Healing Together

Our vision is to catalyze a global movement for mental health and healing. In the same way that #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo catalyzed game-changing movements that woke up the general public to engage in courageous conversations, break stigmas, fight for new legislation, and breed a new generation of activists—we want to do the same.

For the past decade, we’ve worked on the sidelines, training over 2,200 grassroots community leaders in the US, Africa, and Asia to become peer mental health and healing advocates and support over 65,000 trauma survivors in their communities. Now we’re ready to grow.

The Elevate Prize can help us build a global movement that will not only generate more support for our BIPOC mental health programs but, more importantly, will spark conversations about mental health at the dinner table, in the classroom, and in the workplace, so that everyday people grappling with their mental health will no longer suffer in silence. 

Through mentorship, marketing and media support, awareness campaigns, and advice on how to build listenership for our soon-to-launch mental health podcast, the Elevate Prize can change the game not just for our work, but for mental health survivors around the world.

As a Korean adoptee and survivor of orphan trafficking, child sexual abuse, workplace assault, and generational trauma due to war and gender violence, I founded Healing Together to help survivors of trauma like me transform their pain into power.

This work is deeply personal for me. It’s about transforming the cycle of trauma and violence in my family, by healing it for myself and for others. I am living proof that it only takes one person to heal and create a ripple of change for thousands of survivors.

Since 2012, Healing Together has hosted over 70 peer mental health trainings with 2,200 community leaders from 18 countries, who support over 65,000 trauma survivors. Our community and survivor-centered healing model is flipping the broken mental health system on its head by democratizing access to culturally responsive, peer-led support for communities disproportionately impacted by trauma and violence, including BIPOC, LGBTQ, and disabled survivors. 

Our bold vision is to expand our Healing Hubs to every region of the world, to broaden access to online mental health trainings in multiple languages, and to launch media campaigns to break stigma and catalyze the mental health movement.

The statistics are dismal: 1 billion children globally experience violence, 1 in 3 women experiences abuse, the cost of global violence is $14 trillion per year, and a child with multiple traumas has a reduced life expectancy of 20 years. (WHO, IEP & Kaiser/CDC).

We can no longer ignore the impact of unhealed trauma and violence in our world. “Hurt people, hurt people” at the individual, community, and global level, breeding fear, hate, and violence that transfers from person to person, community to community, and generation to generation. Up to 85% of people with mental health issues suffer without access to care (Wang et al), yet with less than 1 mental health worker per 200,000 people in low-income countries like Nepal and only 70 per 100,000 in high-income countries (WHO, UN), there simply aren’t enough resources to break the cycle. 

We equip everyday people with mental health and healing skills so they can disrupt trauma and violence and build resilient communities. Our training is comprehensive, culturally adaptable, and replicable, weaving together neuroscience and evidence-based practices with cultural tools to 1) heal yourself, 2) support survivors, 3) rehabilitate aggressors, 4) break stigma, and 5) teach others to do the same. 

The broken mental health model is stigmatizing, pathologizing, and medicates symptoms rather than healing root causes. It is neither scalable, affordable, nor culturally responsive and falls woefully short of addressing the rising demand for resources.

Our model is a bold reimagination of healing, led by and for survivors. We democratize access by building the capacity of locals to heal themselves and others. We de-stigmatize mental health by acknowledging it as a human issue, and a community issue, rather than a medical illness. Our train-the-trainer approach centers survivors as experts, equipping them with knowledge and skills to identify trauma and its impact on physical, mental, emotional, and social health and well-being, develop healthy coping practices, provide emotional first aid and peer counseling support, and embrace cultural healing traditions, such art, dance, music, drumming, play, and meditation—so they can heal trauma and become “Healing Advocates” in their communities. 

In short, our model is the only truly scalable way to address the global need for mental health resources in a manner that is cost-effective, culturally-relevant, and sustainable.

In 5 years, we aim to grow and scale exponentially, training 20,000 people and reaching 500,000 survivors, by 1) continuing to provide locally-led trainings and healing programs via regional Healing Hubs in the US, Africa, and Asia, 2) enabling global access through online mental health trainings, and 3) building a movement to break stigma through media campaigns, podcasts, and events. 

Our impact evaluation studies reveal that 99% of training participants gained knowledge and skills to heal others (n=267). Participants have overcome depression, launched mental health NGOs, pursued graduate counseling degrees, supported perpetrators of harm in ending cycles of abuse, trained and counseled peers, and improved relationships with their families.

Testimonials:

“This allowed me to overcome my depression, addiction, and anxiety as I can now transform it into true happiness.” Community leader, USA

“My students are more empathetic, they know how to heal their sad emotions, they share their stories, and they act with love. I’d be a different person if I had this training when I was a teenager.” Teacher, Nepal

“I have learned that for traumatic cases, you don’t need clinical medicine. You only need confidence, consolation, and trust.” Community leader, Uganda

To date, we’ve directly trained 5,749 community leaders in mental health advocacy knowledge and skills, a number that has grown exponentially in the past 3 years as we’ve narrowed our scope from supporting multiple issue areas to focusing solely on mental health.

