Preparing for an Unpredictable Future: A Community Engagement Project

The COVID-19 Pandemic has upended lives across the world for the past two years, and it is hard for anyone to say if or when life will return to what we may have called “normal.” Communities must learn how to support and protect one another in rapidly changing circumstances, while holding space for the collective trauma and grief of this pandemic. In this thesis, there is a review of literature regarding trauma, collective healing within communities and families, and COVID’s impact on Jewish communities, with a particular focus on drama therapy. This is followed by a description of a workshop run within a grassroots Jewish community formed during the pandemic. This workshop used the guidelines of “action explorations” (Blatner, 2006; Blatner & Blatner, 2018) to support the participants to gain greater insight into their community through the “Hero’s Journey” (Minerson, 2017). The workshop allowed participants to explore the creation of their community, where they are in this moment, and where they want to go together, in the unpredictable future. Results suggested that the embodied, community-centered, and flexible approach facilitated deeper connection for participants of their own visions and needs for their future as well as that of the community. Future research should engage with the question of how we, as therapists and community leaders, support our clients and communities to survive, grow, and heal within collective trauma and uncertain futures