The Healing Racial Trauma Initiative

“Healing is about taking the time to notice what gets in the way of feeling connected to your life, your community, and your sense of possibility. Healing, at its core, is about slowing down so that we can better listen to ourselves and each other."

Susan Raffo

Welcome to the Healing Racial Trauma Initiative

The Healing Racial Trauma Initiative (HRTI) is a program rooted in community, research, and justice; seeking to shine a light on the conditions and methods necessary to transform the pain and trauma stemming from both direct and indirect manifestations of violence within the prevailing structures of white supremacy and capitalism.

Designed for and by People of Color (POC) in Maine with funding from the Maine Health Access Foundation, Mindbridge’s Healing Racial Trauma Initiative (HRTI) was established through community listening, research, and analysis. Since 2021, HRTI developed the “Maine Racial Equity Social Determinants of Health”; developed, conducted, and analyzed the first “Maine Racial Trauma Survey”; and conducted a series of Community Conversations that identified and analyzed community structures and comprehensive qualitative data to inform therapeutic intervention and community healing. Results of these efforts are highlighted in the comprehensive HRTI 2023 Report available below.

A woman smiling with a crown of colorful flowers on her head against a yellow background.
Cover of a report titled 'Healing Racial Trauma Initiative 2023 Progress Report' with an artistic image of a man's face superimposed with a landscape of mountains and clouds.

Please click below to access the 2023 HRTI Report

Four women wearing hijabs sitting by a lake, one woman is looking to her side wearing sunglasses.

What does healing look like at HRTI?

HRTI views healing as an ongoing process of exploration where clients and practitioners can safely unpack the pain and trauma accumulated throughout their lifetimes. Here, we explore the cause and effect relationship between breathing in racial harm & the constriction of life force. We value the questions that arise as much as the answers that come through.  

At HRTI, healing is a place where we can be witnessed in our pain and loved through it, a place where we are reminded what safety and belonging feels like. Here, healing is not an event or destination to be arrived at, it is a daily practice of listening, affirming, soothing and rest that takes us from moment to moment and is with us to endure our toughest moments

Please watch the video below to further explore our program

RESOURCES

In addition to the therapeutic programming that we look forward to launching in 2024, HRTI has built a comprehensive list of resources that may aid in the journey of healing and belonging. Please click on the links below to access our free resource library

A child in a purple shirt holding an orange and black monarch butterfly on their palm.
A black and white photo of a man with closed eyes, wearing a beanie, turtleneck, and textured coat.
A joyful woman with dark skin and curly hair wrapped with a purple headscarf, wearing gold earrings, a gold watch, and a black top, smiling and touching her neck outdoors.

“The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light. Gentle work. Steadfast work. Life-saving work in those moments when life and shame and sorrow occlude our own light from our view, but there is still a clear-eyed loving person to beam it back. In our best moments, we are that person for another. “

James Baldwin