Hope is indeed possible
The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls holds as its primary focus the holistic education, care and support of female students at the Academy. In the years since we opened our doors and hearts to our first class of girls, we have faced the complexities of anxiety, depression, suicidality and coping with past trauma as we’ve walked with them through their daily lives and metamorphosis into inspirational young women.
Many of our girls come from disadvantaged backgrounds and communities where social ills and abuse are prevalent. Within our student population of approximately 310 girls, (about 1 in 40 have had one or more)(each student, on average, has lived through to five to eight) Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES). South Africa has a well-know history of human rights transgressions from the Apartheid era which has resulted in a trans-generational legacy of abuse predominantly due to unprocessed trauma.
Trauma left unprocessed in any individual will hamper their opportunity for high quality of life and it changes the trajectory of a person and their generations. Hence the Neuro-sequential Model has been adopted for teaching, learning, care-giving approach and as a way of life at OWLAG.
The Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMT) is a developmentally based approach to treating trauma based on neurobiological wounding.
It is informed by neurobiology and the understanding of how remarkable the human brain is, and its mediation of all our thoughts, feelings and behaviour. All aspects of humanity involves the brain and its functions, how we form and maintain relationships, learning or unlearning and relearning takes places through this organ (Perry, 2017).
Any traumatic exposure affects the development of the brain especially in early childhood, where 90% of brain development takes place before the age of four. Traumatic experiences may influence an individual’s day-to-day functioning, coping and learning as well as their self-perception and relationships with others.
In the best interests of our students, and given the high number of ACEs per student, The leadership of OWLAG took the decision to implement the NMT as a global approach and foundational methodology throughout the Academy. The primary goal being to build resilience in our students and to assist in healing past trauma while cultivating a spirit of community in line with Academy’s ideology of Ubuntu. It is our hope that our young woman, when they graduate and leave us, will perpetuate these values and teachings into the communities they interact with.
The Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMT) is a developmentally based approach to treating trauma based on neurobiological wounding.
It is informed by neurobiology and the understanding of how remarkable the human brain is, and its mediation of all our thoughts, feelings and behaviour. All aspects of humanity involves the brain and its functions, how we form and maintain relationships, learning or unlearning and relearning takes places through this organ (Perry, 2017).
Any traumatic exposure affects the development of the brain especially in early childhood, where 90% of brain development takes place before the age of four. Traumatic experiences may influence an individual’s day-to-day functioning, coping and learning as well as their self-perception and relationships with others.
In the best interests of our students, and given the high number of ACEs per student, The leadership of OWLAG took the decision to implement the NMT as a global approach and foundational methodology throughout the Academy. The primary goal being to build resilience in our students and to assist in healing past trauma while cultivating a spirit of community in line with Academy’s ideology of Ubuntu. It is our hope that our young woman, when they graduate and leave us, will perpetuate these values and teachings into the communities they interact with.
