1) The document provides guidance for mentors on supporting youth who have experienced community violence or trauma. 2) It outlines the SEEK framework - Safety, Empathy, Empowerment, and Knowledge - as an approach for mentors to help youth feel safe, understood, in control, and informed. 3) Mentors are encouraged to acknowledge events sensitively, prepare themselves, ensure self-care, and tailor their support to each youth's individual needs and relationship.

1. 2016
Mentoring During a Time of
Community Violence or Crisis

2. 75 Kneeland Street, 11th
Floor, Boston, MA 02111 617.695.1200
Adapted from material produced and developed by the Defending Childhood Initiative at the Boston Public Health
Commission
Table of Contents
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................3
How to use this Guide...............................................................................................................................3
Summary.......................................................................................................................................................4
SEEK Overview .............................................................................................................................................4
Safety ............................................................................................................................................................5
Empathy........................................................................................................................................................6
 Active Listening.................................................................................................................................6
 Paraphrasing .....................................................................................................................................6
 Validating ..........................................................................................................................................6
 Expressing care .................................................................................................................................6
 Acknowledging courage....................................................................................................................7
Empowerment ..............................................................................................................................................7
 Open-ended questions......................................................................................................................7
 Comfort with silence.........................................................................................................................8
 Supporting youth voice.....................................................................................................................8
 Leave the door open for future conversations.................................................................................8
Knowledge ....................................................................................................................................................8
 Normalizing and providing knowledge .............................................................................................9
 Helping the youth access resources..................................................................................................9
o Exploring .......................................................................................................................................9
o Warm referrals..............................................................................................................................9
Trauma Exposure Response and Self Care..................................................................................................10

3. 75 Kneeland Street, 11th
Floor, Boston, MA 02111 617.695.1200
Adapted from material produced and developed by the Defending Childhood Initiative at the Boston Public Health
Commission
Introduction
It is the unfortunate reality that in too many communities, acts of violence can touch the lives of young
people. It is important that mentors and caring adults are equipped to support young people who have
experienced or witnessed community violence. Please use this resource as one tool to provide some
information to guide you in supporting an adolescent who may have recently been affected by
community violence.
Please note:
 Check in with your support system. It is important to check in with staff from your mentoring
program and/or school or mentoring site to receive important information about how the site is
handling the situation, any information needed about a particular child and/or resources that
are being accessed to support individuals and the system as a whole. It is important that you
are well informed so that you can support all efforts as well as your mentee.
 Acknowledge the event. It is important to acknowledge the event with your mentee and check
in to see how they are doing. Mentors are in a unique position to offer additional one to one
support and to let young people know that you are there for them. Young people may or may
not be ready to talk or choose you to be the person in which to confide. Although it is very
important to acknowledge the event and normalize feelings and behaviors, in no way is it
helpful to force a person to talk when they are not ready or willing. Acknowledgment is just
that. The next steps will come.
 Prepare yourself. It is important to explore how you feel, assess your feelings of comfort and
safety and ensure that you are prepared to see your mentee. Discuss any concerns or fears you
may have with the staff from your mentoring program. Consistency for young people is of
utmost importance and if you are not able/comfortable to see your mentee, the mentoring
program will need to know this to make an alternative plan. This guide will provide some
strategies and guidelines to use that many you may use in your relationship already. Get ready
to communicate well- being clear and showing care.
 Ensure that you take care of yourself. Supporting individuals experiencing trauma can and does
affect mentors and other caring adults in a variety of ways. It is important that you take time to
recognize how you are feeling and engage in self-care.
This resource has general tools and tips with specific examples. Any approach to supporting a young
person should be tailored to their particular needs, age, culture and identity. Any approach should also
take into account the relationship you have with your mentee: how long you have known them, how
you usually communicate, where you meet, what types of activities you do with them.
How to use this Guide
This guide was developed to provide basic information and strategies to support young people who
have experienced the effects of community violence or other traumatic events.
We have based these strategies on the SEEK framework developed by the Boston Public Health
Commission’s Defending Childhood Initiative. This framework was developed as a tool for youth workers

