Whole Child Development: Navigating Trauma, Building Resilience, Optimizing Healing and Well-Being

Free Public Lecture

Denese Shervington, MD

About this Event

Children live in families. Families live in communities. A community’s vibrancy is impacted by societal laws and cultural beliefs.

This presentation will utilize the Social Ecological Model to explore the impact of interpersonal, community, institutional, and societal factors on individual-level behaviors in minoritized children, especially those living in poverty and experiencing racial oppression. A Healing Justice framework which expands upon current evidence-based models of screening and treatment to include ancestral and indigenous practice-based evidence and wisdom will be offered as a method of transformational healing for minoritized children and their families. 

At the end of the presentation, attendees should be able to:

  1. Describe the relationship between healthy human development and attachment.
  2. Review the impact of childhood adversities (ACEs) and trauma on brain development, and the resultant increased risk of physical and mental health disorders.
  3. Describe population-level prevention approaches
  4. Describe healing justice approaches when working with minoritized children.

About the Presenter

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Denese Shervington, MD

Dr. Denese Shervington has an intersectional career in public health and academic psychiatry. She is the Chair of Psychiatry and Professor at Charles R. Drew University. Dr. Shervington has held Clinical Professorships in the Departments of Psychiatry at Columbia University and Tulane University. A graduate of New York University School of Medicine, she also received a Masters of Public Health in Population Studies and Family Planning from Tulane University School of Public Health. She completed her residency in Psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco and is certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. A Fellow of the American Psychiatry Association (APA) she is a recipient of the APA’s Award for Excellence in Service and Advocacy; prior to which she received the Jeanne Spurlock Minority award. Dr. Shervington is also a member of the American College of Psychiatrists and serves on the Psychiatry Resident-In-Training Commission.

Dr. Shervington has testified before the United States Congress on Childhood Trauma and co-chaired the New Orleans City Council Taskforce on Childhood Trauma. She is a member of the Scientific Board of the Centre for Society and Mental Health at Kings College, London. Dr. Shervington has authored several papers in peer-reviewed journals addressing health disparities, the social determinants of health and resilience in underserved communities.

Dr. Shervington is the author of Healing Is the Revolution, a guide to healing from historical, intergenerational, interpersonal and community trauma. She also hosts the podcast Healing is the Revolution in which her guests share and explore their healing journey through their traumas. She is the proud parent of two amazing children – Iman and Kaleb, and three grandchildren – Ayelet, Haddassah, and Yoav.