Trauma, whether it stems from abuse, personal loss, or other life-altering events, can leave deep emotional scars. Lost Voices is in the business of helping kids deal with this sort of trauma, and we often talk about that in terms of bringing them “hope and healing.” This is a good way to describe it, but there is a way of thinking and talking about what we do that is actually a lot more accurate.
We help them build resilience.
Resilience in this context is defined as the ability to adapt and recover from adversity. Building resilience is not about avoiding stress or hardship – it’s about developing the capacity to cope with the hardship, and hopefully to emerge from the experience stronger than before.
To be clear, everyone experiences trauma. A child being dropped off at school for the first time to be surrounded by strangers in an unfamiliar, noisy place is understandably frightening. Their sense of safety, self, and the world around them is temporarily blown apart. In a good circumstance, they are reassured by a goodbye hug and kiss from their parents, then by a smile and gentle words from a kind and caring teacher. They meet new kids and navigate ways to interact with them, guided by the teacher.
After a few days, the child will learn that school is generally safe, and can actually be fun and rewarding. More importantly, facing this sort of ordeal and receiving plenty of support helps them develop skills that they can use to tackle the next challenge. In a sense, the entire process of “growing up” can be thought of as facing a series of traumatic events and building the resilience to overcome them.
Unfortunately, sometimes kids experience extreme trauma, such as the loss of a parent or sibling, being abused by a trusted person, or a literally life-threatening situation. This can lead to overwhelming and lasting feelings of helplessness, anxiety, and depression. The problem is compounded when the child’s support system is inadequate or missing altogether. For many of the kids we see, a caregiver who should be providing support is the actual source of the damage. Unresolved trauma like this can have a profoundly negative lifelong effect on emotional development, and even on basic cognition.
Here is where Lost Voices comes in. As you probably know by now, we give kids with unresolved trauma the opportunity to explore their feelings and fears in an unusual but safe and non-judgmental space. Doing this in a musical context and providing them with the challenge and exhilaration of performing their songs or poems in public helps them process and regulate their feelings, while it leads them to develop new and positive perspectives.
In this way the Lost Voices experience has a significant impact on the development of resilience in these kids. This doesn’t mean ignoring or denying the pain of the trauma. That’s simply not possible. Instead, it’s a process of self-exploration that helps them discover meaning in surviving those negative events. This can in turn lead to personal growth, increased empathy, and a greater appreciation for life.
