Shondell Davis starts her day by grabbing her phone and searching online for good morning messages and memes. She scrolls through the pictures and words, looking for something she connects with: colorful, encouraging, inspiring. Then she texts it to people she has met through the trauma and healing programs at Roxbury Presbyterian Church — a way to connect, to check in, to walk hand-in-hand.
In better times, Davis would leave her Roxbury home, traveling across the city to meet with people who need support. She’d spend Thursday nights down in the church basement, where she and others who have survived different types of trauma gather and share their stories.
Instead, as the number of COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts continues to surge, Davis, who has asthma, stays home. But her work hasn’t stopped.
“Your heart tells you to do so much,” she said. “But you have to have boundaries.”
The pandemic and the resulting economic collapse are causing significant stress for almost everyone. But the circumstances can be especially difficult for people who were already dealing with trauma, said Roxbury Presbyterian Church’s Rev. Liz Walker.
Now, a program Walker started years ago to help people navigate life after trauma is finding its way in a world increasingly filled with it. Walker, the first Black woman to coanchor a newscast in Boston, started the Cory Johnson Program for Post-Traumatic Healing at the church six years ago, and named it for Jefferson Cory Johnson, a 27-year-old killed in Roxbury in 2010. Walker knew his family members, who attended the church, and saw them struggling with the loss.
“As a preacher, we’re supposed to be helping people heal,” Walker said. “And that just hadn’t been happening, at least not to the extent that this family had reached a level of peace.”
Walker began hosting meetings in the church basement, first focused on people who had lost loved ones and then expanding to people who had experienced other kinds of trauma: violence, or child abuse, or exposure to racism. The meetings usually start with a meal, then music and dance from artists in residence. People are then invited to talk about what they have been experiencing, usually for three to five minutes. If they need to talk more, a licensed mental health counselor, Colleen Sharka, is on hand.
“We opened the doors of the church, it was a really simple concept. We had food, we had a clinician who would sit with us, and the outcome was just amazing,” Walker said.
The pandemic has moved the meetings online. People can join through a Zoom link on the church’s website, rpcsocialimpactctr.org, or by calling in. They start with music now, and then let attendees talk about what they have been going through.
“Trauma isolates us,” said Sharka, director of the program. That sense of isolation can be especially difficult when people are sheltered in their homes, disconnected from their usual routines and support systems.
That’s why Walker and Sharka have kept the program going online.
“They come to us to have a sense of connection and community,” Sharka said.
“Trauma and multiple traumas have a sense of robbing your sense of meaning and purpose in the world,” said Sharka.
Davis, who started as the program’s community trauma healing specialist in January, first entered the church’s basement about 5 years ago as a grieving mother. Her 18-year-old son, Johnny Davis, was shot and killed not far from her home in 2009.
The first few times, she sat quietly and listened as other people shared their stories. She was worried about judgment or repercussions if she talked about the pain she was in, she said. But during her third meeting, she decided to get up and speak.
“The space automatically and immediately felt safe,” Davis said. “They put you in a position to help you see your strengths, even when you can’t see it yourself. It’s a feeling inside, to know that you can make a difference in somebody’s life, to help them understand that you don’t have to be alone.”
Now Davis is still in constant touch with people, she said. She calls them to hear their voices. If they are spiraling into grief or panic she gently instructs them to get up, to walk around the house, to put on some music, to keep busy. She encourages them to call in to the church’s weekly “Can We Talk?” meetings, even if they’re just there to listen to other people talk.
Trauma can overwhelm people’s minds and bodies, leaving them feeling unable to do basic things: cooking, taking care of themselves, sleeping. Part of Davis’s job is to walk with them, offering support in navigating their lives.
She compared it to a physical injury: Just like after a bad accident, people have to relearn how to walk, how to function, how to keep living.
“Trauma and grief are the same way,” Davis said. “It’s the damage. Your brain and your body stop, and you have to learn how to do everything again. . . . This program walks with you, and it gives you the tools that you need to survive.”
Recently she gave one woman detailed cooking instructions. She made a grocery list and arranged a delivery for a young man who loves cooking and has been struggling. She helped another family navigate complex medical bureaucracy, all over the phone.
“Just stay with them, stay with them on the phone until you can make them laugh,” Davis said. “Right now we have to use outside resources, and just being able to get those resources to help the mothers is what I’m doing right now. And empowering, and encouraging.”
Gal Tziperman Lotan is a former Globe staff member.