4. 75 Kneeland Street, 11th
Floor, Boston, MA 02111 617.695.1200
Adapted from material produced and developed by the Defending Childhood Initiative at the Boston Public Health
Commission
to increase their skills and ability to support young people in the midst of a traumatic event. All steps in
this process are skills that mentors and caring adults without professional training can implement. It is
important to read and review all steps in the SEEK model in order to attend to the needs of young
people in a safe, effective and respectful manner.
For Quick Reference:
 Page 4 provides a one page overview of the SEEK process that aims to support young people
through a traumatic event like community violence. This material would also be strongly
recommended for mentors and other caring adults.
 The remainder of this document provides more detail about each step involved in SEEK with
insight into how to provide safety, empathy, empowerment and knowledge.
 The last section provides some information around self-care and the trauma exposure response.
This is important to read as well for your ability to take care of yourself while supporting your
mentee.
Community Violence/ Trauma
Experiencing or witnessing violence in the community can be a form of trauma. Trauma is when an
event is unusually frightening or threatening - either because it is unexpected or because it is very
violent. Trauma can cause great distress and disruption to one’s everyday life.
A traumatic event can affect people mentally, physically and emotionally. These reactions are normal
and can be different for each person and may reveal themselves immediately or over time. A person
who has experienced prior traumatic experiences may find that this particular event triggers both
memories, feelings and reactions of past loss, pain, fear or anxiety. This is normal too. Past traumatic
events may not be related to the current situation. However, these past experiences may put people at
greater risk and these people may need additional support during this time. (Boston Public Health
Commission, 2016).
SEEK
The stages of SEEK include:
Safety - The first important step in supporting a young person in crisis or who has been exposed to
violence is to ensure that they are emotionally and physically safe.
Empathy – The second step is to show your mentee that you are available to be supportive and non-
judgmental. You may not be able to “solve the problem” or end the violence in the neighborhood, but
by providing empathy, you may be able to offer the support needed t to help young people understand
and normalize their reactions and alleviate some of their painful feelings.

5. 75 Kneeland Street, 11th
Floor, Boston, MA 02111 617.695.1200
Adapted from material produced and developed by the Defending Childhood Initiative at the Boston Public Health
Commission
Empowerment - Violence in the community and other types of traumatic events are characterized by a
loss of control, threats to physical, emotional, and spiritual safety, and a sense of powerlessness. The
third step in the SEEK model is to help young people regain some sense of empowerment and control.
Knowledge - Knowledge involves empowering a young person with information around trauma and
resilience as well as connections to resources. The fourth step in the SEEK model is the important role of
providing information about the situation, normalizing the array of feelings and behaviors people exhibit
and helping young people to understand the resources available to support them. Mentors need to stay
in their role and be aware of the boundaries and limits of the relationship. Sharing knowledge can only
come after the first three steps of the SEEK model and must be done in conjunction with mentoring
programs, site staff, family and care givers.
Safety
The first important step in supporting a young person in crisis or who has been exposed to violence is to
ensure that they are emotionally and physically safe.
 Prior to talking with the young person, prepare yourself to be fully present and supportive. Be
mindful of your body language and innate reactions.
 Be considerate of the environment in which you are having this conversation. Is it one in which
someone would feel comfortable talking about their experiences around community violence?
Are there water, snacks and enough privacy to have an open and honest conversation? Is it free
of anything that might be triggering for a young person?
 Mentors and other caring adults may be required to act as mandated reporters. Be sure to
know what is expected of you. It is important for you to review your programs reporting policy
and also make this clear to your mentee. Gently remind your mentee that if they share anything
that makes you feel concern for their immediate safety or the safety of others you are required
to share this information with someone from the mentoring program or mentoring site.
Ensure you give the young person voice and choice. Acknowledge what has happened and state clearly
that you are there for them if and when they’d like to talk about what has happened.
“When traumatic events happen in the very beginning I try not to do action steps. The first course of
action is usually around just listening, letting the student share with you how they are feeling, why they
are feeling it, and then validation from you as their support. Some students have a hard time
communicating these things so I often model it for them saying something like, ‘there are lots of different
feelings we feel and sometimes we feel more than one feeling at once (anger and sadness)’. I then might
continue to model this by saying, ‘I feel sad because [the school community was] affected by this awful
event.’ That way when they respond they will say it in a way that makes sense and is clearer to them. I
can't say enough that [the day of a traumatic event and shortly after] should be around kids just
processing what happened with adults being a supportive ear.”
- Madelin Cerullo, School Adjustment Counselor / Social Worker - Chelsea, Massachusetts

