Creating The Village We Deserved- Dr Sharva Hampton-Campbell

[00:00:00] Hey guys, Corey Poirier here. Welcome to bLUTalks and I hope you enjoy this video.

[00:00:29] Good afternoon. I am Dr Sharva Hampton-Campbell and I am so excited to be here on the campus of Harvard University. This is actually my third BlUTalk and this one is very sentimental in that I was here in Boston 10 years ago celebrating a monumental birthday. I won't give you those numbers. Yes, I will because I'm just so excited that I am 10 years older. So I was here celebrating my 50th

[00:00:54] birthday and today is July 1st. I am celebrating the first day of my birth month 10 years later at age 60. So again, so excited to be here not only in Boston but here at Harvard. Today I want to talk about The Village We Deserved- Healing Beyond Survival. What does it mean to move beyond survival?

[00:01:19] and towards healing? That is a good question. Moving beyond survival toward healing means no longer allowing your past to define your future but instead embracing what is possible for your life. While survival is about enduring hardship and doing whatever is necessary to make it through each day,

[00:01:42] healing is about restoring hope, restoring purpose, restoring connections and restoring a sense of wholeness. What if resilience is looked at or what if resilience is sometimes just survival in a beautiful outfit? What if resilience is about? I want to be a part of my life. I want to be a part of my life.

[00:02:10] For example, for much of my life people have described me as strong, as a social worker, educator, advocate, wife and caregiver. I learned early, early on how to show up for everyone else. I became the helper, the one people called when there was a crisis, the one expected to have the answers, the one who could seemingly carry it all.

[00:02:38] Well, what people really didn't see or didn't know was the moments of grief, the moments of exhaustion, the one who could be a part of my life. I was a part of my life. I was a part of my life. Like many people, I became very skilled at surviving. But surviving and healing are not the same thing.

[00:03:03] The realization of that changed my life. As a social worker and educator and founder of the Village Project, I spent more than three decades working with children, families and young adults who have experienced foster care,

[00:03:24] trauma, abandonment, poverty and systems that often expected them to fail even before they ever had the opportunity to dream. And what I discovered in this is that many people are praised for surviving things that they should have never had to endure.

[00:03:46] You see, we celebrate independence while ignoring isolation. We applaud strength while overlooking pain. We call people inspiring because they've learned how to function while emotionally bleeding. And somewhere along the way, many of us learned a dangerous lesson.

[00:04:11] And that lesson is, if I keep achieving, nobody will notice I'm hurting. There's a cost to survival. There's a cost to survival. I remember sitting with a college student who had aged out of foster care. On paper, you would say that they were resilient. They had graduated from high school. They had enrolled in college. They had beaten incredible odds.

[00:04:38] But as we talked, they admitted something very, very heartbreaking. The students said, I don't really have anybody. If I leave school tomorrow, nobody will know where I am. At that moment, I realized something. Resilience is often mistaken as healing.

[00:05:01] Because what looked like resilience for this student on the outside was actually a young person hearing loneliness, uncertainty, and the weight of having to figure out adulthood without a safety net. And honestly, many adults are doing the exact same thing. Healing beyond survival.

[00:05:28] I became the mentor, the professor, the person students sought out when life became overwhelming. But completing my Healing Center Engagement certification, that really transformed me. It really transformed how I viewed helping. I learned that people do not simply heal because they survive trauma.

[00:05:56] That shifted everything for me. Because what I then stopped doing was asking only what happened to you. It began asking, what brings you joy? What are your dreams? What do you hope to do for the rest of your life? What do you hope your life becomes? What parts of yourself are you still waiting to be nurtured? That conversation changed. And it changed conversations.

[00:06:25] And so did the outcomes. Because healing centered engagement reminds us that people are not their worst experiences. They're also their hopes, talents, dreams, strengths, and possibilities. I created the Village Project out of this understanding.

