Trau­ma runs deep in T&T, and in­deed, in many oth­er Caribbean is­lands. When a na­tion is in cri­sis, we can­not look the oth­er way. We must find so­lu­tions - to­geth­er. This is Part I of a II Part se­ries.

The Samar­i­tan Move­ment (SM), a much-need­ed ini­tia­tive in T&T, draws its in­spi­ra­tion from the Gospel para­ble of the Good Samar­i­tan (Luke 10:25–37). SM was born in 2022 “from a pow­er­ful part­ner­ship be­tween Catholic Arch­bish­op Charles Ja­son Gor­don, and Fa­ther Jer­ry Mc­Glone, SJ, PhD of George­town Uni­ver­si­ty—two minds unit­ed by a shared vi­sion to heal the Caribbean’s men­tal well­be­ing.”

SM is part of the Catholic Com­mis­sion for So­cial Jus­tice. Dar­rion Nar­ine, SM’s Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor, says:

“Be­hind every sta­tis­tic is a sto­ry, and be­hind every act of vi­o­lence is of­ten an un­healed wound. The Samar­i­tan Move­ment be­lieves that heal­ing be­gins when we lis­ten. By bring­ing to­geth­er schools, fam­i­lies, com­mu­ni­ties, and pro­fes­sion­als, we can build a more re­silient and hope­ful Trinidad and To­ba­go. To­geth­er, we heal.”

SM was formed in re­sponse to the Catholic Chil­dren’s Homes Re­port. SM “adopts a ‘ground-up’ ap­proach that pri­ori­tis­es lis­ten­ing to the most mar­gin­alised voic­es across three core ar­eas to cre­ate Com­mu­ni­ty As Fam­i­ly in our schools:

Trans­form­ing Chil­dren’s Care Homes;

Em­pow­er­ing School Com­mu­ni­ties;

Build­ing a Na­tion­al Clin­i­cal Re­sources Data­base.”

SM part­ners with ex­perts to train ed­u­ca­tors and staff to recog­nise trau­ma and cre­ate safe, heal­ing en­vi­ron­ments be­fore crises es­ca­late. Over the past two years, dur­ing a se­ries of four work­shops, teach­ers were trained in how to cre­ate trau­ma-in­formed class­rooms and proac­tive self-care.

We need a whole of so­ci­ety ap­proach to deal with this cri­sis, be­cause wide­spread psy­cho­log­i­cal and phys­i­cal trau­ma im­pacts every lay­er of so­ci­ety. By in­te­grat­ing heal­ing, pre­ven­tion, and sup­port in­to all so­ci­etal sec­tors, we can fos­ter deep­er col­lec­tive re­silience. There­fore, SM has formed a coali­tion of care­givers, pro­fes­sion­als, and faith-based groups.

Fr Jer­ry Mc­Glone, head of SM, says SM’s work “builds up­on gen­er­a­tions of ded­i­cat­ed men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als and con­firms a pro­found truth: while their ef­forts have been valiant, our cur­rent ca­pac­i­ty is in­suf­fi­cient for the depth of cri­sis fac­ing T&T. This re­al­i­ty dri­ves our com­mit­ment to lis­ten first and to be con­tin­u­ous in our in­ter­ven­tions. Through work­shops in eight pi­lot schools across Trinidad, we’ve en­gaged more than 300 fac­ul­ty and staff mem­bers. Now, we’re ex­tend­ing this cru­cial con­ver­sa­tion di­rect­ly to stu­dents them­selves—hear­ing their re­al­i­ties first­hand to shape so­lu­tions that tru­ly work.”

To date 300+ teach­ing staff have been trained in trau­ma-in­formed care; 260 stu­dents have been trained in trau­ma-in­formed peer-to-peer sup­port; and 5,000+ stu­dents have been sup­port­ed across 12 schools.

SM is cul­tur­al­ly sen­si­tive, ev­i­denced based, and da­ta dri­ven. Three years of com­pre­hen­sive re­search was con­duct­ed across T&T’s Catholic com­mu­ni­ties. Twelve Re­searchers pro­vide vi­tal con­tri­bu­tions to SM’s work. This is the on­ly or­gan­i­sa­tion of its kind in T&T and in the re­gion.

SM’s sur­vey with 19 or­gan­i­sa­tions in the Arch­dio­cese in­di­cat­ed high rates of self-harm and sui­ci­dal ideation. Fr Jer­ry says:

“We were formed from T&T needs, to re­spond to T&T’s prob­lems, in T&T voic­es. We start­ed by ask­ing three sim­ple ques­tions: ‘What are you see­ing? What are your needs in light of this? What are your so­lu­tions?’

“In light of the find­ings, we dis­cerned, with a group of lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al schol­ars, the three core ar­eas list­ed above. There was uni­ver­sal agree­ment among the 19 Arch­dioce­san or­gan­i­sa­tions, that T&T needs a na­tion­al trau­ma/re­source cen­tre. SM now has 25 projects. As the needs on the ground change, we re­spond.”

T&T As­so­ci­a­tion of Psy­chol­o­gists re­minds us that trau­mat­ic events “do not just have an im­pact on in­di­vid­u­als, but al­so on fam­i­lies, com­mu­ni­ties, and fi­nal­ly the na­tion, im­ped­ing our na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. The ef­fects of un­treat­ed trau­ma in­clude se­vere psy­cho­log­i­cal dys­func­tion, vi­o­lent crime, gang ac­tiv­i­ty, drug and al­co­hol use, in­abil­i­ty to work, and psy­chi­atric ill­ness­es such as de­pres­sion, sui­cide and homi­cide.”

Help is avail­able if you, or some­one you know, need sup­port, in­clud­ing:

• SM: samar­i­tan­move­ment@catholictt.org or call 235-5329.

• Na­tion­al Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Hot­line: 800-SAVE (7283).

• Na­tion­al Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Di­vi­sion: 800-4NFS (4637) or 623-2608.

• Child­line T&T: 131 or 800-4357.

• Life­line T&T: 800-5588 or 645-2800.

In Part II, I will fo­cus on some of SM’s Projects, such as The Hori­zon Project; Na­tion­al Ad­vo­ca­cy; Faith Com­mu­ni­ties as First Re­spon­ders; En­gag­ing pol­i­cy­mak­ers and the Diplo­mat­ic Corp; Tri­ni toolk­its that “grow di­rect­ly out of work­shops with lo­cal teach­ers and care­givers.”

Fr Jer­ry says:

“Our fund­ing is to­tal­ly de­pen­dent on grants and do­na­tions. Please help.

You can do­nate via our web­site: https://samar­i­tan­move­ment.org/.”