Racial trauma and Black lives: UB School of Social Work to host important conversation

By Matthew Biddle

BUFFALO, N.Y. — As Buffalo prepares to acknowledge the first anniversary of the May 14 massacre, the University at Buffalo School of Social Work will host a webinar on Black racial trauma. The event will be a moment of learning and reflection to denote the ongoing existence of racial trauma in the lives of Black people.

“Racial Trauma and Black Lives: An Evening with Kenneth Hardy” will be held April 20 from 7-8:30 p.m. via Zoom. The event is free and open to the public.

Racial trauma is an ever-present consequence of experiencing and witnessing racial oppression and discrimination. It can result from high-profile and horrific examples of racism, like the May 14 shooting, as well as continued exposure to everyday microaggressions and bias.

The evening will begin with a solemn remembrance of the 10 lives lost during the racist mass shooting at Tops on Jefferson Avenue last year. Kenneth Hardy, PhD — an author and expert on racial trauma — will then deliver his presentation and engage in a discussion on Black racial trauma and its emotional, mental and physical effects, which can often span generations.

For social workers, clinicians and others in the helping professions, Hardy’s talk will help them develop a racially sensitive, trauma-informed framework for their work, as well as examine how racial bias within service systems (both implicit and explicit) impedes effective services to racialized individuals.

About the speaker: Kenneth V. Hardy, PhD, is director of the Eikenberg Institute for Relationships in New York, where he provides racially focused, trauma-informed training and executive coaching to a diverse network of individuals and organizations across the U.S. and abroad.

Hardy is the author of six books on racial trauma, culturally sensitive supervision and family therapy, including Racial Trauma: Clinical Strategies and Techniques for Healing Invisible Wounds, which was released in February. In addition, he is a former professor of family therapy and has also served as the director of children, families and trauma at the Ackerman Institute for the Family in New York.  

Matthew Biddle
Director of Communications and Marketing
School of Social Work
Tel: 716-645-1226
mrbiddle@buffalo.edu