[00:06:51] So the Village Project is a support program for former foster youth attending the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It has also been taken on by Governor State University and Eastern Illinois University. All of those in Illinois. And what I really had hoped to accomplish, and I truly believe that I have accomplished,

[00:07:14] is providing a safe space for students to come and share about things that are impacting their emotional well-being, their academic well-being, and their social well-being. You see, the premise also behind that centered around me meeting a student who had overcame some extraordinary circumstances to reach college.

[00:07:38] And I started seeing that more and more from this population as they were transitioning and entering college. They arrived to the campus, but they were still struggling. They had academic resources, but they were still struggling. Many didn't have a community. Many didn't have belonging or feel a sense of belonging.

[00:08:02] Many didn't have people who generally cared for them about their and about their well-being that they could tap into. Those resources were far and in between once they reached campus. I thought about the phrase, it takes a village. And I began asking myself, what happens when you never have one? So I created one.

[00:08:27] Again, the village project became a space, a safe space where students with foster care, adoption and guardianship experiences could be supported academically, socially and emotionally. A place where they could simply be human. Because healing doesn't happen in isolation. It happens in safe relationships.

[00:08:54] It happens when someone teaches you that your voice matters, your story matters and your presence matters. The power of being seen. One student once said to me, I don't think anybody would notice if I stopped coming to school. I still remember that conversation like it was yesterday. Because underneath those words was a question.

[00:09:23] What they were really saying is, do I really matter here? Does anybody know that I'm here? What impact am I making by being here? Well, lo and behold, years later, that student walked across the graduation stage. That student became connected with the village project. And the difference that the village project made for that student had nothing to do with intelligence. It wasn't about their talent.

[00:09:53] The difference was connection. The difference was someone saying to them, I see you. I believe you. You belong here. You see, in higher education, especially among students from marginalized communities and former foster youth make up that community. We often focus on performance before connection. Turn in that assignment. Meet that deadline.

[00:10:23] Be professional. Push through it. You'll get through it. We've all been there. We all made it. You can make it too. Meanwhile, students are silently asking, am I safe here? Do I belong here? Will somebody care if I disappear? Sometimes the difference between persistence and departure is not ability. It's belonging.

[00:10:49] And part of belonging is having that village. We all need a village. Healing center engagement also taught me something deeply personal. Even helpers need healing. Even leaders need support. There have been seasons in my life when I was carrying tremendous responsibilities.

[00:11:18] Teaching, mentoring students, leading organizations, supporting communities, and serving as a caregiver. And I remember thinking, I'm the one that everyone depends on. I can't afford to need help. But that mindset is so exhausting. And it's not sustainable. Eventually, I had to learn a lesson that I now share with my students.

[00:11:47] Strength is not carrying everything alone. Strength is knowing when to lean into your village. Strength is allowing yourself to be supported. Strength is understanding that asking for help is not weakness. It is actually wisdom. Becoming the village. Being a caregiver. Wow. It also changed my life.

[00:12:16] It has reminded me that healing often happens in the smallest moments. I learned patience. I developed more ability to be consistent. I learned how to celebrate the wins and acknowledge what I would call the losses. It was about simply showing up as a caregiver.

[00:12:38] And all of that that I learned, I also put into practice in my classroom, as well as other entities and aspects of my life. I've also learned that people don't need perfection. They need presence. They need someone to say, I'm here. I see you. You don't have to carry this alone.

[00:13:02] Because many adults are carrying younger versions of themselves that never felt protected, valued or seen. So I just want to remind you that healing begins when we stop asking what's wrong with you and start asking what happened to you. And eventually more important, what happened to you that still deserves compassion? And that question changes everything.

[00:13:29] It changes classrooms, families, organizations, communities, and perhaps ourselves. And in closing, as I reflect on my journey, the students I've mentioned, the families I've served and the young people who continue to inspire me every day. And that's why I'm convinced the one thing. None of us were meant to heal alone.

[00:13:55] Because perhaps the greatest gift we can offer another human being is not advice, it's presence. And perhaps healing truly begins when people no longer have to survive alone. Thank you.

[00:15:23] This podcast is a part of the C-Suite Radio Network. For more top business podcasts, visit c-suiteradio.com. I have another channel for more. Before we leave. Thank you.