Confronting Structural Violence: Embedding Anti-Racist and Trauma-Informed Practice in Systemic Change
29th October 2025
Black History Month reminds us that racial injustice is not a historical footnote, it is a present reality that continues to shape the systems we live and work in today. The theme of Black History Month this year is Standing Firm in Power and Pride and at Dartington we’re taking this moment to reflect on how our work in systemic change can transform relationships of power.
Our work with and for children and young people aims to confront the enduring systems of inequity that shape our collective wellbeing. Our approach is grounded in an understanding that inequity and trauma do not exist in isolation and are not only personal or episodic; they are also historical, collective, and structural. Trauma is shaped by centuries of racial injustice and reinforced through systems that continue to marginalise and harm. We see the potential that research, evidence and design have to dismantle systems of oppression, but we also recognise that these disciplines have been, and continue to be, used to uphold harmful structures of power and violence. In all of the work we do, we actively consider the role we are playing and how we may be upholding or dismantling those structures.
Structural violence
We use the term structural violence to describe the way social, political, and economic systems can inflict harm by restricting people’s access to safety, dignity, and opportunity. This violence is often invisible - embedded in policy, practice, and institutional culture - but its effects are profound. It manifests in racial disparities in health, education, justice, and social care, and it holds children and young people back from thriving.
Across generations, Black communities and other marginalised groups have nurtured traditions of care, healing, and resistance that continue to challenge structural harm. Their leadership and creativity have shown what it means to build safety, belonging, and thriving from within community, often in the face of deep injustice. We see our role as learning from, amplifying, and standing alongside this work, working with Black leaders, practitioners, community members, and writers who have long modelled new ways of organising care and power.
Our work aims not only to make structural violence visible but to co-create different ways of doing things, ways that share power, recognise collective wisdom, and strengthen the conditions for all children and young people to grow up safe, healthy, and thriving. Systemic change, in this sense, is not only about improving services but about redistributing power and reimagining who holds it.
Trauma-informed practice
One of the ways we see our work shifting power is in our learning around trauma-informed practice, which has deepened through our research and partnerships over recent years. Trauma-informed practice gives us the tools to understand how trauma affects people’s lives, and to design interventions and reshape systems so that they promote healing rather than re-traumatisation.
Trauma-informed practice cannot be fully realised without being anti-racist and anti-oppressive. To attempt to respond to trauma while ignoring the racism, poverty, and exclusion that create it is to treat symptoms rather than causes. We are therefore working to embed collective, anti-oppressive action into our research and design practices. As a team, this means:
Creating spaces for reflection and dialogue about race, power, and history.
Acknowledging and challenging our own positionality and privilege as practitioners and researchers.
Co-designing with communities who have lived experience and expertise is central to how we imagine and shape systems change.
Using evidence not just to describe inequity, but to mobilise change that addresses the root causes of trauma, including historical and structural trauma.
To be truly systemic, any change initiative must reckon with the history of the people and places it is in. It must shine a light on structural violence and it must be driven by a shared commitment to a bolder, better future that prioritises collective healing. In our commitment to building Thriving Futures with and for all children and young people, we’re doing that.
Black History Month challenges us to consider how our work can contribute to lasting change. For us, standing firm in power and pride means honouring the legacy of those who have resisted inequity, and using our influence, research and partnerships to reshape systems so that they sustain healing and justice rather than harm. If you’re on this journey too, we’d love to hear how you’re going about reshaping systems and transforming relationships of power - get in touch today.
Resources
In exploring structural violence and trauma-informed practice, we have found the sources below very useful:
https://migrantsrights.org.uk/projects/wordsmatter/what-do-we-mean-by-violence/
https://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/black-history/racial-trauma/
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-66524-0_29
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/16094069251340906
https://wellcomecollection.org/stories/what-is-structural-violence-
https://www.pacesconnection.com/blog/what-is-structural-violence
https://thencenter.org/Glossary-Trauma/Historical-Structural-Trauma
https://intjem.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12245-023-00509-w#Fig1