6. 75 Kneeland Street, 11th
Floor, Boston, MA 02111 617.695.1200
Adapted from material produced and developed by the Defending Childhood Initiative at the Boston Public Health
Commission
Empathy
The second step in responding to a young person is to show them that you are supportive and non-
judgmental. You may not be able to “solve the problem” of being affected by community violence, but
by providing empathy, you support them in helping to alleviate some of their feelings. Empathy can be
expressed in many ways, but the following communication skills, strategies and statements can be
helpful.
 Active Listening is an attempt to truly understand the content and emotion of what the other
person is saying by paying attention to the verbal and non-verbal messages. To actively listen,
you must focus, hear, respect, and communicate your desire to understand. It is not a time to
be planning a response or conveying how you feel.
 Paraphrasing is a good way to make sure you heard correctly what a young person has said. It
involves repeating back to someone what they’ve just said or summarizing it. It allows you to
more actively listen, allows a young person to hear that they’ve been heard, and serves as a
check for understanding.
o “So if I have it right, you’re not quite sure how you’re feeling at this moment as it’s just
too soon after the event.”
o “So you’re saying that you wonder about how you’ll feel walking through the same area
where the shooting happened. I can imagine that’s a huge question.”
 Validating can be an incredibly powerful tool in connecting with a young person and helping
them truly feel heard and understood. Effectively using this tool involves attaching a feeling to
what someone has said. It can be helpful to both paraphrase and validate at the same time. It’s
important to ensure that your validations, as best as possible, reflect the sentiment of the young
person you’re talking to.
o “It must have been incredibly shocking to hear the gunshot at the end of the day. I’m so
sorry you had to experience this.”
o “I can only imagine how hard it would be to go to school the next day after something
like this happened.”
o “So you’re saying that you can’t really tell if you’re feeling anything right now but see a
lot of your peers upset. I can imagine that’s really confusing, especially since you did
mention you cared for this person.”
 Expressing care and providing positive regard can help to nurture the connection between you
and your mentee during the conversation. Ensure that your praise is sincere and honest and fits
the relationship you have with this youth.
o ”I care about you.”
o “I’m not going anywhere; I’ll still be around for you over the next year”..” (Note: Only say
this if it’s true!)
o “I’m really glad that you’re here and that I get to spend time with you at school.”

