Breaking Down Racial Trauma, Hope, And Healing with Dr. Jennifer Jones

In this episode of 'On Air with Dr. Pete', Dr. Jennifer Jones-Damis shares her journey as a licensed psychologist and director of CAPS at Rutgers University. She discusses her experiences in trauma psychology, including her time at Rikers Island, and her transition to higher education. Dr. Jones-Damis emphasizes the importance of understanding racial trauma and its impact on individuals, particularly in the context of mental health and counseling. The conversation highlights her passion for helping young people and the significance of self-care in the mental health profession.

Learn more about Dr. Jennifer Jones Here:

https://health.rutgers.edu/about-us/staff/jennifer-jones-damis

Transcript

Meet Dr. Jay And Her Path

SPEAKER_01 0:16

26, you are good to meet. Welcome back to On Air with Dr. Pete. I'm your host, Dr. Pete Economo, and today I have a very special guest for you. That's because this is a dear friend of mine, colleague. Yes. Dr. Jay. We go way back up. I'm going to give you a little bit of a rundown of who Dr. Jennifer Jones is. She is a licensed psychologist. She's also a licensed professional counselor. And she is the director of CAPS, which is the counseling center. But it offers all things behavioral health to Rutgers University. That's where we currently are, but we go way back. She's a graduate of this ID program at Rutgers. And she's just a wonderful human being, and she's been a great person to work with. She's the first black psychologist to be the director of CAPS. This is a very big deal and a big job, y'all. So welcome to the show, Dr. Ch.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Thank you so much for having me, Dr. Pete.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

It's such a pleasure. So, you know, I want people to get to know you because I When did we first meet? Do you remember?

SPEAKER_00 1:11

It had to be maybe five, six years ago, if not before that.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Yeah, it was probably like I knew of you, but it was probably like it was what I think I feel like I remember being at uh the museum was like one of the like places. I don't know if that was like in the beginning, beginning. Remember that? Like that like that Rutgers Museum place? There was some event there that came out.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Was it during COVID? Because I I came to Rutgers during COVID. You came in COVID. I think I might have known you I think I've known of you before COVID, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Because you were the alumni, and so you were involved in some of the alumni work at Gazap, or right? At least perfectly.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

So whenever the dean had the multicultural dinners and that might be where we might have met.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Because then that's when you first met Dr. Conway, then for uh Frank Conway, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Yes, when when she became the dean. And I think it was a part of her actual hiring process because they allowed alumni to sort of chime in. And she was amazing. I mean, I know she's an amazing chancellor, but I almost wish she was still our dean.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Oh. She was great. You and me, you and me both. I've had I think I've had five deans since she left to become chancellor.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Yes, yeah. A lot of lot of change over it because that you're putting to the choir.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

So yeah, it was always a pleasure to meet you. I f I feel like we've just known each other forever.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Definitely. And we just vibe because I think we have this a similar sense of humor. We do, yeah. And and similar cynicism and all and a big heart to help all these young people.

Discovering Trauma In Juvenile Justice

SPEAKER_01 2:34

So my God, I love that. And you have to in this field. So so for listeners, like cynicism might sound negative, but sometimes as colleagues, you know, we have to kind of keep some of the stuff light because what the work we do is you're gonna learn because it's heavy, yeah. Jay is really trained in trauma. So she did you compete a really highly competitive two-year postdoctoral fellowship at uh Mount Sinai, Beth Israel, for traumatic stress. And so tell people how you got that. Like, how'd you get interested?

