(PS13-C57) Racial Trauma Task Force: Healing Racial Trauma Through Community Psychology and Engagement

During the year of 2020, racial uprisings amidst the Covid-19 pandemic were ongoing, pervasive stressors for Black individuals in the United States. Declared a pandemic by the APA, racism continues to impact the Black community and calls for greater attention to its effects, the need for advocacy, healing approaches and social justice efforts to alleviate the impactful stress of racism. In the spring of 2020 amidst the double pandemic, The Racial Trauma Task Force (RTTF) was created by senior and second authors, graduate students within The EMPOWER Lab and graduate students from the psychology department to increase awareness about the effects of racial trauma and to also provide impacted individuals with evidence-based tools and coping strategies for Black youth. Under the umbrella of the RTTF, the #RacismHurts Public Health Messaging Campaign (PHM) (i.e., funding printing and shipping of the yard signs and posters) was created to further the dissemination of psychoeducation and awareness of racial trauma’s impact on Black youth. Within the public health messaging campaign, psychoeducation, information for allies, and evidence-based coping strategies were shared with various organizations and individuals who wished to share the information in their prospective communities and institutions. The RTTF focused heavily on integrating racial socialization into CBT approaches. In addition to the #RacismHurts PHM, the RTTF established the Cultivating Awareness & Resilience through Empowerment (C.A.R.E.) Package for Racial Healing and the Black and EMPOWERed Podcast. Both branching from the RTTF umbrella, these tools established the importance of mental health within the black community and provided free, online resources (e.g., the Racial Trauma Guide, podcasts, Twitter and Instagram) that would aid in Black youth’s coping strategies for racial stressors through a culturally-responsive approach (e.g., exploration of racial identity, socialization practices, emotion regulation, cognitive restructuring). The work of the RTTF has reached a large number of people. To start, the CARE Package has been viewed 750 times. The page "Coping with Racial Trauma", as part of the Racial Trauma Guide, was the 5th most trafficked page at the University of Georgia - Athens, including pages regarding undergraduate and graduate program requirements. The Public Health Messaging campaign has disseminated 150 physical signs in Atlanta, Athens, Seattle, and New York City. The Black and EMPOWERed Podcast performed well, with popular episodes reaching nearly 150 downloads and lower performing episodes being downloaded nearly 50 times. The RTTF has also had major success through The EMPOWER Lab social media pages. Twitter has amassed 2k new followers while Instagram saw 15.5k new followers. The most viral post on the EMPOWER Lab socials discussed the change to the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline's phone number (988) and has reached over a million people. One of the RTTF's psychoeducational posts regarding Racial Trauma has reached over 40k people. Across all RTTF efforts, these numbers may have increased since the last analysis. The work of the RTTF continues to impact and reach the community with valuable resources and skills that contribute to overall healing.