CSTR Activities

The Center for the Study of Trauma and Radicalization (CSTR) is dedicated to:  

1. analyzing and exploring the complex relationships between trauma and radicalization;
2. designing, developing, operating, and evaluating particularized programs and interventions specific to counter-radicalization efforts; 
3. disseminating knowledge regarding these complex interrelationships to the general public, practitioners, policymakers, and others.

The CSTR is organized under the umbrella of Parallel Networks, Inc.—a not-for-profit dedicated to combating hate, hyperpolarization, and extremism. CSTR’s relationship to Parallel Networks permits a leveraging of Parallel Networks’ access to survivors of extremism, individuals, family members and friends of those susceptible to, or currently radicalized, as well as those that have disengaged after once belonging to radical/extremist movements. Access to those is facilitated by Parallel Networks’ Light Upon Light ecosystemic approach to preventing and countering violent extremism in the United States. The Light Upon Light ecosystem, housed online at lightuponlight.online, aims to 'create space free of hate' and that consists of the following intersectional initiatives:

• Ctrl+Alt+Del-Hate – A campaign and platform for messaging and protocol for individual and collective change – Ctrl – is to control the space between stimulus and response – Alt – is to take an alternative path to addressing grievances that approaches problems at a higher level of consciousness than creates them & Del-Hate is to recognize that in an age of intersecting extremisms we all have a role to play in combating polarization, hate and extremism. 
• SHIFT-Hate Helpline and Intervention Initiative  - Support and Help for Individuals and Families Touched by Hate – a 24/7 helpline and aggressive intervention services set to assist those impacted by extremist ideologies. Interventionists are comprised of Light Upon Light’s cadre of former extremists and victims of extremism, all members of the SAVE-Hate network.
• SAVE-Hate – Society Against Violent Extremism and Hate – a network of those working to combat extremism dedicated to expanding awareness of the ecosystem and intervention services and collaborating on expanding a countrywide network of supporters.  They include former extremists, survivors of extremism and activists, journalists and artists concentrating on hate-based movements.  Individuals involved in the network are called Shape Shifters. 
• Esc-Hate – A series of programs and creative projects dedicated to engagement and critical cognition and consciousness raising projects. Thus far, they include a bi-weekly podcast, protocol for counter-protesting with commitment to non-violence and campus and school campaigning and curriculum development.  

Apart from the intimate connection to Parallel Networks, CSTR partners with governmental and non-governmental organizations, particularly in the realm of peacebuilding, that are witnessing, increasingly identifying and incorporating the role trauma can play in radicalizing both recruits and entire communities in contexts of both peace and conflict. In its efforts to develop a peacebuilding approach to preventing and countering violent extremism, Parallel Networks will leverage the awareness, knowledge and framework for application generated by the work of CSTR to provide better support services in the domestic American ambit. The overall objective is to develop a trauma and countering violent extremism-informed paradigm that can push the relatively nascent field of radicalization studies and practice forward. 

CSTR will establish a physical presence in Washington D.C.  The location will focus on two spheres of activity:

1. A Wellness Center dedicated to providing trauma therapies to those radicalized, at-risk of radicalization, survivors of trauma-induced ailments and/or working in fields related to counter-radicalization or counter-extremism. Additionally, CSTR will host events and conduct workshops related to the objectives of the organization with the public, policymakers and other institutions.  
2. A Research Office dedicated to utilizing the benefits accrued by The Wellness Center, to raising awareness of violence and trauma-informed approaches, advocating for a framework to realize the inclusion of such approaches in peacebuilding and preventing and countering violent extremism programming, and to coordinating research and programs that feed into broader organizational purposes and goals.

Community Services and Holistic Health 

CSTR’s trauma specialists will provide individual and group wellness services to those seeking to disengage from, or at-risk for, radicalization into adverse social movements. Additionally, particularized treatments for populations affected by trauma (such as refugees, asylum seekers, soldiers, violence survivors, etc.) will be provided in-house with the intention of the design, development, and implementation of evidence-based practices and protocols appropriate for replication at the international level.

Other populations served will include support for the clinical providers working in contexts (such as counterterrorism or peacebuilding) that have a high incidence of trauma and radicalization. Services specified to the needs of these practitioners will be comprised of individual and group therapies devoted to mitigating the effects of secondary victimization; wellness workshops; weekend retreats and activities proven to lower the burn-out and secondary victimization rates within these populations. Such activities can then be expanded and offered to practitioners at other appropriate locations throughout the country.

Public Events  

The Wellness Center will host an array of public events and presentations dedicated to disseminating knowledge regarding the complex intersection of trauma and radicalization to the general public, practitioners and policymakers.  Events will display the work of CSTR researchers, trauma therapists, activists, artists, participants, and others.

Monthly Working Group Meetings 

The CSTR; its partners; academic advisors; practitioners and other affiliates will meet bi-weekly to explore opportunities related to:

1. Obtaining funding for research, consultancy, or project/program implementation
2. Developing new activities and communicating updates
3. Identifying collaboration and funding opportunities

Webinars 

CSTR will host bi-monthly webinars where an influential individual or an organizational representative will discuss activity related to the objectives of their organization. 

Research 

The central activity for CSTR will focus on efforts to conduct in-depth empirical research on the intersections between and overlapping etiologies of trauma and radicalization, while attempting to develop an evidence base for practitioners that move beyond traditional interventionist silos. CSTR will place academics with expertise in the fields of conflict studies, radicalization, extremism, and political violence alongside experts and specialists that work in general trauma-informed activities and trauma research. Knowledge will be synthesized and appropriated from each sphere of expertise to develop multi-dimensional intervention approaches, new research questions will be generated, hypotheses will be tested, and, ideally, through this research, funding will be secured  from an array of governmental, private, public and philanthropic institutions.

Trainings

The CSTR office space will also be used for distributing trauma-informed training to those practitioners in NGO’s, government agencies, within the private sector, and others. These trainings will be conducted by CSTR staff in conjunction with its organizational partners. 

Multimedia 

CSTR will maintain a website, video site through YouTube, and a Twitter feed.  Many events, presentations, and treatments will be disseminated through these media channels and information relevant to CSTR’s dedicated objectives will be shared. CSTR activity will also not be relegated to that which only occurs at its physical center.  The Wellness Center and Research Office are to serve as a laboratory of sorts, a controlled environment and home base through which activity that unfolds as the organization is developed and best practices are defined, can be enhanced, implemented elsewhere, and replicated. As CSTR evolves, community-based services distributed across multiple locations and cities will increase.

Publishing and Programming

As the researchers affiliated with CSTR generate new research and salient intervention modalities, new dissemination channels will emerge; papers will be published; researchers will share best practices and progressive findings with the media, at conferences, with the general public, and with professionals and agencies operating around the world. Research conducted in-house will be complemented by application to the domestic space, implemented, where applicable, by the practitioners working within Parallel Networks’ Light Upon Light ecosystem, particularly in the realm of deradicalization-oriented intervention and peer-to-peer support mechanisms.  This will help CSTR determine the replicability of their research in new cultural venues with new contextual variables. In this way CSTR will advance its own modules, protocols, and best practices to develop interventions particularized to varied cultural contexts. CSTR partners can utilize such tested and specified interventions in their programming, and CSTR staff will be able to consult with nonprofit agencies and NGO’s conducting counter-radicalization programming that will undoubtedly benefit from these new trauma-informed treatments. 

Cumulative CSTR activity will create a reciprocal cycle with feedback loops that will allow both Wellness Center and Research Office to advance a trauma and countering violence extremism-informed paradigm for preventing and countering violent extremism and related international peacebuilding efforts.