What Changes During Adolescence?

Find a therapist to support kids and teens

Violence against children affects not only the victim but the entire community.

Programs that provide adult presence, mentoring, and structured activities act as protective factors.

Sustained access to trauma-informed care allows communities to process grief to prevent psychological harm.

Meaningful change comes from cross-system efforts to create sustained prevention strategies.

Too often, communities are shaped by a painful and urgent reality, the tension they experience after a child is lost to violence. In moments like these, I find myself wrestling with how to show up authentically, drawing from all three parts of who I am. I write as a mother, carrying the emotional weight that comes with the loss of any child. I write as a clinician, understanding the profound and lasting impact trauma has on children, families, and entire communities. And I write as someone shaped by my upbringing, with lived experiences that inform how I see risk, resilience, and the conditions that either protect or endanger our youth. Holding these identities at once is not easy, but it is necessary if we are to fully understand and meaningfully respond to the tension and pain that follow when communities are left grieving the loss of a child.

In the aftermath of these tragedies, responses come quickly and from every direction. Agencies mobilize, each wanting to help resolve the violence. Community members debate how to address safety. Citizens demand answers. Clinicians stand ready to support families navigating trauma. And parents, understandably, begin to question whether it is safe to allow their children the simple freedom of being children, going out, playing, and existing without constant supervision. I find myself trying to make sense of it all, blending personal narrative with professional insight and community observation in the wake of tragedy in Champaign County, Illinois.

I am hurt every time a child is lost. There is no professional lens that softens that reality. When children harm other children, my response is layered, both emotional and clinical. It takes me back to what I know, not just from training, but from lived experience. I know what it means to grow up in an environment where........

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