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Yeah, well, it's so interesting because when I was at Rutgers for school psychology, I was in the schools obviously, and some of my favorite kids were just disappearing. And I would come back and I'm like, well, where's so-and-so? And they were like, Oh, he got arrested, or he's down in Jamesburg. And then I my heart would just sink because these were like really good kids who often got suspended, got in trouble, and then I thought, I want to see what's on the other side. So I ended up doing my internship in Wisconsin, and I wouldn't recommend living in Wisconsin. Oh my goodness, it snowed like October 1st, and it snowed all the way until um uh Mother's Day, it actually snowed. But there I worked for a correctional facility for young people, so ages maybe 11, 12, all the way up to 25, but the average age was about 15 or 16. And so doing what we think as psychologists that they is a thing to do, you have the kids sitting in front of you, how'd that make you feel, what's going on, tell me about your problems. And then before you know it, they were released, and then they would come right back within a couple of months because they would uh either recommit another crime, they're going back to the same environment. And that's when I realized, you know what, it's more than just, you know, the it's more than just the child that's sitting in front of you, it is the environment they're embedded and also trauma. And so all these young people had trauma, and so I was really lucky to land the SAMHSA funded postdoc at Mount Sinai, Bethesrael in New York, and spent two years really understanding trauma, its impact on youth involved in the justice system, and working with officers and probation and judges and attorneys to start looking at these youth through um a lens that isn't just these are bad kids. These are kids with that had really bad things that happened to them. And um, and that was the launch of just my passion in trauma and working with these young people.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

So Wisconsin then, so you kind of did this flip-flap, you went to the Midwest, then you came back to the East Coast. So East Coast has always been home?

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Always been home. I went to the University of Virginia, so a little more southeast, yeah, and then always came back to New Jersey. New Jersey's home for me.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

So it snowed in Wisconsin from October to Mother's Day.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Were you a mother then yet?

SPEAKER_00 5:14

A mother? No, no. Oh, okay. I was single, ready to mingle, and there weren't a whole lot of people to mingle with in Wisconsin, so I had to come back east.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

And so you later found that people don't mingle. Well, I only know that because you have these beautiful children now. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

So I I was married in 2016, and then you have three beautiful children. Justice is my oldest, Jericho is my um middle child, and then Jade is my youngest. And so really excited to be. 6'7, oh my god, I can't believe I said that, and three.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Oh my god, I I was watching, this is ridiculous. There's a South Park episode, which I don't watch South Park in years, but what's going on in 2025? They are very funny with Trump.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

And there was this whole episode on 6-7.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Really?

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Yeah, it's really, and it's so it's so crazy because you met my clinical team at Ruckers. Uh everyone loves you.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

They're great, yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

And this is I only just learned about 6-7 a few months ago. Like in the full.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Yeah, ditto. Ditto. It it blew up. It just blew up a few months ago. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

No, no, no. We're late. We're late. We're late. We're late to the party, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Okay. Because we're behind the curtain. I'm auntie now. I'm an auntie, but auntie status.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Yeah, no, no doubt. So we were late, so that's why when I learned about it, I was like, and and they couldn't, one of our younger externs tried to explain it to us.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

And they couldn't.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Not really, because there's really nothing to explain.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

No, it's just this random number that somebody had said in a rap song, and then Exactly. And the song is nasty.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Did you hear the lyrics are nasty?

unknown 6:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Dr.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Johnson and I, like we played it for everybody, and we we were you know, our girl Dr. Johnson. We were like we were cringing.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Really? Okay. I'll do myself a favor and not listen to the song. It's okay if I'm not that trendy.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

So we don't need to be trendy anymore. All right, so you so you come back in this uh the SAMHSA. You know, I mean, how many of your colleagues were going to do this trauma work? And by the way, I wish I had like 10% of your heart because you were like, I need to learn about these kids that I'm no longer getting to see in school. So you went into the prisons. Like, I'm not sure.

