The Trauma Recovery Education and Empowerment (TREE) program, which is an in-house recovery program run by Advocate Kathryn Walker, has become a staple of the domestic violence services provided at The Nest. Each class provides victims and survivors with tools to analyze their interactions, relationships and conversations with others, overcome past trauma and begin making proactive and informed choices to move toward powerful futures through careful planning and reflection.
The program is based on the psychology principles of Transactional Analysis. Each session remains accessible and easy to digest to ensure students can receive tools without having to disrupt their other obligations to learn a set of jargon or words that would otherwise be meaningless to them. Residents of The Nest often work full-time jobs, raise families, hunt for housing and enroll in college courses. By ensuring that major lessons can be taken away without an intensive time commitment, the value of each class is increased.
To gauge what each student had been learning during the course of the TREE program, the students were recently asked to identify what their adult, nurturing, parent side would say to their inner child, or to a vulnerable side of themselves in need of love or direction. They discussed the roles their parents played in their lives, the important lessons they would like to take to heart and how they can nurture other people, mostly including their own children.
The empowering messages included:
“It’s okay to be angry for all you have been through. I am sorry I never told anyone.”
“You really screwed things up. Now you have to fix it.”
“Please just listen to me. I don’t want to be scared anymore.”
“Guide me, don’t control me.”
“Keep on fighting. Your life is yours to live… never hand it over to anyone!”
“Hey you made it this far, right? Keep your head up and follow your dream. Love yourself.”
“Be strong and don’t give up.”
“It will be okay – you always figure it out, in the end. You are strong.”
“It’s okay to make mistakes. Just learn from them. Teach others what you have learned. You will be surprised how many people have made the same mistakes. Learn and move on as a more educated individual.”
By learning how to step back and become empowered through effective communication, the women served in the TREE program are able to better navigate their interpersonal relationships and are ultimately left with the tools to become aware of others and themselves, to identify and assert their needs and to lead their families to healthy lives and relationships.
