promote social change (Christens, Winn, & Duke, 2016; Diemer, Rapa, Voight, & McWhirte, 2016). However, few PYD models explicitly address anti-Black racism, historical trauma, and colorism as it relates to African American youth development.

PROPOSED ROUNDTABLE: In this roundtable, viewpoints on PYD will be examined, such as Empowerment-Based Positive Youth Development (EB) and Critical Positive Youth Development (CPYD) for their strengths and limitations in supporting social work research and practice for Black youth development in racially hostile environments. Perspectives on historical trauma responses among Black youth and anti-Black racism will be discussed, as related to positive youth development, along with culturally appropriate interventions.

IMPLICATIONS: An extensive literature base documents the negative impact of racism, psychologically and physiologically, although it is not explicitly addressed in dominant PYD frameworks (Loyd & Williams, 2017). PYD scholars with an Afrocentric or culturally-oriented perspective contend that the PYD field would be remiss to not address anti-Black racism (Grills, et al., 2016). Confronting contemporary and historical patterns of racialized violence and recognizing the context of collective cultural strength, PYD programming can be reconceptualized to support Black youth to heal from historical trauma and anti-Black racism (Ginwright, 2018).

In the roundtable, common tools of PYD, such as promoting civic engagement and prosocial behavior will be deconstructed and reimagined in recognition of healing from historical trauma and anti-Black racism as key developmental tasks for Black adolescents. The conversation will also envision healing-centered engagement as a paradigm shift in how youth development organizations can support Black youth to thrive. Healing-centered engagement is defined as an approach to holistic youth development that emphasizes culture, spirituality, collective healing, and civic action (Ginwright, 2018). Incorporating healing from anti-Black racism and historical trauma shifts the purpose and focus of typical strategies used within PYD to promote responsive youth development, which actively interrupts white supremacy.