7. 75 Kneeland Street, 11th
Floor, Boston, MA 02111 617.695.1200
Adapted from material produced and developed by the Defending Childhood Initiative at the Boston Public Health
Commission
 Acknowledging courage and the young person’s willingness to share can help continue to
express empathy.
o “Thank you for sharing this as I know it can take a lot to talk about this.”
“Empathy has been described as being able to listen with not only eyes and ears but also with hearts and
minds.” (Jean Rhodes, Stand by Me).
“Finding someone who will suspend his/her own judgment and really listen is hard. Mentors often help simply
by listening, asking thoughtful questions, and giving mentees an opportunity to explore their own thoughts
with a minimum of interference.” (Mass Mentoring Partnership, Mentoring 101)
Empowerment
The third step in the SEEK framework is empowerment. Violence in the community and other types of
traumatic events are characterized by a loss of control, threats to physical, emotional, and spiritual
safety, and a sense of powerlessness. In light of this, it is important for mentors and caring adults to do
what they can to support the young person in feeling empowered and expressing voice and choice. It is
often the case that young people know how to solve their problems, are aware of who they are and
what they need and are often in need of guidance and support of adults to be able to take action. .
After providing safety and empathy, it might be that the young person’s distress has been contained
enough that they feel more capable/willing to seek help or take some type of action to gain some sense
of control and/or healing. The following strategies can be helpful to support young people to feel
empowered:
 Use open-ended questions. These are questions that allow for a wide range of responses. They
allow greater voice and choice in giving a young person the ability to speak about what they
would like to. You can make questions more open-ended by envisioning the possible response.
A simple example is rather than asking, “Can you talk to your school adjustment counselor?”
instead ask “What do you think would be most helpful for you right now?” The latter question
allows the young person to truly express what they believe would be helpful for them and feel
empowered to leverage their own knowledge. Examples of helpful open-ended questions:
o “Would you like to talk more about this?”
o “What’s been the hardest part about this event at school for you?”
o “How has this been affecting you?”
o “What would it be like if you did talk with your mom about what happened today?” (If
this was mentioned by the young person as an option).
o “What would happen if you didn’t talk to your mom?”
o “Is there anything that might be helpful for you to do tonight, something that will give
you the support you feel you need?”
o “Are there things I could do to be helpful for you right now?”
A couple of important notes about open-ended questions:

8. 75 Kneeland Street, 11th
Floor, Boston, MA 02111 617.695.1200
Adapted from material produced and developed by the Defending Childhood Initiative at the Boston Public Health
Commission
o You’re asking questions with the intent of allowing the young person to speak, not to
gather details for your own knowledge. Asking too many questions around their
experience with a violent event can be re-traumatizing. It’s OK for you to not know the
full story.
o Though ‘why questions’ can be very open-ended, they can sound accusatory. In many
cases, you can replace the ‘why’ with ‘what’ and ask the same type of question in a more
positive fashion. Note the difference in feel between “Why did you react this way?”
versus “What made you react this way?”
o Note that there are situations where more specific, less open questions make sense to
use. That being said, having thoughtful, open-ended questions mixed with validations is
important.
 Allow for silence. Especially in the midst of a distressing event, young people (and adults) may
need time to collect their thoughts. It is important to allow for natural silences and give room in
a conversation for a young person to attend to their feelings, put their thoughts together or just
connect with their resiliency or peace within. It is important to try not to fill every moment of
silence and impede a young person’s ability to think, process or be in touch with themselves.
 Supporting youth voice. Another way to empower young people is to ensure that young
people’s voice is appropriately being collected and a part of the community’s response. Often
traumatic events and organizational responses happen quickly. It can be easy for a program or
school to initiate a response without taking into account the needs and viewpoints of young
people. By advocating that the voice of young people is a part of the response builds a sense of
empowerment and value.
 Leave the door open for future conversations. It is important to provide a sense of security and
consistency. Offering to talk and listen at your first meeting after a traumatic event is only the
beginning. As we have mentioned, young people may or may not be ready to talk. Whether
they share a lot or a little as time goes on more feelings may arise, more responses may be
uncovered and they may have more questions to process. The key is to let them know that you
are available and accessible and you will always respect their pace and interest in talking.
Knowledge
The final step in the SEEK model is sharing knowledge. Sharing knowledge involves empowering a young
person by providing information about trauma and resilience as well as information and connections to
resources. This task is in line with a mentor’s role as resource broker. Mentors need to be mindful of
their role. They are not a young person’s therapist, social worker, clinician or primary caregiver. It is
therefore important to ensure you “know what you don’t know” and within all conversations stay in
your role as a mentor. Before a mentor taps into their role as resource broker, it is important that they
ensure safety, provide an empathetic ear, support a young person to feel empowered and then offer
information and resources. This order will help a young person to be open and receptive to this
important information. It is important that a mentor get input and support from their mentoring
program and/or site staff and ensure that parents and care givers are also given important information.
Mentors should not make referrals without checking in with their match specialist.

