Trauma Jeopardy Games

For youth ages 12-18 and agencies with trauma-informed and trauma-responsive social workers and other mental health providers that serve youth ages 12-18.

For LGBTQ+ youth ages 12-18 and licensed mental health professionals to use in group therapy settings or at schools or in community-based youth serving programs.

SFY sees that increasingly, young people’s exposure to trauma is often a predictor of police contact and involvement in the juvenile justice system. States that have tallied the number of adverse childhood experiences of incarcerated youth, found exposure to traumatic events at rates far, far above the national average.

SFY has observed that youth who are most exposed to trauma, who live in risk, have the least access to support for navigating trauma from mental health providers and other adults in their lives.

For youth who experience trauma as a result of their racial or sexual identity, their socioeconomic status, or by dint of what they have witnessed and experienced in their homes, neighborhoods and the institutions that are supposed to serve them—schools, police, healthcare—the absence of trauma-aware, informed and responsive adults also puts youth in risk. The result too often is that some of the ways that youth try to heal their trauma—through numbing, or denial, or risk-taking, or re-enactment—leads to system involvement which further compounds their trauma.

That’s why SFY developed these two versions of Jeopardy games that address trauma and are designed to be led by mental health professionals. Each suite of games focuses on:

  • Understanding trauma and how it works on one’s brain, mind and behavior;
  • Considering sources of trauma as a result of one’s identity or exposures or both;
  • Recognizing being triggered and when others are;
  • Learning ways to manage the distress of trauma without putting themselves at risk of harm or system involvement.

SFY created these games as a psycho-educational tool that maximizes engagement and connection between youth and caring adults, and for communities that lack or do not find effective more traditional approaches to mental health assistance.

Interested?

Inquire about how to bring Trauma Jeopardy to your organization by contacting Strategies for Youth at 617-714-3789 or info@strategiesforyouth.org.

SFY Named recipient of 2023 Innovation Award

Morgan Stanley named SFY a recipient of its 2023 Alliance for Children’s Mental Health Innovation Award for our trauma-focused Jeopardy games. One of only five organizations selected out of 700 applicants from across the country, SFY will receive multi-year support to launch and implement Know Your Triggers: Understanding and Managing Trauma and From Stress to Success: LGBTQ+ Youth Experiences. Through its engaging and popular game format, SFY will empower youth in schools, detention centers and community-based programs to recognize trauma and ultimately develop healthy coping strategies to disrupt the “trauma to prison” pipeline.

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