While no single report can accurately capture the totality of what an entire year holds, what you will find in this report is a beautiful attempt, one that builds upon our past 15 years of work and harnesses our dreams for a public memory archive that can help to imagine and create accountability and healing in the aftermath of violence.
Over the course of 2020, Texas After Violence Project grew, and evolved, to meet the needs of our community. At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, we recognized that the prison industrial complex would fail to protect the people living under its control, and that the violence of its neglect and indifference would lead to incalculable suffering and death.
In 2019, we released a new report, Nobody To Talk To: Barriers to Mental Health Treatment for Family Members of Individuals Sentenced to Death or Executed. The report summarizes the attention that death row families’ traumatic experience has received over the years in scholarly and other contexts, and presents the findings from TAVP’s recent series of interviews with family members of individuals sentenced to death or executed in Texas.
For the Texas After Violence Project team, 2021 started at home. We have become comfortable with working together via Slack, conducting interviews via Zoom, connecting with our narrators and storytellers in a new way, with encounters mediated through screens but often just as powerful as our in-person experiences. As summer came, as more and more people received life-saving vaccinations, we began occasionally meeting up at coffee shops and conducting in-person interviews again, while still offering the option of virtual interviews.
This fact sheet offers guidance for supporting children who have family members on death row or who have been executed after serving a death sentence. The tool provides information on what children may be experiencing and how you can help them.
We collaborated with WITNESS to bring you this zine about interviewing with care in the aftermath of state violence. This guide is for activists, advocates, journalists, filmmakers, and anyone conducting interviews on camera for advocacy, media, historical or artistic purposes with individuals who have been directly impacted by state-sanctioned violence.
Ongoing and informed consent is a process that takes place before, during, and after an interview. Follow these steps to make sure you are adequately communicating about consent with the person you are hoping to interview.
In 2016, the United Nations for Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner published the book Death Penalty and the Victims. Both our Access to Treatment Director, Susannah Sheffer, and Founder and Board Member, Walter C. Long, were featured in this incredible publication. Find their articles in Chapter 3, “The ‘Hidden’ Third Parties as Victims.”
Being interviewed can raise a lot of questions, concerns, or unknown feelings. TAVP worked with And Also Too to create a resource for folks to read through prior to their storytelling experience. Narrators can understand the why and how of sharing your story, as well as what to expect before, during, and after their interview. Feel free to use and share this resource.
If you are interested in accessing these trainings, please write to us at info@texasafterviolence.org
Documenting Narratives of Violence: Why It’s Important and Mitigating Risks
The objectives for this program are to teach you trauma-informed life history interviewing skills. The methods discussed here integrate modern trauma research, as well as traditional oral history methods and the practice of trauma oral history.
Documenting Narratives of Violence: Trauma-Informed Interviewing
This program is designed for activists, advocates, organizers, researchers, and others interested in responsibly and ethically documenting personal stories related to violence and trauma.
Breaking the Cycle of a Trauma-Organized Justice System: What Role do Attorneys Play?
This training aims to provide a foundational understanding of what it means for our legal system to be trauma-organized so that we, as legal actors, can begin to be more aware of how the system’s structure is affecting our clients, our communities, and ourselves.
Trauma-Informed Life History Interviewing: Practical Skills for Attorneys
The objectives of this program are to teach you trauma-informed interviewing skills that will help you build trust and open communication with your clients, as well as help you obtain detailed and useful information about your clients’ lives, backgrounds, and other information relevant to your work.
Working in Clinical Settings With Family Members of Persons Sentenced to Death or Executed
This program introduces mental health professionals to a clinical population that has received little to no direct recognition up to now: family members of individuals who have been sentenced to death or executed.
© 2023 | Texas After Violence Project