As we are in a period of scaled, accelerated growth, we estimate directly training 2,500 people in 2022, and increasing that impact by 1,000 people each year, training 20,000 peer Healing Advocates over the next 5 years.

Our goal is to train 20,000 high-impact local leaders (educators, parents/caregivers, health workers, nonprofit employees, activists, faith leaders, and more) over the next 5 years, with skills to serve as peer mental health and "Healing Advocates" who will support over 500,000 trauma survivors in their communities (directly impacting SDG #3 “Good Health & Wellbeing”).

We measure impact using a mixed-method approach, collecting quantitative and qualitative data via pre- and post-training questionnaires, interviews, case studies, testimonials, and anecdotal evidence. Our impact goal is to have at least 90% of training participants report that they’ve learned practical skills to heal others, which they can begin using immediately. 

In 2019, we launched a comprehensive study to assess the impact of our workshops. 99% of respondents reported learning practical skills to heal others, and 97% reported learning practical skills to heal themselves. As a result of our trainings, participants also reported overcoming addiction and depression, starting mental health NGOs and podcasts, entering graduate programs in counseling, training parents and students to cope with traumatic stress, supporting perpetrators of violence to end cycles of abuse, counseling peers and family members, improving relationships with children and spouses, and releasing shame about their own trauma.

One of the greatest barriers to our work is the stigma attached to mental health. People don’t feel safe talking about their mental health challenges. It’s hard to address what’s not out in the open. Therefore it’s not surprising that mental health has been chronically underfunded. 

However, given the widespread impact of COVID-19 on mental health, the emergence of public figures sharing openly about mental health struggles (e.g. Lady Gaga, Meghan Markle, Naomi Osaka), mainstream media attention on mental health, and the acknowledgement by global health experts that community-based peer-led models are the most effective way to scale mental health support, the environment is ripe for Healing Together’s work in a way that it’s never been before.  

In addition to the crucial funding element, the Elevate Prize would position us to take full advantage of the shifting landscape around mental health. We’ve never had a marketing budget, and the current “pay to play” social media model makes it difficult to build a following without significant funds for content development and ad buys. The Elevate Prize would dramatically amplify our impact by helping us build a platform to catalyze a global healing movement and ultimately, to positively impact more lives.

The Elevate Prize would be a game-changer in terms of catalyzing our global healing movement. To date, we have focused on developing a robust curriculum delivered in a culturally responsive way that has transformed lives (according to the participants themselves). The Elevate Prize would be the perfect partner to bring this successful model to scale. 

The Elevate Prize would help us grow our audience and build a strong platform from which we can spark brave conversations about emotional wellbeing, share stories of mental health challenges and triumphs to break stigma, champion mental health legislation and funding, and inspire the next generation of mental health activists and advocates. 

We can then leverage this fanbase to build listenership for our upcoming mental health podcast and foster community engagement in mental health advocacy via events we’re planning for Mental Health Awareness month in May 2022 (art contest and digital exhibition, free meditations and healing resources, and more). 

We’d also lean into our investment in fundraising capacity building to convert this new, larger audience into active donors and enroll the community in our mental health trainings to help scale up mental health resources and support across the globe.  

As a Korean adoptee raised in a white American family and community, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are profoundly personal to me. A commitment to DEI is part of our DNA because sustainable transformation is only possible when those most impacted by inequity have the agency to heal themselves and others.

Organizationally, we have a horizontal leadership model, with power centered among staff (and no “leadership team” per se, though I am the founder and carry the title of CEO). 100% of our staff identify as BIPOC, and represent the lived experiences of communities we serve. Our model, curricula, programming, partnerships, and the strategic vision of the organization were birthed within this community. 

Going forward, our goal is to diversify our fiduciary board, but we recognize the inequities and limitations of the nonprofit industrial model which restricts board service to those with the means to volunteer their time and labor. We’ve addressed this by empowering the staff team to oversee both programs and strategy, while focusing the board on fundraising and governance. We are also considering the use of alternative models such as advisory boards to enable greater diversity and equity at the board level.

As a BIPOC survivor of interpersonal and generational trauma and violence, I created Healing Together to disrupt the medical mental health model that failed me and so many other survivors of systemic oppression and injustice.

Our work is led by and for communities who are disproportionately impacted by systemic oppression and injustice. Therefore, 100% of our staff and facilitation team identify as BIPOC while also representing various intersectional identities of communities we serve: LGBTQ, immigrants and refugees, survivors of gender violence, disabled folks, and more. 

