Successful adaptation in the face of adversity is known as resilience, having the ability to recover with a swift enough response that the person or institution weathering the storm is stronger for enduring the experience than, say, if they never even felt the raindrops start.
But in the wake of few-and-far between shared situations like the pandemic, how does a community show its tenacity to get back to the colloquially phrased “before times” without negating the inherent struggles, trauma, and loss that impacted — and still does — our society?
See how the Princetonian spirit of perseverance trickles down with the Princeton Foundation for Elevating Equality’s “Rebuilding Resiliency; Reclaiming Connection” series, which begins this fall as part of the ongoing “Mayor’s Wellness Campaign” hosted by Princeton Mayor Mark Freda and the Municipality of Princeton.
The MWC is a “statewide community health initiative” resulting from a 2006 partnership between the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute and the New Jersey State League of Municipalities that equips mayors with local resources and methods to advance wellness.
To complement the 2023 MWC theme of “Empowering Our Community to Prioritize Health & Wellness,” the Princeton Foundation for Elevating Equality has planned events, co-presented with other groups, to show the benefits of coming together for a sustained sense of health and happiness following the pandemic.
Established in 2021 as a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding “affordable, accessible therapy services and advocating for equitable access to mental health care services and resources for individuals from the BIPOC community, the LGBTQIA+ community, and other underserved groups,” the Princeton Foundation for Elevating Equality, or PFEE, does so by directly financing these opportunities at no or low cost to clients.
PFEE is a partner with the Princeton Center for MindBody Healing, a therapy practice based out of the same location at 245C Nassau Street in Princeton, and an extension of its mission statement to provide high-quality holistic and equitable psychological support.
The Princeton Center for MindBody Healing offers outpatient services “oriented towards holistic healing and continuous growth” for individual clients, couples, and family structures with the goal of creating a “neutral safe space” for “compassionate, creative, trauma-aware” care.
Tracey Post founded the Princeton Center for MindBody Healing in 2019 as the culmination of over two decades of counseling and educational consulting services.
In an interview, Victoria Sharkey, an associate clinician and marketing director at the Princeton Center for MindBody Healing, explained why Post and colleagues decided to launch the PFEE.
During the pandemic, Post and PCMBH staff observed that preexisting barriers to care, such as “loss of income” and “the high cost of mental health services,” had created an even wider gap in the system due to conditions exacerbated by the global health crisis.
PCMBH wanted to lessen that burden with a foundation whose purpose was that anyone in the Princeton and wider New Jersey community, regardless of where they are looking for or already receiving mental health services, can look to PFEE as a resource for financial assistance.
“We have established this nonprofit in our commitment to provide affordable and accessible therapy services,” Sharkey said, doing this by raising funding “to allow people to apply and receive assistance to pay for their therapy services, especially if someone does not have insurance and/or their insurance doesn’t cover out of network benefits.”
Sharkey noted that PCMBH does have a sliding scale program where fees are determined by a person’s income.
“But life gets tough sometimes; sometimes that’s not enough, and so that’s really why we have this foundation,” she added. “Our priority groups for the foundation at this time [are] our BIPOC community, the LGBTQIA community, and medical care workers — especially during the time of COVID — providing that assistance for medical workers is very important as well.
According to its website, PCMBH addresses traditional areas such as anxiety, depression, and neurodivergence, as well as sexuality and gender-related topics like coming out or medically transitioning, the latter of which the organization can write clearance letters for HRT and gender-affirming surgical procedures.
PCMBH also provides specialty treatment options that focus on the effects of trauma, looking at concepts such as post-traumatic growth, somatic experiencing, and approaches like EMDR psychotherapy.
For more information or to book an in-person, video, or telephone session, see the practice’s website at princetonmindbody.com.
Sharkey is a licensed social worker who received her bachelor’s in psychology and criminal justice from Rutgers University, followed by her master of social work with a certificate in promoting child and adolescent wellbeing.
Now also active as the marketing director for PFEE, Sharkey specializes in working with younger populations across the adolescent to college age range who are experiencing issues like anxiety, OCD, ADHD, stress, academic pressure, neurodivergence, and more. She typically serves audiences such as LGBTQ+ youth, as well as first-generation and/or low-income students.
The overarching message of the upcoming series is connection, community, and resiliency, Sharkey said, with its debut event to be held on Wednesday, November 1, from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Princeton Arts Council’s Solley Theater auditorium in partnership with the MWC and the Princeton Senior Resource Center.
The day will include a screening of James Redford’s documentary “Resilience: The Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope” and a panel discussion with community providers who will share how they foster such flexibility in their own lives before opening up a dialogue for the audience to do the same.
According to the website of KPJR Films, one of the production companies behind the 2016 film, “Resilience” explores the science behind “Adverse Childhood Experiences,” or ACEs, “a dangerous biological syndrome caused by abuse and neglect during childhood” where “toxic stress can trigger hormones that wreak havoc on the brains and bodies of children, putting them at a greater risk for disease, homelessness, prison time, and early death.”