Inside Rikers And Ending Solitary

SPEAKER_00 7:19

I went into the prisons, yes. And so well, actually, not prisons. What's interesting, most people don't know the difference between jail and prison. So jail, you haven't been convicted yet. Yeah. But prison is usually you've been sentenced, you have, you know, you'll be there for a certain amount of time. But these youth were sentenced, they were adjudicated youth, and so they might be sentenced to six months, twelve months. They tried to call them correctional facilities versus prisons for the young people. But like when I left SAMHSA, I got everybody says, you know, what do you mean it's your dream job? My dream job was actually working at Rikers Island. I would still be there.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Explain what Rikers Island is for people, because you know there's listeners who don't know what that is.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Well, okay, so Rikers Island is um is the notorious jail in New York City, and so it's a jail for all five boroughs. And so if you were to be arrested in any of the boroughs, you might go to maybe a borough jail, but if you are waiting for trial or or gonna be away for a bit, you go to Rikers Island. And so Rikers Island has 13 jails on the island. I think only nine or ten are active, so it's it's massive. And I would say when I was there, there might have been 14 or 15,000 in I guess they're not inmates, um, people who are waiting trial and being charged with things there. But it was my dream job because unfortunately at that time they had young people on the island. And so New York and North Carolina were the only two states in the country at the time that automatically charged 16-year-olds as adults. And so you had 16 and 17-year-olds on the island. And so they had their own building, R and DC, and what they were doing for the first time ever in this country, they were trying to do away with solitary confinement for um the 16, 17-year-olds and the young adults, so 18 to 21. And so if they did something on the island that they weren't supposed to do, say spit on a um one of the officers, or we call them splashing, throwing urine on an officer, fighting, really getting into it, they might have been sent to solitary confinement, which is 23 hours in and one hour out. But they realized the psychological impact of doing that to such young, impressionable kids. And lawsuits like Khalif Broader. For those of you who don't remember, Khalif Broader was a six 16 years old when he went to the island, was there for over two years, and eventually all the charges were dropped. He came out, tried to advocate for himself and for others about how the system is broken. And unfortunately, he took his own life shortly after. And a lot of people attribute it to the amount of time he spent in solitary confinement. So they hired me to do the alternative to solitary confinement. So I worked very closely with the DOC, Department of Corrections, other psychologists, officers on the unit.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Other psychologists that were already there?

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Yes, other psychologists that were already there. So there were there was it wasn't just me like in the buildings, which was great. For all the bad press Rikers get, they have a really great mental health system and a really great medical system. And that's through health and hospitals. Like if they outsource those things to health and hospitals. So even though I was working at Rikers, I didn't work for Rikers. Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

You worked for one of the hospital systems.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Yeah, so the hospital system was what was in charge. And what was great about this was if they did something wrong, instead of being punished, we were trying to correct behavior. Yeah. I would say 90% of these young people were eventually going to be back out in New York. You know, they're they're not looking at 25 to live. Most of them aren't there for murder charges. They're there for like theft, robbery, at that time drug charges, because uh back then when I was there twenty fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, the cannabis laws are who they are now. And so if they were found with cannabis or things like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Um, when they were on my unit, we were able to give them individual therapy. We were able to give them group therapy. They had consequences, which were no um commissary, they weren't able to ha spend all their money on commissary. So there were consequences for doing bad behavior, but the answer wasn't just consequences, it was treatment.

SPEAKER_03 11:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

And the hardest part of it all was getting the buy-in of officers who might have been assaulted, officers who might have seen this bad behavior and said, Why does so-and-so get to go in a unit, get music therapy, get, you know, individual therapy, you know, like it's vacation. Yes, when they've just thrown urine at me. And so spending time with officers to help them understand trauma, that a lot of the behavior that the young people are doing are reactions and not just I'm out to get you.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Well, but you see, the thing is you understood the system. And so that's why you're talking about the officer. And so from these early days with the school, like you knew it was more than just the kid that was sitting in front of you. So I love that. So wait, why was this the deep dream job?

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Like it was a dream job because when it was corrections, and I got to work with young people, and I got to actually feel the difference I was making. You know, it's it's it's it's very rare that like you're in a job where like you can tangibly see change. Yeah, and while change does take time, some of these young people were there for six months, a year, you know, waiting trial or waiting things, and you can see the change in them over time. And so when they left the unit after 30 or 45 days, the the reward was they didn't come back, you know. Like some of them wanted to come back to visit, but like they didn't re-offend and come back. Now, mind you, not all not all of them were 100% success stories, you know. I don't want to paint paint that either, but I think it was my dream job because I was I knew I was making a difference.

SPEAKER_03 12:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Um, I felt like I always say, um, there's a quote I put on my business card, uh, where there is breath, there is hope. And that none of these young people are hopeless, none of these young people have thrown away their lives. They are in a situation right now, facing whatever other consequences of their actions are alleged actions, and but that doesn't have to define them. And so I got to go into those units every day and say, you get to decide what you do today, and define yourself, you know, and I loved it.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

I know that the change was motivating you, and I know that you're also doing that change now. I mean, maybe you're seeing it different ways, but I've watched you transform this department and you know, direct caps at the counseling center, and you do so it with like grace, you know, because you thank you. Yeah, you do. It's it's you're you're both uh, you know, uh a tra a trailblazer, you're a bulldozer, and you'll do it with a beautiful smile on your face.

