Event Info

The Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative and Office of Field Education welcome AW Shields, Executive Director of the Root Cause Collective, as the third speaker in the spring 2024 trauma-informed workshop series. These workshops aim to cultivate conversations about trauma-informed care and ministry principles at Duke Divinity School. Shields' talk is, "Trauma, Justice, and Creating an Ecology of Wellness." Lunch will be provided for the first 30 in-person attendees. No registration is required for in-person attendance, but virtual attendees must register to receive the Zoom link.

Speaker Bio

AW Shields is an eco-womanist abolitionist, trauma-informed wellness equity innovator, and healing justice practitioner. With 12 years of experience in the mental health field, she founded the Root Cause Collective, a collective of Black mental health and wellness professionals working to revolutionize health care by building a trauma-informed, culturally restorative community as a liberating method of mental health care and healing justice in communities of the Black Diaspora. 

AW Shields believes communal trauma requires communal treatment and that an individual’s mental health is deeply interconnected with communal and environmental health. Shields has a master of divinity from Columbia University, Union Theological Seminary in New York City, a master of social work from the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work, and a certificate in marriage and family therapy from the Denver Family Institute. Pulling from all her educational experiences, she’s created a framework for mental health care and wellness that amplifies the ancestral art of community building within Black communities for the sake of mental health recovery and healing that comprehensively addresses individual and communal mental health and well-being at the same time.