Study Status
Ongoing
Project Team
Principal Investigator(s): Ben Kirshner, PhD; Alexis Hunter; Beatriz Salazar-Núñez; Solicia Lopez
Research Team Members: Barbara Akuoko, undergraduate student, CU Boulder
Alignment with Crown Institute Vision
This project will strengthen the ecosystem of healing justice youth organizations in the Colorado Front Range. Healing justice prioritizes culturally-rooted approaches to healing and well-being while simultaneously working to transform the institutions and systems that cause harm (Ginwright, 2015; Page & Woodland, 2023).
Background & Context
Recent efforts by Colorado school districts to invest federal pandemic relief funds in mental health and wellness are an important step forward (Asmar, 2023). Addressing mental health inequities means not only improving access, but also transforming how mental health is conceptualized and how treatment is delivered (Ramos et al., 2022). Those who want to access more targeted psychological supports are often met with interventions grounded in Western ideals of individualism (Chavez et al., 2016), ignore racial oppression (Cokley, 2005; Comas-Díaz et al., 2019), and reproduce deficit assumptions (Baldridge, 2014).
Primary Aims
Develop and refine a framework for enacting, implementing, and assessing healing justice in high schools and youth programs serving marginalized youth. Launch a research-practice collective guided by community-based participatory research and networked improvement communities to document healing justice in practice and improve implementation.
Research Methods
Partnership using participatory action research (PAR) cycles: interviews, qualitative surveys, oral histories.
Key Findings & Publications /
Presentations
Multiple publications and workshops, including:
Hunter et al. (in press), Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning; Kirshner et al. (2024), International Society of the Learning Sciences; Lopez & Kirshner (2024), Aspen Institute workshop; Fernández et al. (2024), Youth journal; Palomar et al. (2024), Handbook on Youth Activism.
Hunter, A., Ahmed-Jones, C., Lopez, S., & Kirshner, B. (2025). A sacred, communal pause: How racially marginalized youth’s commitment to healing expands understandings of activism. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 31(1), 96-114. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3998/mjcsl.5730
Salazar Medina, B., Hunter, A., Kirshner, B., Lopez, S. (2024, online). Healing justice in multicultural counseling. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development. DOI: 10.1002/jmcd.12311
Fernández, J. S.., Govan, R., Kirshner, B., Tivaringe, T., & Watts, R. (2024). Youth community organizing groups fostering sociopolitical wellbeing: Three healing-oriented values to support activism. Youth, 4(3), 1004-1025. https://doi.org/10.3390/youth4030063
Palomar, M., Jones, A., & Kirshner, B. (2024). Movements forward: Finding healing through activism. In J. Conner (Ed.) Handbook on youth activism (pp. 257-271). Edward Elger Publishing.
Contact to Learn More
References
Asmar, M. (2023, December 27). Denver schools are investing in teaching techniques like finger breathing. Here’s what that means. Chalkbeat Colorado. https://www.chalkbeat.org/colorado/2023/12/08/upstream-mental-health-tools-for-high-schools-denver-federal-covid-money/
Ramos, G., Delgadillo, D., Fossum, J., Montoya, A. K., Thamrin, H., Rapp, A., Escovar, E., & Chavira, D. A. (2021). Discrimination and internalizing symptoms in rural Latinx adolescents: An ecological model of etiology. Children and Youth Services Review, 130, 106250. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2021.106250
Baldridge, B. J. (2014). Relocating the deficit: Reimagining Black Youth in neoliberal times. American Educational Research Journal, 51(3), 440–472. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831214532514
Ginwright, S. A. (2015). Radically healing Black lives: A love note to justice. New Directions for Student Leadership, 2015(148), 33–44. https://doi.org/10.1002/yd.20151