However, this 60-minute feature “also chronicles the dawn of a movement that is determined to fight back. Trailblazers in pediatrics, education, and social welfare are using cutting-edge science and field-tested therapies to protect children from the insidious effects of toxic stress — and the dark legacy of a childhood that no child would choose,” KPJR continued.
PFEE is setting up workshops to run throughout the fall and possibly into the winter as needed with the following co-presenting organizations: the Princeton Senior Resource Center; the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute; HiTops, a nonprofit that offers “youth-informed sex education and LGBTQ+ support” in Princeton; the Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund, an immigrant advocacy group; and Corner House Behavioral Health, the substance abuse prevention and treatment facility set to depart its role as the municipal provider for mental health and addiction services in January after over 50 years in partnership with Princeton.
For more information, see the Princeton Foundation for Elevating Equality website, princetonelevatingequality.org, or email foundation@princetonelevatingequality.org.
Sharkey explained that the “Rebuilding Resiliency; Reclaiming Connection” series aspires to “confront both communal and personal trauma, recognizing the shared experiences we’ve all endured during the last three years” and, referencing the loss of in-person activities during the pandemic, “to rebuild our community connection.”
By sitting together and processing as a whole unit, the hope is to acknowledge what everyone has in common with one another and find the path that links them.
“Resiliency can be observed not only on an individual level but also on a community level. It’s not only recognizing our capacity to survive and thrive in the post-pandemic world,” Sharkey said in reference to the PFEE materials, but to become a “united front.”
As a charitable organization poised to give marginalized populations a platform with additional infrastructural support, PFEE intends to go beyond its current donation-based service model.
According to the website, this may entail coordinating case management, continuing education opportunities — especially in healthcare settings — and striving towards a future of representation that integrates professionals with lived experiences into their respective fields.
Both the PFEE and the PCMBH noted that factors such as stigma and marginalization are harmful to mental health, and that anyone living under such conditions has to overcome significantly disproportionate hurdles to care, even if they are likely to need them the most.
“For BIPOC individuals, their daily experience often includes direct experience with overt racism, microaggressions, and navigating exclusionary or harmful systems. Racism and discrimination can often lead to additional stress, anxiety, and trauma — all contributing factors to deep mental health burdens,” the PCMBH website states.
“For individuals who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community, daily life can include facing discrimination, navigating negative stereotypes, or dealing with threats or actual violence directed at them because of their sexuality or gender identity. As an additional challenge when seeking care, these individuals may often face cases where health care providers deny care, address them using harsh language, or blame their sexual orientation or gender identity as the cause of an illness.”
Through somatic healing practices for processing everything from systemic oppression to generational trauma, PCMBH aims to alleviate the burdens of those who endure such discrimination by pairing clients with therapists who personally and/or clinically understand.
While this has particular relevance to the BIPOC or LGBTQ+ communities, PCMBH also assists clients in the field of sex work by providing “stigma-free therapy to people working in the oldest profession in the world” through a partnership with Pineapple Support, a platform specifically designed to address the mental health needs of those in the adult online industry.
The next PFEE and MWC event will take place on Tuesday, November 28, from 7 to 8 p.m. in the Princeton Public Library’s Newsroom, where attendees will discuss the 2020 Penguin Random House book “Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle” by sisters Emily and Amelia Nagoski, which examines the impact of burnout on American women.
The “Mayor’s Wellness Book Discussion” is a joint program led by the Princeton Public Library, or PPL, head of adult services, Laura Bishop, and Eboni Gadson, a senior clinician and director of human resources at the Princeton Center for MindBody Healing.
The PPL has also compiled a list of staff-recommended books in line with the “Rebuilding Resiliency; Reclaiming Connection” series that acts as a primer for participating in PFEE events. Its 26 entries range from nonfiction titles like “Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence” by psychologist Rick Hanson to children’s picture books like “The Most Magnificent Thing” by author-illustrator Ashley Spires.
For more, see the online collection via the library’s BiblioCommons catalog at princetonlibrary.bibliocommons.com.
Sharkey believed that the PFEE series demonstrates the power of coming together as a connected Princeton that is able to “unify in our community resilience.”
She added that regardless of where everyone individually is from, building and strengthening those bonds are important.
This resonated with her because, although she lives in Hunterdon County, Sharkey still finds it important to be an involved member of the Princeton “ecosystem,” as she explained, in a dynamic where everyone within it can lean on each other for support.
“At the conclusion of this first round, we do have hopes to also extend this beyond our Princeton community, perhaps involving all of Mercer County and allowing our community connection to reach beyond the general Princeton area,” Sharkey stated.
She noted that the initiative has the potential to “expand outwards” to the rest of the tri-state region and “allow people to build those bonds and connections” for future growth.
Although we may not always notice our ability to adapt to adverse or high-stress experiences, the purpose of this series, Sharkey emphasized, is to create a space for reflecting and “understanding how we can rebound from the past three years of global and local trauma.”