Building Officer Buy-In And Alternatives

SPEAKER_00 13:48

Yes, yes. Change comes better with a smile. It's uh I I think actually working in corrections has helped me in higher end. And people always ask me, like, that the change seems like a huge leap. But honestly, young adults, whether they are facing, you know, time or whether they're in college, they're in a formative years of understanding who they are for the first time outside of their families. Sometimes neither group has had therapy before, so college students are seeking it for the first time, and also our students who are incarcerated, students, our young adults who are incarcerated are facing it for the first time. It's funny, when I first came to Rutgers, I had to stop calling them my incarcerated youth. Like, no, they're our young adults. You gotta relearn. You gotta relearn and it's it's a magical age because so much change can happen on their own timing in a way that is they don't have to be 30, 40, 50 years old and having led a life that like now if they don't change, it's too late. When you're 18, 19, 20, and you're exploring who you are, understanding who you are, recognizing maybe traumas that have happened when you you were young and how it's impacting you now, it's the perfect time to start addressing some of these issues. You're old enough to do it without your parents looking over your shoulder, yeah. Old enough to explore whether medication is something you might want to do. And so when I came into higher ed, it was a change for me because there are different problems that young adults in higher ed have than you know, young adults who are incarcerated have.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

So wait, so so COVID was one COVID was one of the motivators, right? Like COVID and your family, and your family, I think. Like just yeah, your family growing.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

So I had just had my son in December of 2019 and had left Rikers Island because the commute for me was two and a half hours home and two hours there every day. And I did that for almost five years. Now I'll tell you how much I love the work. That's right. And then I became director of Essex County Jail, mental health director, and again, the largest jail in New Jersey. Like I don't I go big, I go big or go home. And at that time, you know, working with their director and changing how mental health is looked at with um with their individuals. But what was different was at Essex County jail, there were a lot more adults than young adults. There were young adults, it was a very different population, and also the mental illness was very different. You had had more individuals with uh schizophrenia and bipolar and more serious mental illness. And not that I can't work with that, but that wasn't my passion. It wasn't your thing, yeah. It wasn't my thing. And so um I'm very grateful that uh an opportunity came up here at Rucker's and then when COVID shut everything down. There's no work from home when you work in the jails. You're in the jails every day, and having a newborn at home and a one-year-old at home, and not knowing what COVID was, I knew I couldn't risk my family going into the jails every day. So I I made the pivot for myself to hire Ed. And I I don't regret it. At first, uh uh, don't get me wrong, uh actually didn't leave the job for almost a year. I was per diem for almost a year doing doing two jobs. Just in case. Just in case. It's hard to replace you know somebody at that level. And so I would go in every morning, do the suicide watches, and then leave and come to Rutgers. Um and but I I ended up letting it go because again, that not my passion necessarily working with the adult population. Yeah, but working here at Rutgers has allowed me to sort of hone my skills with young adults, be able to supervise my staff in their passions. You know, like for me, mine is all about racial trauma. Others, they're working with youth who are coming out for the first time, exploring their identities. At Ruckers, we have a huge South Asian population, an international population. So working with all different types of individuals who love working with young people from various backgrounds is a privilege and a pleasure. I have like the best team here at Rutgers.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

You too. You've built a great team, but it takes a good leader to build a good team.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Well, my team can compare with yours too. I'm just gonna say, Yes, they can.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

I was gonna poach a couple of them if I could. Uh-uh.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Nope.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

Yeah, well, well, well, you poached Kenny from us. Dr. Kenny Ayers, he was our intern. And if I could have hired him, I would. We just didn't have any open positions. But you took him from us, and he's grown and blossomed.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

And he's down south, and yeah, so he's he's doing his thing. And that's what we, you know, you and I share that as well, like mentoring, supervision, just helping young professionals blossom.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

So we're coming up on the year anniversary of your book. Uh, before we get to that, you know, it is a new year. Uh, and so to, you know, how do you celebrate the new year, you know, with this beautiful family and all these, you know, this work that you do and this heart that you have?

