- We're now joined by Helen Archontou, who is CEO of the YWCA of Northern New Jersey.

Helen, good to see you again.

- Good to see you too, thanks for having me.

- Helen, let me ask you this.

The website's up for the YWCA Northern New Jersey.

Tell everyone what it is, and why you're particularly concerned about trauma, women in trauma.

- Well, our organization's mission is to eliminate racism and empower women.

And trauma is at the core of so many issues that are impacting the women that we serve in terms of being able to live economically stable lives.

It keeps them from being able to sometimes work, it keeps them sometimes from being able to gain housing and, you know, impacts their ability to relate to their children and others and, you know, employment issues.

So many of our programs are focused on being able to support women, the various types of trauma that they may have been exposed to.

- Talk about veterans and trauma.

This is part of a series we're doing called, it's simply, the graphic will come up, Honoring Our Veterans.

Be specific, if you could, about the trauma related services that your organization provides to veterans.

- Sure, well, we know that one in what three women who have been in the military have experienced military sexual trauma in particular.

And so, you know, that is a big focus.

- Hold on, one in three?

- One in three.

- Sexual trauma.

- Yes, yes, while they were in the military, while they were serving our country.

And so a big part of the work that we do with Women in Operation Sisterhood, which is our female veteran program, is supporting them through getting clinical care for that trauma.

But there's also trauma though from just, you know, being away from your family, and your life for so many years, servicing our country, and then transitioning back to civilian life.

There's a trauma related to that as well.

That's a different type of trauma.

But that also is something that is very prevalent and our female veterans need support with that as well.

We know that they don't come back to communities that are always open arms to them, as much as that's hard to believe.

They don't always find employment so easily.

You know, we don't always look at the experience that they received in the military as from a job description perspective, that they don't have a specific degree, but they've done years of work.

You know, in the military, a lot of employers aren't looking at that and kind of giving them credit and then giving them a chance.

So there's a lot of work to be done in terms of educating our community, but at the same time, supporting our women veterans.

- Along those lines, how significant are the mental health issues many of these female veterans face?

- There's very high rates of depression and very high rates of suicide, unfortunately, with this population.

And so it's so important that we have good mental health care for them.

- So, and by the way, let's make sure we have the website up again for anyone in your Northern New Jersey is a funny term, 'cause North, South, Central.

- Yes.

- Define it, please?

- Yes, for us it's five counties that we serve.

Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Morris, and Passaic.

- Okay, that's a fair number of people.

You're in that area, you wanna find out more about the YWCA Northern New Jersey, checkout the site.

Talk to us about the Center for Racial Healing.

What is it and why is it significant?

- So the Center for Racial Healing is the first of its kind in the state of New Jersey.

And it's really anchored at being able to support individuals that have experienced racial trauma.

It is a systemic issue, but we know that racial trauma impacts health, it impacts economic mobility, it impacts community stability.

But yet as a society, we really haven't set up our, even our clinical staff.

I'm a social worker by training.

You know, we don't teach folks enough in school to even be able to support individuals that are impacted by racial trauma.

Most people don't even even know that exists.

- I'm sorry, go, go back, go back for a second.

Using the term racial trauma and I'm not convinced everyone.

- Yes.

- Has a sense of exactly what you mean.

So what do you mean?

- By the very fact that someone falls into certain, you know, lives at certain racial groups that they experienced trauma.

- Because say we're talking about an African American woman.

- A person, a Latino woman, someone from the API community.

The fact that we as society either have a generalization about who they are and treat them in that way, or as a society, we just are set up in a way that they don't have access to from a privileged perspective of same access for jobs, same access equal pay, you know, equal pay at jobs.

And that all creates trauma.

It impacts their lives, it impacts their livelihoods, it impacts their families.

And it's something that folks carry with them.

And there are ways to provide clinical support to help help with that.

- So let me try this, because there are some watching right now, and some just who think this trauma, oh, trauma, you're talking about challenges people face in life and disappointment in life and rejection in life, and things that are hard in life.

That's not exactly what you're talking about, is it?

- I'm not, I mean, you know, look, one of the stories that helped inspire the center that we started at the YWCA was a national headline that happened in Essex County of a little girl that was outside killing lantern flies in her community.

You know, one of her neighbors decided to call a neighbor who she grew up in that community from the time she was an infant, decided to call and say, there's a black woman that's making me fearful outside of my house.

So I think was the actual language on the police call.

- That's exactly what was said.

- Yeah.

- Exactly.

- And this little girl was surrounded by eight cop cars, and the mother was standing, you know, at the field across the street talking to another neighbor and saw her child surrounded by eight cop cars.

Now look, at the end of the day, the cop in that specific situation, we were lucky.

The cops understood what had happened and they dissipated quickly.

- So I wanna be clear, this is an issue with the cops.

The cops responded to a call.

- The cops did what they were supposed to do.

They realized - Sorry, ahead.

yeah, they realized it was not a situation.

- What did it do to the little girl?

- What does it do to, what does it do to that mother too?

What does it do to that mother?

And you know, that little girl was eight years old.

She was eight years old.

And, and so she, even now, I mean, this is a few years ago, that little girl is now 13 years old.

As she gets older, she will continue to understand in differently, at different ages in her life.

We know what has happened to her.

And that mother was very traumatized by seeing her child surrounded by cop cars.

You know, she feared the worst.

Was fortunate not to have that happen, but had to live with that fear.

And how do you then relate to your child and let your child live in the world knowing that that kind of thing could happen.

So that family needed mental health services, they needed specialized mental health services.

That child needed mental health services, that mother needed mental health services, but they didn't.

We weren't able to access it, because there were not specialized clinicians to support them.

- And that's what the center is, to be clear.

- Yes.

- Our daughter happens to be 15, so I'm thinking about she's eight years old.

- Yeah, yeah.

- She's doing exactly what you just said, that this little girl was doing.

Nobody's calling the cops, are they?

- No, and the funny thing for me is when I met this family, my daughter is the same age as this little girl.

So this mother to mother, as we were having this conversation, you know, we both said that nobody would've surrounded my daughter.

Nobody would've called the police on my daughter, if she were out there killing lantern flies.

They would've praised her.

They would've said, what a great job you're doing.

Look at you helping the environment.

But that's not what happened to little Bobbie.

- Let me just say this, and I won't get on my soapbox.

For people who say, people are making too much of this, just think about the story.

It's not a story, it's a real life experience with an 8-year-old little girl who's now 13.

And ask yourself, would that happen if that were my daughter?

And what does the color of that little girl's skin have to do with the response, the reaction, and the trauma that happened?

It's not political, it's not ideological.

It's what happened.

Helen, I cannot thank you enough for joining us.

We wish you and your team all the best doing important work, making a difference every day, thank you, Helen.

- Thank you for having me.

- I'm Steve Adubato.

I wanna thank you so much for watching us.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

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