“Joshua” has been thinking a lot about gun control. A former Marine, a gun owner, and a black man, “Joshua” is concerned about the high incidents of mass shooting in this country. He has carefully researched the backgrounds of each of the mass shooters.

“Every one of them is not only a white male, but comes from a fatherless home. We need to get to the root of the problem,” he says. “I don’t know what to do about the white part, but I know we need to address the kids that are hurting.”

The documentary “Resilience” (James Redford, KPJR Films, 2016), winner of multiple film awards, is one such effort to attend to hurting kids of all ages. The film draws on new discoveries in brain science that show a lifelong biological impact resulting from the stress of child abuse and neglect.

Childhood trauma triggers stress hormones. Those stress hormones, in turn, create a storm of damage and destruction of normal brain activity and physical health in children.

As we grow up, the results of childhood trauma show up as a biological syndrome – something that skews and distorts brain activity, which skews and distorts reactions to stress. Stress derails physical well-being also, leading to illnesses and malfunctions of the body.

Children who have experienced trauma are more likely to be at risk for homelessness, criminal activity, and early death. It doesn’t matter if they are poor or rich; the syndrome occurs in every child who has had to deal with abuse, neglect and other forms of intense childhood trauma.

Two reporters for the LA Times researched the backgrounds of mass shooters and developed a data base going back to 1966. One of their key findings was as follows:

“. . . The vast majority of mass shooters in our study experienced early childhood trauma and exposure to violence at a young age. The nature of their exposure included parental suicide, physical or sexual abuse, neglect, domestic violence, and/or severe bullying. The trauma was often a precursor to mental health concerns, including depression, anxiety, thought disorders or suicidality” (Jillian Patterson and James Densley, LA Times, 8/4/19).

The film “Resilience” went beyond the brain-based science of trauma to reports of practical applications. The fields of pediatrics, education, and social welfare are using brain science to generate therapies that can protect children from the biological impact of toxic stress. The key to all of these therapies is the use of empathy, awareness, and patience.

One of the first places this new science of trauma showed up is in the classroom. Teachers trained in cutting edge brain science and its relation to education began developing strategies for checking in with each child in a personal manner.

Maybe you have seen recent news reports on how this works. Some teachers have each child, upon entering the classroom, select from pictures of different facial expressions. Some have children choose whether to be greeted with a handshake, a high five, or a hug.

These are not just cute ways of greeting children. It is an important assessment of how that child is doing on that day. The ultimate goal is to transform the culture of the school from the usual focus on misbehavior and failure to concentrate, to one of awareness of each child’s experience of life (Karen Brown for NPR, 12/14/18).

What makes this research on trauma important is that its implications have extended far beyond the classroom, to you and me. To everyone. Because everyone of us is affected by the things that happen to us. Because no segment of society – black or white, rich or poor, educated or not – is immune from traumatic experiences.

While not all of us have experienced child abuse or neglect, just about all of us have been deeply affected by stressful events in our lives. Subsequent stressful conditions trigger old stressful responses in our brains and bodies.

Instead of wondering what’s wrong with each other, we need to wonder what has happened to each other. Everyone has a back story (iBerkshires.com, 11/26/18).

That is why the results of this research have led to the creation of trauma-informed communities. Every segment of the trauma-informed community – parents, non-profits, social services, police, schools, town governments – becomes involved in learning how to respond to one another with empathy, awareness and patience.

Imagine if, in your community, the police responded to domestic disputes from a background of training in awareness of and empathy for what stress does to people. Imagine if you needed food assistance and found the person at social services really listening to your story with respect. Imagine a town meeting where people felt comfortable talking about a personal childhood event that is influencing their thinking about an issue.

If heading in that direction sounds appealing, you might want to delve into the Peace 4 Tarpon website. Tarpon Springs, Florida, was the first community to develop a trauma-informed approach across all segments of the community. The schools, churches, businesses, justice system, health care system, policing – the whole community is engaged with the common goals of building resilience and empathetic responsiveness.

Trauma-informed communities are now scattered across the country. As you can imagine, it takes a while to get an entire community on board with the goals. The first important step is to have a showing of the film “Resilience.” It is a serious answer to the question, “How can we help our hurting kids?”