From Jails To Higher Ed Leadership

SPEAKER_00 18:32

For me, it's it's a reset. I feel like every year I'm able to sort of reflectively look back. And so looking back at 2025, it was a whirlwind. I I had at least maybe 15 presentations, speaking engagements. Um, I did everything from working with probation to New York Department of Uh Juvenile Corrections to companies about psychological safety. And so for me, when December came, you know, all of us professionals thinking about what are we gonna post on LinkedIn to reflect the year? And I actually did it. I said, you know what, let me do my own private reset and think, how do I want to really use my skills and get the word out there about trauma, racial trauma for 2026? So although I reflected and loved this past year, my heart sort of like skipped the beat when I thought about the possibilities for 2026. And um, and like you said, um with it being a new year and coming up on the one-year anniversary of the book, I was just thinking, how do I have my message reach more folks? So doing a podcast, you know, with Dr. Pete. Yes, Dr. Pete, and um, you know, just getting out there more. So over winter break, I put in a handful of applications to present at APA and ABC. Um, I'm presenting at the New Jersey mental health um higher education mental health summit this Thursday. And so really just going out there more and just having more confidence. Conversations, not just about trauma, but about racial trauma. And the hard part is the political environment we're in right now where everything you say about race is taboo and will get you silenced. And I won't be silenced.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

We will not be, no.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

As a black woman who's raising black children, who, you know, who just has a heart for not just black individuals, but people of color in general and our play, we can't be silent about what racial trauma is. And when we start erasing and not acknowledging and naming what's happening, that's when I think the more of the psychological impact comes in, where you get the anxiety, the depression, the perfectionism, or what um the what they call imposter phenomenon, and all those things start seeping in. And it's not us that's the problem. It's the system and the environment.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Well, here we go, coming back to the system, right? Whether it was the incarcerated folks, you know, the students, or you know, just people of people of color. I really love that you just silently reflected on 2025 as you, you know, went into 2026 because the truth is everything is so and and and you think of and you think about this burden that you carry, you know, being the voice for racial trauma as a black female.

SPEAKER_03 21:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

You know, so I think I'm so glad to hear that that you did that in a silent way because that's it's it's reparative, it's transformative. Yes, and you deserve that and you need that.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Yes, and like the idea of a reset and a recharge. Yeah. Because one thing um I learned, I was actually in a group for it's called um Black Girl Doctors. Yeah. So they're really supportive. And I and I joined this group one day, and one of the members had said, you know, I never pour from a full cup. And I'm like, hmm?

SPEAKER_03 21:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

And she said, because my cup is should never be half full. My cup should always be full, and I need to give from my overflow. That's right. And that I've taken with me for the last two years, and I say it to folks all the time that if you don't pour into yourself and keep your cup full, then what you're giving is so much of you that you're not gonna last. You're not gonna last in this field, you're gonna deplete, you're gonna have possibly negative coping skills if you don't know how to um really, you know, deal with your own stuff. And so for me, the last two weeks of this old year slash new year was a reset. Just spending time with the kids. We didn't travel, I didn't have any speaking engagements, I didn't open up my laptop for work, literally emailed you this morning and said, Hey, where's the link? And and that that meant a lot to me. And I don't often do that, but I think this this year was very different for me.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

I love that. So, so thanks for sharing that part of you. So let's define racial trauma. But the book is Racial Trauma and Black Clients, Effective Practice for Clinicians. I've been able to watch you on your speaking tour and got to see a couple of the readings. And so, you know, maybe just talk a little bit about the book and the process and also a shout out to Dr. Kelly Moore, our uh our your co-author.

