IT IS NORMAL FOR CAREGIVERS TO
GO THROUGH THEIR OWN HEALING
JOURNEY ALONGSIDE
THE CHILD.

☎ TO REPORT INSTANCES
OF CHILD ABUSE:
Maryland: Call 911 and your local
department of social services’ Child
Protective Services Unit
Pennsylvania: 1-800-932-0313 (CPS
hotline, operating 24/7)
Virginia: 1-800-552-7096 (CPS hotline,
operating 24/7)
TO SPEAK WITH PROFESSIONAL
CRISIS COUNSELORS who can give
referrals for emergency services, social
services and support resources, contact
Childhelp, the 24/7 national child abuse
hotline, at 1-800-4-A-CHILD (422-4453)
SOURCES: 1. Jensen, T. K., Gulbrandsen,
W.,Mossige, S., Reichelt, S., & Tjersland,
O. A. (2005). Reporting possible
sexual abuse: A qualitative study on
children’s perspectives and the context
for disclosure. Child Abuse & Neglect,
29, 1395–1413.

child’s abuse can be extremely triggering
for them,” explains Orsino. It is normal for
caregivers to go through their own healing
journey alongside the child.

“Voicing their feelings of anger and
betrayal, and all the different emotions
that they will experience, is encouraged
and healthy. The caregiver engaging in
therapy for themselves, or in a caregiver
support group, can be extremely beneficial
so that they have a space to feel what they
need to feel and process it in a healthy man-
ner outside of the child’s presence,” Orsino
adds. After all, children will feed off their
caregiver’s emotions—good or bad.

CAREGIVERS WILL NEED TO
PROCESS THEIR OWN FEELINGS
“Children who have been abused should
also receive support and healing from a pro-
fessional therapist,” reports D’Alessandro.

“The effects of the trauma may continue to
affect the child long after the incident(s) if
they do not receive the appropriate help.”
“[Encourage and teach] children to
‘trust their gut’ if something doesn’t feel
While it is essential that parents create
calm, supportive environments for their
children, they will have extremely diffi-
cult emotions as well. “Many caregivers
unfortunately also have their own history
of victimization, and so learning of their
REBUILDING TRUST IN OTHERS
WILL BE A JOURNEY FOR FAMILIES
20 Washington FAMILY NOVEMBER 2022
good or right,” adds Orsino. “Working with
the child to identify for themselves who are
their ‘safe people’ and who can they turn
to if something happens to them, or they
have something to talk about, also gives the
child a level of control that was impacted
during their abuse.” Caregivers should
help the child establish healthy boundaries
for others based on what is comfortable.

For example, a child who has been abused
may not want to greet anyone with a hug
but would be comfortable with a high-five.

“When a child suffers abuse, it can dis-
rupt their faith that the world is a safe
place and that they can trust other people,”
explains Widen. “To rebuild your child’s
trust in adults and the world around them,
start by focusing on your relationship with
them. By being there and assuring your
child that they can trust you and that you
will protect them, they can begin to explore
the world again—in small steps—and grad-
ually learn to trust others.” T
OLIVER ROSSI/DIGITAL VISION
them that you are there to help and pro-
tect them,” says Widen. Before a child fully
opens up, they may ask hypothetical ques-
tions 2 or discuss what has happened to
“another child”: “If your child does this,
they are testing the waters to learn how
you’ll respond and whether it’s safe to tell
you more,” Widen adds.

Creating environments in which children
feel safe to disclose things that have hap-
pened to them starts early. “Establishing
with your child open communication
about any subject is key. Specific to abuse,
giving the child the proper vocabulary,
including the proper names for their pri-
vate body parts is of upmost importance,”
notes Orsino.

2. Alaggia, R. (2004). Many ways of
telling: Expanding conceptualizations
of child sexual abuse disclosure. Child
abuse & neglect, 28(11), 1213-1227.




My Song is
My Superpower
be it moving, be it playing guitar— I see it
all the time with our kids and our teachers:
when music comes in and they experience
it at a level they hadn’t before, it changes
them,” Ross says.

For Children’s Grief Awareness Day on
Nov. 17, Washington FAMILY spoke with
Emma G and Ross about their import-
ant work helping teens navigate emotions
through song.

Personal Inspiration
Before moving to Washington, D.C. in 2015,
Emma G grew up in New Zealand, making up
songs as early as age 3 or 4. Her first songs
were transcribed by her mother. “I can’t
remember many things from my child-
hood, but when you associate them with
music…It’s wild,” she says.

She first put pen to paper at age 5 with
“School is Cool,” and by age 17 had writ-
ten 400 to 500 original compositions.

She estimates that she’s now written
between 650 and 700 songs, and she still
has every one.

Writing songs for Emma G was a
therapeutic practice. Diagnosed at 4
months old with hydrocephalus, a rare
neurological disorder in which an accu-
mulation of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)
occurs within the brain, she recalls first-
hand how music saved and shaped her.

“The reason music and songwriting are
so powerful is because of the way they
affect the brain. They give you a security
blanket to express those parts [that have
been through trauma] in a way that feels
safe,” she says.

At age 17, she got her teaching quali-
fication and began sharing her practice
with others. Utilizing culture as a foun-
dation to learn from is a strong element
of her pedagogy which stems from New
Zealand’s close relationship to and rev-
erence for its Indigenous culture.“Whether
that’s ethnic culture, whether that’s geo-
graphical culture, religious culture, social
culture—recognizing that everybody’s start-
ing from a different place, and we all need to
learn from that space,” she explains.

For many of the children and adolescents
Emma G works with, that place is one of
trauma. As she looks back over her catalogue
of songs, she sees evidence of how music
helped her in her own journey—glimpses of
hope and glimpses of “I’m gonna get through
this. It’s gonna get better” in her lyrics.

“Every lyric that I’ve written I truly believe
has been in some way my form of meditation
WashingtonFAMILY.com 21
EMMAGMUSIC.COM I
f you ask award-winning sing-
er-songwriter Emma G how she
creates a safe space for the students
she works with, her answer may surprise
you: through silence. “It’s really import-
ant for the way that I teach to make room
for silence and let the kids be OK with
that silence because that is where the
creativity can start to evolve. I want to
lovingly and embracingly give the oppor-
tunity for safe silence.”
Emma G works as a youth empower-
ment coach with the International School
of Music in Potomac and Bethesda, and
through Montgomery County nonprofit
Story Tapestries.

Diagnosed as an infant with a neuro-
logical condition, she found these songs
were an outlet to work through her
own trauma, and now she helps teens
ages 13-17 do the same. Through song-
writing, they can explore trauma, grief
or any other difficulties they may be
going through.

“The mental health problems that
youth are facing are more than most
people can possibly imagine right now,”
says Arianna Ross, chief executive offi-
cer of Story Tapestries, a nonprofit focused
on leading arts programs to create safe and
inclusive spaces for individuals to reach
their highest potential.

With additional stressors from the pan-
demic, more than a third of high school
students cited poor mental health in 2021,
according to Centers for Disease Control.

Coupled with loss of loved ones, teens could
be experiencing grief, and Washington,
D.C. –based Wendt Center for Loss and
Healing notes adults can often feel ill-
equipped to help.

“If they could find their creative super-
power—be it singing, be it writing a story,
TOSTPHOTO / ADOBESTOCK
BY EMILY ROSE BARR