What are Microaggressions? Microaggressions are everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights or insults—whether intentional or not—that communicate hostile or negative messages to individuals based on their membership in a marginalized group. They often stem from unconscious bias and can be hard to recognize by those who don’t experience them directly.

Consider that children and families involved in Child Welfare may be from groups that may be vulnerable to both implicit and explicit biases-discrimination, stereotyping, poverty, exposure to violence, and social marginalization-which may lead to circumstances that put them at risk for more trauma, more severe symptomatology, and/or longer duration of symptoms.

Types of Microaggressions:

• Micro-assaults are direct, explicit discriminatory acts (e.g., racial slurs) meant to hurt the intended victim through name-calling, avoidant behavior or purposeful discriminatory actions. For example, saying “You people…”
• Micro-insults are subtle comments or actions that demean identity or background. For example, a person might tell an Asian American that they “speak good English,” implying that Asian Americans do not speak good English.
• Micro-invalidations are behaviors that exclude or negate the feelings or experiences of marginalized individuals. For example, when a person tells a person of color that racism does not exist, that person is invalidating and denying the person of color’s racial reality.

Microaggressions and Trauma in Child Welfare:

• Children of color, LGBTQIA+ youth, and other marginalized groups often experience racial trauma and minority stress due to microaggressions.
• These experiences can mirror symptoms of PTSD, including chronic stress, hypervigilance, and avoidance.
• Microaggressions can lead to placement difficulties, greater rates of being diagnosed with emotional and behavioral disorders, poor educational attainment, greater risk of involvement in the juvenile justice system, and homelessness.

How to Respond to Microaggressions:

• Witness: Rather than ask what will be gained by intervening, ask what I will lose by not acting? Integrity, alignment of your values with your behaviors, the trust of those targeted by the microaggression, passive collusion with oppression, and peace of mind.
• Perpetrator: Listen to the person’s concerns. Your statement or action was real, and so is the emotional reaction of the other person. Do your best to hear and understand that reaction. Don’t dismiss or make light of it. Show that you have heard the other person. Apologize. Do this once you are clear about what you’ve done that has caused offense.
• Target: Your first responsibility is to yourself. It is critical to notice and affirm what you are feeling and take time to re-center. Consider possibilities for action. Once you have identified your goals, you can evaluate possible strategies for moving forward. Reclaim your voice -Targets of oppression do not owe a response to anyone.

RESOURCES: Culturally Responsive Trauma-Informed Care: Addressing Racial Trauma in Black Children, Youth, and Families – CWLA; Exploring microaggressions among LGBTQIA+ youth in the child welfare system – ScienceDirect; National Child Welfare Workforce Institute