“Tell the truth, shame the devil.”
Nelba Márquez-Greene explained that a woman from Glory Chapel — a church she used to attend — would say this during services.
Márquez-Greene said she was going to be doing much of that during her presentation A Professional and Personal Perspective on Trauma and Recovery at the Building a More Peaceful Connecticut: Tools, Models and Initiatives that Promote Non-Violence forum hosted by Trinity College on Thursday.
Márquez-Greene, founder of the Ana Grace Project of Klingberg Family Centers, is a clinical fellow of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy. She alternated between speaking as a professional, and speaking from personal experience. Her daughter, Ana Grace, was one of the Sandy Hook shooting victims in 2012.
The Ana Grace Project’s purpose is to promote love, community, and connection for every child and family, Márquez-Greene said. Part of that is addressing trauma, which does not only appear following natural disasters or shootings, she said, but also when one experiences poverty, racism, and insecure housing.
She stated that attention needs to be paid to communities in which individuals are repeatedly exposed to traumatizing events, as this can “disrupt the balance of memory […] disrupt connection to family, friend, self, community, and spirituality, […] distort how we see future events,” and “overwhelm out ability to cope.”
During her family’s first Independence Day following Ana’s death, Márquez-Greene said her son was triggered by fireworks. She immediately knew why that sound was upsetting to him, and wondered who else was being re-traumatized by what can be mistaken for gunshots.
Not every person’s traumas make it into the news cycle, she noted.
“Race, socioeconomic status, and gender are often determining factors in how we treat symptoms (or the externalization) of trauma,” she said, noting that while those in Sandy Hook were undoubtedly “devastated,” she would have liked “a way to use the moment to channel that for all our kids who lose.”
“Where’s the empathy? Where’s the national support team” coming in to work with children in New Haven, Bridgeport, Hartford, and Chicago, she asked.
The chronic stress and exposure to trauma has the ability to change the structure of the brain and lead to chronic health conditions, yet the greatest demands, she said, are placed on those with the least to give.
“It never fails to amaze me how punitive some of our systems can be,” she said, noting the trend in some schools to make children “earn” the right to stand up and stretch or have creative time.
In her talk, Márquez-Greene explained Best Practices of Trauma-Informed Care, from providing education about 
“fight, flight, freeze” to teaching regulation techniques and valuing intuition.
She said therapy needs to have respect for “time and place,” meaning that if someone is having a good day, sticking with the “Wednesday at 4” appointment to walk him through that trauma again is not helpful.
At the same time, “congregate care models don’t work for many,” she said.
“One size fits all doesn’t even work with t-shirts,” Márquez-Greene said. How is it that “cognitive behavioral therapy” or any other model will work for every person the same way?
“It’s how we get reimbursed,” she said, “but it’s not what heals people.”
Instead, she said, “we need to empower people,” and the way to do that is by adopting a “Ministry of Presence” that includes providing skills, listening for the problem and the solution, and not promising more than can be delivered.
She cited Dr. Bruce Perry for the concept of “regulate, relate, and reason.”
Additionally, Márquez-Greene spoke to the need for natural supports, like after school programs, the Boys and Girls Club, and places of worship.
She gave an overview of the Ana Grace Project initiatives, emphasizing that the premise is that “every child and every family counts.”
To drive this home, she showed three images — one of the “Big Book of Granny” that Adam Lanza created as a youth, another of a switch plate marked by Márquez-Greene’s son, and a third showing the graffiti on the playground in Elizabeth Park. All three resulted in different public reactions, but, she said, “to me they are all symbols of expression for children.”
The drawing by Lanza showed bullets coming out of a cane. “I’m not sure. . . what connection he had to read the signs when he was doing things like this,” Márquez-Greene said.
She said a lot of people were supportive when her son carved “Ana” into a switch plate.
The reaction was different when “peace to Sandy Hook” was scribbled on a sign at the Hartford playground dedicated to the memory of Ana Grace. People called her expecting some kind of reaction, but Márquez-Greene said “I was moved” that “someone in the Hartford community, despite the disparity in response [suburban vs. urban violence], was wishing us peace.” She said that she’s working with Compass Youth Collaborative to set up a graffiti wall in the playground so that there is a less destructive way for young people to express themselves.
She closed by saying she wants “to think about grace for Adam [Lanza]. . . and grace for Trayvon. . . and grace for all of us.”
The forum also featured a presentation from Kathryn Lee and Elisabeth O’Bryon of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and a keynote lecture by Deacon Arthur Miller on Earned and Unearned Advantages & Disadvantages. There were break out sessions on Kingian nonviolence, North East Neighborhood Violence Free Zone, conflict resolution, cultivating social and emotional skills, preventing intimate partner violence, the Girls’ Experience with Violence Project, the COMPASS Peacebuilders approach, and breaking the cycle of violence through forgiveness.
State Senator Beth Bye opened the forum by explaining that Ana Grace Márquez-Greene is a large part of the reason this conference exists, but that there is a “need to work on a broader agenda around” peace and nonviolence that is not exclusive to gun violence.