People constantly amaze me. Especially when they’ve experienced childhood trauma and the resulting psychological roadblocks, then found the tools to navigate these roadblocks and go on to function as an adult in this complicated world and give others the same chance at a healthy life.
LaLa Lawhon was removed from her parents’ home and spent her youth in the foster-care system. She was fortunate to have loving relatives and a supportive foster family, with siblings she became close with. She was bright and eager to learn, went through college on a full scholarship, studying sociobiology with the express goal of working to help improve the foster system. Outwardly, she was a success story, but inwardly she still had so much work to do.
“I could not seem to break free. When you’re thrown out into the world and it’s just more survival, you’re right back on the hamster wheel and there’s no time to heal. You don’t even realize that you’re reacting to things from a trauma response, because it’s just your normal response. Your trauma is your baseline. Life is hard for everyone, but imagine not ever once knowing what true safety feels like.”
She studied and sought out paths of healing, specifically how trauma lives in the physical body and can be worked through with relatively new somatic practices. Somatics is a system which helps people remind their bodies that they are safe when, due to past trauma, their prefrontal cortex (the flight-or-fight part of our brain) is constantly triggered.
Trauma rewires your brain and generates behavioral patterns that can make it hard to function. LaLa connected with professors, mental-health professionals and other former fosters and found that using the principles of Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) gave people with PTSD tools they can use to recognize and manage these behaviors and patterns, so they can move forward toward healing. Her goal became to create a supportive environment for fosters to promote resilience and recovery using a holistic approach. After some years finding her tribe, she founded Rise Above the Clouds.
Rise Above the Clouds consists of therapists, medical practitioners, educators and parents, all in the behavioral-health field, whose goal is to help those in foster care and former fosters navigate life with healthy coping skills. The group’s current focus is on its summer camp for fosters, which had its first session in August.
The most remarkable thing about Rise Above is that it’s the first summer camp for fosters run by former fosters. Four of seven on the board went through the system. In designing this camp program they are working from lived experience. “All of the former foster youth involved in Rise made it to this point by exploring their own healing, which looked very different from my path,” shared LaLa. “Every one of us understands how hard it is and how much we wish that someone could have prepared us for this and let us know that we can heal from this trauma.”
I responded to a call for artists from this new organization I hadn’t heard of, and was privileged to spend an afternoon doing a ceramics project with the campers. Our own ceramics group was also quite new and seeking connections, and we were glad to be included n the group of artists who would lead activities with the campers. In preparation for working with a trauma-impacted group, we attended a training session led by the Rise Above team on Trauma-Informed Care. The six principles of TIC are safety, trustworthiness/transparency, peer support, collaboration/mutuality, empowerment/choice, and issues of culture, history and gender.
While we art instructors were not trained therapeutic practitioners, the staff wanted us to have a basic understanding of how they work with this group of youths, using positive reinforcement, respect and active listening. We were really impressed with the depth of substance behind this work, and we’re eager to participate again next year.
In addition to running the camp, the group has also designed a research project to track how working with TIC affects the campers, both physiologically and psychologically. This study has been approved by the Institutional Review Board and the hope is that over time the data will show the benefits of TIC and that it will be implemented throughout the foster system.
When LaLa posted about the camp on Facebook, one of her former foster siblings responded, “I need a camp! I’m just now realizing how much my childhood trauma is effecting my life currently.”
Moving forward, Rise Above is working to develop camps, after-school programs and weekend events for those who have aged out of foster care, for people who want to foster, and for biological parents who want to reconnect. The opportunities for healing and connection are manifold.
Rise Above the Clouds is a relatively new nonprofit and is reaching out to the community for support of its programs. Fall is when the artist members of Arts Prescott Cooperative pick a local nonprofit to raise money for in its holiday fundraiser. The members started this tradition when it first opened 30 years ago. This year they’ve chosen Rise Above the Clouds.
This event provides an opportunity for local artists to give back to the community and for the designated nonprofit to be present and meet with visitors during the 4th Friday Art Walk in November. The opening reception for this show will be on Friday November 28, 5-8pm at the Arts Prescott Cooperative Gallery, 134 S. Montezuma St. on Whiskey Row. Artists from Arts Prescott and other local artists donate pieces for the show, with 100% of sales proceeds going to Rise Above. The show runs through the holidays to January 23. Some of the artwork will be cloud-themed!
By visiting the holiday fundraiser show at Arts Prescott and purchasing donated artwork you are not only taking home something beautiful, local and unique, you are also supporting Rise Above the Clouds in its effort to improve the lives of those in foster care. Donations will also be accepted (taxfree) at the gallery through the show. Come meet LaLa and the team on November 28 during Art Walk!
More at riseabovetheclouds.org.
