Amanda Vaden is currently participating in a year of service as an AmeriCorps VISTA and supports Philadelphia’s Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual DisAbility Services in her role as a Trauma Work Coordinator. Her work frames the experience of poverty as traumatic in and of itself and explores social and economic interventions that hold potential for mitigating trauma and improving individual and community health outcomes.

Amanda has developed a strengths-based professional development curriculum for youth who have experienced trauma. She believes that a behavioral health perspective can offer an innovative approach to enhance core components of a traditional workforce development program. In this approach, creating a sense of security and inclusion is a primary means to foster a learning environment, which reduces the impact of traumatic stress. By creating a framework that is responsive to the social, psychological, and developmental needs of participants, workforce development programs can provide spaces of belonging, care, and disrupt cycles of trauma. Viewing workforce participation as a purposeful, pro-social activity that promotes stability and resilience does not require a paradigm shift but may lead to productive interventions that improve an individual’s quality of life, a family’s financial security, and community well-being.