Subsequent legs in her journey:

• Three years with in Kenya, where she did STAR work with Doreen Ruto, a from 91����Ƶ (91����Ƶ).
• Four years with the for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, where she studied under and then apprenticed with John Paul Lederach, founding director of .
• Beginning a PhD in expressive arts and conflict transformation from the .

It began here

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Mansfield was on the 18th floor of an office building in lower Manhattan when she noticed scraps of paper floating by her window. She and her colleagues evacuated the building and began walking rapidly northward to get away. She heard and then saw the collapse of the twin towers. Dozens of people from her home suburb of Garden City died in the attack.

“For over a year I couldn’t plan more than five days out,” Mansfield recalls. “A Somali friend later told me, ‘Now you know how we feel every day.’” Ultimately she quit her job at Goldman Sachs, traveled for a year, and found her way to teachers and mentors working in peace education and conflict transformation.

One of these teachers was , who co-facilitated Mansfield’s STAR cohort in 2010. Now they are working as a team, together with program associate and trainer . Zook Barge’s focus is on curriculum development and training; Mansfield’s is on administering the program, developing the STAR network (“learning community”), and producing communications.

STAR’s birth

In late 2001, STAR was born as a partnership between CJP-91����Ƶ and to provide resources for responding to trauma in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

“What began as a program to provide tools to pastors working with traumatized congregations in New York City and Washington,” says CJP executive director , “has blossomed into a valuable resource for peacebuilders from East Africa to the Middle East to Central America.”

STAR has trained over 5,000 people from 62 countries on five continents. The program has been a springboard for: , which deals with the wounds of racism; , addressing veterans’ re-entry; and , emerging from post-Hurricane Katrina work with teenagers.

“STAR is proof that even out of the most dreadful violence it is possible to grow life-giving and peace-supporting responses,” says , CJP’s program director.

Becoming the director

Mansfield was named director of STAR in early 2015, a position she will hold while continuing to pursue her doctoral studies focused on dance-based and movement-based healing, restorative justice and transforming the wounds of trauma. She succeeded Zook Barge, who had led the program as both its top administrator and chief instructor for eight years, until her requests for splitting the duties bore fruit.

Mansfield’s first job after earning a bachelor’s degree from Harvard in 1996 was at Goldman Sachs. She started as an analyst, then became an associate and finally a vice president in the investment management division. She spent four years in New York City and four years in London.

In STAR trainings, participants create a drawing called the “river of life.” Reflecting on the flow of her river, Mansfield says the powerlessness she experienced immediately after 9/11 set her on the path – and helped prepare her – for her new role with STAR.

The kids here, they’ve all lost something. “I have an 8-year-old referred to me for depression, anxiety, not sleeping and not eating,” says Nanette Katz, a psychotherapist in New Orleans.

This boy’s home, she explained, was swept away like everything else in the 9th Ward.

What’s more, she says, “his story is typical.”

That was a year and a half ago, when hurricanes first drowned their city.

Slowly, New Orleans is recovering, rebuilding, rebounding – but people need restoration, too, Katz says.

That’s where a group from 91����Ƶ hopes to make a difference.

Vesna Hart

Vesna Hart spearheads a program created to help youth heal from the trauma in their lives, whatever its source may be.

It’s called Youth STAR because the program branched off 91����Ƶ’s , a trauma program for adults.

The program’s latest training has focused on the needs of New Orleans. STAR has partnered with local organizations, hosted a youth retreat – and perhaps most importantly – trained others to spread its comprehensive approach to trauma healing, Hart said.

For that, Katz says she’s grateful. She consults with one of those partner organizations. That’s how she knows the needs of these kids. She’s seen the depths of their struggles.

That same boy, she said, also lost his dogs in the storm.

“They drowned. This is what haunts him,” Katz said. He can’t sleep alone; he can’t have lights out.”

Things are no better outside his home. The third-grader is failing math, like 10 others in Katz’s caseload.

The reason? “Math requires a high level of attention that so many of these kids cannot practice,” she said. “I walked into a classroom last week, and there were 8-year-olds sleeping on their desks, sucking their thumbs. ‘Please help them!’ the teacher asked me.”

“I can’t,” Katz replied. She can only see the ones who qualify for Medicaid.

A ‘Healing’ Spirit

There’s hope for these kids, Hart says.

“Trauma happens in all of our lives,” Hart said. “You can’t avoid it. But we can all do something to help.”

Community involvement is a core tenet of the program. “We believe everyone has a role in supporting youth who were traumatized,” Hart said.

At the most recent training, the curriculum was taught to a group of 18, mostly teachers, religious leaders and community workers, said Susan Beck, the marketing manager at 91����Ƶ’s , where STAR began.

The group met twice, once in February and again in March.

For school counselors like Patrick Tubbins, the curriculum revealed hands-on tools suited for the situations he faces working in a New Orleans “recovery school.”

“I always look for tools to help children,” Tubbins said. Those tools include role-playing, artistic expression and conversation. They’re everyday things, but they help, he said.

Katz agreed.

“Listening, just listening to these kids helps,” she said. “The experience of empathy helps the children heal. Their biggest help is their own resilience. It’s amazing how the human spirit can heal.”

Stopping The Cycle

Recovery is happening “very slowly,” Katz said.

Tubbins has seen it at his school, where he counsels 15 youth a day. Bit by bit, he’s seen a few kids open up.

“You could really see the trauma she experienced,” Tubbins said of a teen who lived in the Superdome for a few days.

Too often, though, he says the kids stay silent. “Even though you may not be hearing the stories, we’re in crisis,” he said. “Trauma can be passed from generation to generation. We want to stop the cycle.”

Often, parents don’t know how to help their kids because they’re learning to deal with their own trauma, Katz said.

“Families are very busy rebuilding their homes, dealing with new jobs and new neighborhoods and they don’t have time or emotional resources to deal with their depressed or anxious children,” said Katz, who, like many of her clients, still lives in temporary housing.

“The storm changed everything,” she said. “We are trying to not give up.”