YSRP’s Intergenerational Healing Circles featured in The Philadelphia Citizen

Reporter Jo Piazza of The Philadelphia Citizen spent time with the members and facilitators of YSRP’s Intergenerational Healing Circles in 2020 to learn about our approach to intergenerational healing for grown men and younger who share the experience of adult incarceration as teenagers. Her article, published August 5, 2021, reveals a portrait of Black and Brown men committed to building community with one another, and healing from the individual and shared traumas they’ve faced in their lives. “We compare it to the barbershop model,” says Juwan Bennett, one of the facilitators of the group. He continues:

If you’ve ever been to a Black barbershop it’s intergenerational, everybody’s on equal footing. Same as our group. Everybody has a perspective and can join in the conversation and we laugh together. We experience raw emotions together and we keep it honest with each other. What happens with the intergenerational healing circle is that it’s intentional. We’re intentionally building community and intentionally creating space.