This resource is intended to be used for professional who are working with immigrant communities who are victims of crime and are obtaining information on potential paths to become a lawful permanent resident.

This resource is to be used for professionals and agencies/organizations/businesses/etc. who are serving victims who belong to Limited English Proficient communities.

This resource is to offer providers a space to learn and reflect on their own implicit biases in a safe and contained way.

This wheel is a guide to assist mental health professionals when working with ethnically diverse populations to understand, explore and process the dynamic of power and control within the context of historical trauma. As Dr. Joy DeGruy stated, “You Cannot Heal What You Don’t Understand.” Thus, it is critical for mental health professionals to comprehend that life is more than just “unfair” and that out of historical trauma developed the deleterious effects of contemporary oppression in the forms of systematic oppression and the manifestation of post traumatic stress symptomology. It is critical as a trauma-informed mental health professional to acknowledge the impact of historical trauma since it influences one’s ideologies as well as identity and interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships.
For the purpose of this wheel, intergenerational trauma (i.e., historical trauma) also known as transgenerational trauma is defined as, “the cumulative emotional and psychological wounding over the lifespan and across generations, emanating from massive group trauma experiences (Brave Heart, 2003).” Systematic Oppression is operationalized as when “established laws, customs, and practices systematically reflect and produce inequities based on one's membership in targeted social identity groups” (Cheney, LaFrance, & Quinteros, 2006). These constructs illustrate how the systems which were more overt centuries and decades ago still exist but presently are now more covert. Understanding historical trauma is knowing that descents of various groups (e.g., Slavery, Holocaust, Trail of Tears, Japanese Interment Camps, Armenian Genocide) still live with the ramifications that were inflicted upon.