“Transformative”
When choosing a name for her business, Maria drew inspiration from the theories of transformative justice and transformative pedagogy — thus Transformative Trauma Center was named.
Transformative justice is a holistic approach to addressing issues of harm, oppression, and trauma. This community-based approach actively works to cultivate the things we know prevent violence – healing, accountability, growth, and safety for all involved – instead of focusing on punishment or retribution. It is a philosophy and practice with roots in social movements, and it takes a broad look at conflict to consider the wider social forces and institutionalized pressures that engender violence and harm. Transformative justice is a set of practices that seek to create lasting healing in the lives of individuals and communities who have been affected by violence, without utilizing mechanisms of “cancel culture” or relying on the state (e.g. police, prisons, criminal legal system).
Transformative pedagogy is a teaching method that emphasizes critical thinking, self-reflection, and collaborative learning, offering students the tools they need to become active participants in their own education, rather than passive recipients of information presented by teachers or textbooks. Teachers guide their students through a process of reflection, which involves thinking about how they’ve been affected by social problems such as racism or sexism, and students use their own experiences as a way of learning about and unpacking these issues. Transformative pedagogy encourages students to challenge their own beliefs while engaging with others who may have different perspectives than them, while integrating their own experiences with what they learn in the classroom.
These holistic, integrative approaches to justice and learning are what Maria strives to bring to the trauma healing processes. She places your experiences within the contexts of child development, brain development, culture, systemic oppression, intersectional identities, ableism, misunderstandings of different neurotypes, and more. This powerful approach is essential in the dismantling of shame, and releasing the shackles of self-recrimination.