United for Healing Equity
About United for Healing Equity
To ensure our local work with survivors serves as a catalyst for greater equity nationally, Common Justice operates a national field-building and movement-building project, United for Healing Equity, for people working with survivors of violence and trauma.
HealingWorks began in 2014 with a focus on young men of color
and was launched to strengthen Common Justice’s own practice, accelerate practitioners’ learning across programs and regions, change our culture and its devaluation of the pain young men of color experience, and anchor and animate a field and movement dedicated to attending to the trauma young men of color suffer and survive.
The network, which has grown since, includes people working in youth programs, alternative to incarceration and reentry programs, violence intervention programs, hospitals, schools, victim service agencies, and other settings where people address the trauma young men experience.
In 2018, we expanded its work to focus on healing equity more broadly
including the experiences of women, trans, and gender non-conforming survivors of color. Alongside that shift, Common Justice is no longer just building knowledge and relationships—we are also working to build power among survivors to help usher in the world they deserve. HealingWorks was then rebranded to United for Healing Equity (UHE) to capture the expanded theory of change.
Goals and Beliefs
Building Up Communities of Color
UHE aims to build the collective power and capacity of communities of color to ensure healing equity and to catalyze systemic change to support every community’s inherent right to heal.
Fostering Healing and Growing Skills
UHE works not only with service providers, but also with advocates, organizers, community members, and survivors themselves to help ensure that they have the resources, skills, and capacities to foster healing in their communities. UHE also supports members with effectively leveraging the collective power of the network locally, regionally, and nationally. With this expanded scope, we work to ensure that people of color who experience violence identify and act on their legitimate authority as survivors; that people of color are positioned and equipped to leverage collective power for healing equity; that system actors establish an explicit commitment to healing equity in their institutions and are held accountable; and, in partnership with the leaders on the ground, that policy solutions are identified and secured.
Providing the Power to Thrive
UHE believes that healing equity will exist when everyone who experiences violence, particularly those who have been marginalized, have the resources, relationships, and power they need to be well and thrive. We know that people of color and other marginalized groups experience violence and trauma both interpersonally and structurally. By insisting that systems and structures act in support of every community’s inherent right to heal, we work for a world in which all people will receive healing that addresses their emotional, mental, physical, and social needs. We are steadfast in our commitment to supporting those who are making that equity real.