Kamri “Kam” Moses is 17, from West Baltimore and a senior at Western High School. She’s also a Healing Youth Alliance Ambassador, HeartSmiles Heartbeat and Living Classrooms peer mentor—and was a participant in the Bmore with Youth portion of the Healing City Summit. After the summit, Kam talked to us about the generational curses and traumas that bind Baltimore’s young people.

“My personal trauma probably is not as bad as other youth’s that I know about, but the trauma that I experience is kind of like a cycle. Because my mom or dad may have been through a certain trauma, it affects how they may parent me. Lots of times certain traumas aren’t acknowledged, they go untouched, like they didn’t take the time to heal those traumas.

“Parents have been through things. They’ve seen things, like people getting killed, which sometimes results in being overprotective and we don’t know why—like, ‘Don’t go outside’ and ‘Don’t be around certain people.’ What I want to let them know is if they share their experiences, their child can learn from that trauma. If you don’t speak about it, how would I ever know?

“A lot of people are like, ‘What happens in the house stays in the house.’ That’s not something that should go on. That’s a generational curse.”

Read more from—or listen to—Kam about the chronic, generational traumas Baltimore’s young people face first-hand, how they affect them and how Kam and other youth are working to help the healing begin.

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Leading with Love

On Feb. 15, Mayor Brandon M. Scott swore in Baltimore’s leaders in healing, the 29 members of the brand new Trauma-Informed Care Task Force. They are youth activists and artists; parents; experts in trauma and healing; returning citizens; non-US citizens; teachers; mentors; mediators; community leaders; and elected officials.

Dozens gathered for the oath and a handful spoke. But it was 19-year-old Task Force member Young Elder who captured the spirit of the moment—and of the work ahead—best:

“There’s a lot of love in Baltimore City. But with all of the trauma, it makes it really, really hard to find the love. So that’s why we have all of these incredible healers on our team…so that we can dig deep and we can find the love in our city. Because if we can’t get past the trauma, we won’t be able to find the love.”

The task force is charged with setting the strategy for leading the city’s work to become a healing city. It will hold its first meeting on March 4. Follow us @bmorechildren for details and updates.

Young Elder is a Healing Youth Alliance Ambassador, HeartSmiles Heartbeat, Coppin ’24 student and recording artist. Listen to her work here.

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How Are Our Children?

On Feb. 16, the Baltimore Children’s Cabinet held its fourth monthly town hall focused on its seven priorities. This one—“How Are Our Children?”—a look at youth healing and trauma in Baltimore, grounded in this statistic:

We thank Children’s Cabinet Trauma-Informed Care workgroup co-chair Kyla Liggett-Creel, UMD School of Social Work, for thoughtfully moderating. We thank Healing Youth Alliance Ambassadors Young Elder and Shelah Johnson for calling on us to do right by Baltimore’s young people. And we thank our four experts in trauma, mental health and mindfulness for educating and inspiring us to begin the vital work of helping our young people heal: Richard Rowe, Black Mental Health Alliance; Kay Connors, UMD School of Medicine; Ali Smith, Holistic Life Foundation; and Dr. Christina Bethell, Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health.

A few words from the town hall that have stayed with us in the days since…