To ensure that the lived experiences of local survivors reflect what we do and how we do it, our peer-led training model, curricula, program design and implementation, and strategic vision are all carefully crafted through a continuous human-centered design process that centers real time feedback from local community ambassadors, training participants, and our team, and that weaves together knowledge about the neuroscience of trauma with local healing traditions that already exist within communities (art, music, dancing, meditation, faith-based practices, and more). This process enables Healing Advocates to utilize their newfound mental health skills in a way that honors local cultures, traditions, and experiences, while addressing the specific needs of trauma survivors in their communities.

In 2015, I attended a social impact conference on behalf of Healing Together where I experienced sexual harassment by the conference founder while also uncovering a culture of misogyny and harm at this conference and others.

I transformed my indignation to resolve and, with the support of my board of directors, dedicated my time to help foster safer spaces at this conference and beyond. I petitioned attendees to co-sign a letter demanding stronger measures to keep the community safe, co-created an anti-harassment policy for the conference, and developed a crisis response protocol for conference staff and volunteers.

I also reported the conference founder as my aggressor, confronting him personally to call for his resignation and ask that he seek counseling, both of which he eventually did.

This was before the global explosion of #MeToo, and not surprisingly, my actions led to some degree of backlash against me and my organization. However, I’m incredibly proud that I stood in my power and in alignment with my values. I went on to publish my experience in an anthology titled: Anatomy of Silence, and co-created a trauma healing program to support aggressors of violence to break cycles of trauma and harm.

In “The Me You Can’t See,” the Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry docuseries about global mental health, Dr. Vikram Patel, Professor of Global Health at Harvard Medical School eloquently describes the mental health model that we have, indeed adopted: “Enabling communities to use their own resources to solve their own problems is the most empowering thing you could ever do… And one of the key innovations over the last 15 years, is the deployment of ordinary people in the community without any other prior mental health training to deliver mental health care… Caring for others, especially others with whom you identify with because they experience the same kinds of traumas or health problems as you do, is one of the most powerful routes to healing yourself and supporting your own recovery. To me this offers the most transformative opportunity to reimagine mental health care around the world.”  

To highlight this model and our work, we’re creating this 7-minute promo video. Though still a work in progress, this video is a powerful reflection of what we do, and how we do it. Link to video.

Our global work has also been highlighted in the documentary “Victors: A Song to the Lions”. The full-length documentary is not public, but there’s a tiny clip of our Healing In Community trauma healing advocacy workshop in Uganda with EDJA, one of our longtime partners. Link to trailer (see 1:15 to 1:30).

For most of my live speaking engagements, I specifically request to turn recording off, because I prefer interactive sessions where audience members can feel safe to share personal stories about mental health challenges and triumphs. However, here is a short clip from a trauma healing workshop I facilitated with Bay Area activists and educators in 2020 where I give a didactic presentation about the brain science of trauma. Link to video.

The Elevate Prize funds would spark the flywheel effect that propels our work to the next level, so that we can transform more lives and build sustainable, generational change from the inside out.

Healing Together is at a pivotal moment where we are ready to scale. Elevate would help fund that scaling through a combination of additional staffing and capacity building to ensure that we are building a sustainable funding base to support long-term growth. 

We want to take full advantage of Elevate’s marketing and media support by bringing in staff who can actively engage the growing community, build coalitions with other mental health organizations, and engage in advocacy and awareness efforts. 

We can leverage Elevate’s support to increase overall funding for the mental health sector, while breaking stigma, silence, and shame, so that collectively, we can shift the paradigm and make mental health a priority across the board.

As well, Elevate’s funding would fuel expansion within our existing, low-cost geographic areas (East Africa and Central Asia), and support possible expansion to another region where community-based organizations have already contacted us seeking mental health training (i.e. Latin America, Middle East, India, South Africa, or West Africa).

All of our work is achieved in partnership with organizations serving communities impacted by trauma. This includes NGOs, NPOs, and institutions focused on education, racial equity, gender based violence prevention, economic empowerment, ending human trafficking, and disability justice. 

Our partnerships include training staff teams, community members, and other stakeholders in our model for peer-led, trauma-informed mental health. Current and past partners include:

• Reclaiming Our Own Transcendence (RooT) (Oakland, USA)

• Teachers 4 Social Justice (San Francisco Bay Area, USA)

• Oakland Department of Violence Prevention (Oakland, USA)

• Circles International (Oakland, USA)

• Mindfulness Collective (Virtual, USA)

• Nyaka (Uganda)

• EDJA (Uganda)

• Raising The Village (Uganda)

• Women Awareness Centre Nepal (Nepal)

• Raksha Nepal (Nepal)

• Public schools in the Baglung District (Nepal)

• Tribhuvan University Psychology Department (Nepal)

We also offer mental health and resilience trainings at a number of externally organized conferences and events, such as National Conference on Race & Equity, QuestBridge's "QB Convene", Integrative Medicine for the Underserved, and Opportunity Collaboration.

In addition, we've started offering trauma-informed, mental health workshops to the corporate sector, to support employees with psychological safety, emotional wellbeing, and resilience, including clients such as Accenture and Pacific Gas & Electric.