Reset, Family, And A New Year Focus

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Yeah, Dr. Kelly Moore also, she is the first black director of Ruckers Gazaps Counseling Center. So Center for Psychological Society. Black directors here at Ruckers representing. But yeah, so racial trauma and black clients, um, it birthed out of the work that I was doing myself in schools and in um corrections, and then Kelly with her work with parents, with young people as well. I'm school psychology background, she's clinical psychology background, and we paired so well together. She wrote half the book, and I wrote half the book about our areas and how we were seeing racial trauma sort of manifest. So each chapter, there's a chapter on racial trauma and parenting, how to parent and have these conversations, not just for black parents, but also for parents of any um color. And then for me, the chapters I wrote were focusing on the school to prison pipeline, how racial trauma shows up for that, looking at um racial trauma and policing, and not necessarily the impact policing has on a black community, but our black and brown officers. You know, when racially traumatic things happen, how hard it is to be black and blue, you know, to to be uh a black individual wearing the uniform feeling like you have to pick a side and not knowing sort of like the impact it's having on you. So there's a whole chapter on that. And so what you mentioned is what is racial trauma, because I keep using that term. Yeah, yeah. And so racial trauma is the stressful impact that one has when you're dealing with racism, discrimination, or prejudice. And the key thing is it is not a diagnosis. So if you can be traumatized racially based on say someone called you out of your name, you've been feeling having microaggressions, thinking that um you're being in you're at a store and you feel like you're being followed, um, or driving while black, all of those things are things that have happened to you, and your response it can cause traumatic stress and it mirrors that of any other trauma. And so that it could be anxiety, it could be depression. There's there are very specific symptoms that we talk about in the book that uh it's for laymen too. It's not a book for just for psychologists, even though it says treating black clients, it's um it's great to be.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

If you're working with black people no matter where you are in your world, no matter what your profession is, I I could highly suggest that, yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Yes, and then it really breaks down um sort of a lot of the key terms. And we went old school. We bold we bolded uh like the vocabulary words, understanding what Black Lives Matter meant, blue lives matter, racial trauma, microaggressions, and we have a glossary at the back of the book.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

But the book, um sorry, it's a podcast and not a video.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

It's in the it's in the show notes. It'll be in the show notes.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

Yes, it's it's not, it's not um, it's it's a pretty easy read.

SPEAKER_03 25:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

What I mean by easy is it's not a whole lot of jargon. It really breaks down what racial trauma is, how it shows up. And the two chapters I wrote at the end that I absolutely love was Healer Heal Thyself. Yeah. So knowing the work that we're doing, how do we take care of ourselves and doing this racial trauma work and then heal or heal me. It's not just about coping with trauma, coping with racial trauma. How do you heal from it? And so there's a whole chapter on techniques, and I have to give a shout out to Dr. Nancy Boyd Franklin. Of course. This book would not have happened without her. She has been encouraging me and Dr. Kelly Moore for years to just put pin to our work, and she introduced us to her publisher, and the rest was history.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

She's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

And the work that she did, her foundational work, which is um black clients and therapy and like raising black boys, you know.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

Yeah, family therapy for black families. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

Yes, yes. Groundbreaking um work so that I can only you know hopeful that we'll have some kind of rest on the shoulders. Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

Well, you said that when you have breath, there's hope. Where there's breath, there's hope. Where there is breath, there's hope. All right, so we are out of time. But so Dr. J. So we have the show. Well, in the show notes, we'll put the book. Um, where else do people find you if they want to, you know, learn more about you and your work?

SPEAKER_00 27:15

So you can, I'm always on LinkedIn and folks can message me on LinkedIn. I have a public profile. So message me if you're interested in the work that I'm doing and you would like me to come speak, or you just sort of want to bend my ear about things. Um, I work full-time at Rutgers University. Absolutely love it here. And and my, like I said, my side passion is working with law enforcement. So I have a few contracts in California and New York. But if you or your company or the team that you work with want to know more about trauma or racial trauma, its impact, and what we can do about it, because we don't have to sit idly by why life happens, you know, feel free to reach out.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

We'll have all of that in the show notes. Dr. J, thank you so much for being here today.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

Thank you. Thank you for having me, Dr. Pete.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

My pleasure. And for you listening at home, thank you for tuning in. If you love this episode, please like, follow, and share. Everything's at official drpete.com everywhere you listen. We will see you all next week. Until then, spread a little kindness. Stay well.