Centering Care As Praxis in Counterspaces: Building Resilient Communities with Youth and Youth Workers in the Face of Structural Violence

Background and Purpose:

Structural violence underpins the challenges faced by youth and youth workers in disinvested neighborhoods, where poverty, racism, and neglect intersect. Justice-oriented community organizations play a vital role in addressing these harms by serving as counterspaces that resist oppression and nurture resilience among Black and Brown youth. Counterspaces are a specific type of setting, in which deliberate efforts are made to prevent the replication of societal oppression within that space. While transformative relationships, identity work, and resistance are core to the counterspace model, this study introduces collective care as a novel and vital process. Rooted in collective care, these spaces support identity, healing, and empowerment. When care is embedded throughout—from programming to staff culture—organizations meet immediate needs while fostering long-term resistance and community healing.

Methods:

This study explores how a Community-Based Youth-Serving Organization (CBYO) in Hartford, CT functions as a counterspace for Black and Brown youth and their street outreach workers, whose work takes place in a neighborhood impacted by collective trauma. Data were collected as part of a larger CDC-funded participatory research project focused on mindfulness-based supports for youth impacted by gun violence. This study centers the perspectives of youth and street outreach workers on the processes that define counterspaces and their role in fostering collective healing. Seven focus groups were conducted: four with street outreach workers (N=21; avg. age 40; 62% male; 62% Black) and three with youth (N=21; avg. age 17; 80% male; 85% Black). A Sort and Sift, Think and Shift qualitative approach guided the analysis.

Results

Across separate focus groups, both youth and staff consistently pointed to collective care as a defining feature of their CBYO—describing it as mutual care rooted in shared responsibility for one another’s well-being. Their accounts emphasized two core dimensions: a collective support system that sustained both youth and adults, and an organizational ethos deeply committed to cultivating care. These findings highlight collective care not just as a backdrop, but as a vital resource for cultivating resistance and resilience in the face of ongoing trauma and structural violence that shaped their daily realities—and for negotiating change.

Conclusions and Implications

Our findings offer theoretical and practical insights for organizations serving youth impacted by structural violence. Drawing on the counterspace framework, this study emphasizes the critical role of context in social work—challenging deficit-based views of marginalized youth and underscoring the value of culturally grounded, affirming spaces, especially in urban settings where traditional models often fall short. By examining the organizational processes that sustain counterspaces for Black and Brown youth, we deepen our understanding of how structural violence is actively resisted. Amid ongoing trauma and adversity, both youth and street outreach workers described collective care as a sustaining force—nurturing relationships and enabling continued engagement in transformative work. The emergence of a “caring ethos” as a central process highlights the need for social workers and policymakers to prioritize collective care as a pathway to youth well-being and social justice.