9. 75 Kneeland Street, 11th
Floor, Boston, MA 02111 617.695.1200
Adapted from material produced and developed by the Defending Childhood Initiative at the Boston Public Health
Commission
By providing factual and solid information through conversations with mentees, young people are able
to become much more aware of general reactions to trauma and normalize the range of responses and
reactions to such as an experience. This is very important for young people as they struggle to
understand what happened and how they and others are feeling and/or behaving. It is very important
that you build your knowledge and awareness around the basics of trauma and resilience. You can only
share what it is you know and the information with which you feel comfortable. Be sure that you do
not put yourself in the position to diagnosis the young person, but simply provide general information
that can help put their experiences in context and understand that what they might be going through is
a logical response to an abnormal situation.
o “It can be normal to not really feel safe in an environment after an event like this.”
o “Often we can feel a lot of feelings after an event, or feel kind of numb. As an example, I
have been feeling both worried about you and other young people in the community but
also angry that something like this could happen. That being said, each person reacts
and processes events in their own way.”
o “Sometimes, people can have recurring fears after an event like this. It’s kind of how
we’re wired as human beings to react to dangerous situations.”
The second part of this step in the SEEK model is to provide your mentees with resources. Bringing
resources to young people is a crucial step in supporting the healing process. Depending on their
situation, they might have plenty of external supports, but they also might not know of resources that
could be helpful. Exploration and warm referrals are helpful tools in assessing need and helping young
people get connected to potential resources.
o Exploring the supports that a young person wants versus telling them what they should
do is very important. There is a big difference between saying, “I know of this support
service that you can actually communicate with via text. I’d be happy to talk more about
this if it sounded helpful” versus, “I think you should call the crisis line, the number is 1-
800-243-TALK. Please call tonight.” The former allows for voice and choice and
maintains the autonomy of a young person. The latter might turn a young person away
from a certain service or harm your relationship with them. We cannot force youth to
access resources they don’t want to.
o Warm referrals are a way to connect young people (or adults) to resources in a way that
is more trauma-informed. Traumatic events are often sudden and unpredictable. It is
important to help make resources comprehensible and predictable to promote a sense
of safety. There are a few components to this if a young person has agreed that they
would be interested in a type of external resource.
 Can you explain to the young person exactly what using the resource involves?
Will they have to complete forms or provide information? Is it anonymous?
What will happen when they first make the phone call, walk into an office or talk
to someone?

10. 75 Kneeland Street, 11th
Floor, Boston, MA 02111 617.695.1200
Adapted from material produced and developed by the Defending Childhood Initiative at the Boston Public Health
Commission
 Can you help make a direct connection? Are you able to walk with a young
person to a specific place or person and make and introduction? Are you able to
be present while they make a phone call? This might not be possible, but if it is,
you can help leverage the trust and support they feel with you to make a
resource feel safer and more accessible.
 Mental health services sometimes have different barriers to entry. Hotlines
sometimes don’t have enough coverage to answer all calls. Let the young person
know that if this resource doesn’t work, there might be others that you would
work with them to connect to. Either way, you can let them know that you’re
there for them, and happy to directly talk with them about this event and how
they’re doing.
Trauma Exposure Response and Self Care
As noted earlier, being exposed to trauma or working with others who’ve been exposed to trauma or
community violence can cause one to essentially experience some aspect of the event. Mentors, or
anyone else who is helping communities or individuals cope with trauma, can exhibit a similar set of
responses that are called the Trauma Exposure Response. Self-care, and engaging in activities that
promote your own resilience and healing are crucial. It models healthy coping to young people, prevents
burnout and allows mentors to be centered and grounded so we can carry on our challenging, yet
critical work.