Overcoming Trauma: A Journey of Resilience
Welcome back to another episode of the Drug Prevention Power Hour, where we empower leaders in youth drug prevention. Today we are hanging out with a new friend. His name is Dr. Jose Silva, and we got connected from one of our friends, Lisa, over at Parents to Parents. So Dr. Jose, thanks for doing on the show today.
Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to have this conversation and share some of the exciting work that we’re doing. Yeah, absolutely. Well, just to start us out, can you tell us a little bit about you?
Yeah, no, thank you so much for that question and welcome to all the audience members and listeners. Yeah, I’m a Denver native, an individual who I often say was born out of trauma and utilize that trauma to be able to be an impactful individual in the community. I much like individuals in our community. My father was murdered when my mother was pregnant with my twin sister and I. I felt my mother’s girlfriend dead of a drug overdose when I was four years old. And then I survived a murder when I was 14 and my 12 year old friend was murdered standing next to me when I was in eighth grade.
So the first 14 years of my life was marred by trauma. And I’ve just then decided what could I do with all of this? And for the last 32 years, I’ve just taken all of those pieces that happened in the most important pieces that happened in my life in the beginning to really just impact the world. And so I’ve given my life to the community, either in education and the nonprofit sector and politics, our leading efforts around the country to support young people through drug prevention, justice-engaged work. I’ve raised about $60 million in education. I have a family foundation.
But most importantly, I believe in standing in the gap for the greater good. And that’s the work that I do. And so I use my degrees and my privilege to be able to institute social change.
Wow, that is absolutely incredible that you work that you’re doing. And man, I just have to ask it. I’m sure there’s a big answer, but how do you overcome trauma like that as a teenager? Like that is a lot to go through all before you’re even an adult. How do you bounce back from that, man?
You know that, thank you for asking that. That’s a great question. It’s what I do now. It’s called mentorship, right? I had a lot of individuals that in the community that saw something in me that knew that, hey, I was a voice that spoke up. I was always fighting social issues even at like 12, 13, 14 years old.
But it was people that surrounded me in the community and really just came around me and said, we want to help you be something and make it. And so I had great mentors to save our youth and other organizations. But the city and the community gave me leadership opportunities as a 14 year old to create the Safe City Youth Summit, to be a vocal voice in working entrepreneurship or in other nonprofits and made me a leader and said, you know, there’s things that you can do differently versus then, you know, what is in front of you. And even though I had joined a gang to be able to survive. I was a break dancer and I was homeless all through high school, but I had educators and people that loved me. And so even my senior year, my counselor, Mr. Manus and my social worker, Grisota Padilla, ensured that I was able to graduate.
I took 100 credits, I emancipated myself from my mom and graduated with my class on time with a 1-8-6 GPA. But it was those individuals and adults that saw something in me, that poured love into me, that poured time into me, poured commitment into me to be able to make it where I’m at today. And so I stand on the shoulders of so many leaders in this city and so many friends that wanted more from me and their belief in that allowed me to believe in myself.
Dang, praise God for those people being around you at that time, because that is truly a legacy that they’re left that now is just kind of blossomed in your life with all that you’re doing. You remind me, honestly, what’s really cool is you remind me of the students we get to meet today. Like last week we were at CADCA. Are you familiar with the coalitions in CADCA?
The Power of Mentorship and Community Support
Yeah, I was at CADCA last year in Washington, DC, and to hear the young people, especially the youth group of CADCA, and them just speaking and presenting and just their energy, that’s the community. That’s my community.
Yeah, that’s so cool. No, I hear your passion and stuff. Like when I speak to them, is there’s just generationally with the right caring, supportive adults around you to build you up. like these young people want to change the world just like you are. Yeah, it’s so cool that you were speaking. I was the youth plenary speaker, Tomas, our co-founder and myself did that at mid-year.
And we probably passed you in the halls at Forum last year then. You must have. Yeah, I was there. We were talking about, I was the author of the Justice Engaged Student Bill of Rights, which is the first of its kind legislation in the country that ensures that if a student gets in trouble, that they can still have a way to graduate high school. And maybe it’s not that same school or an alternative school, but it ensures that they have, you know, their constitutional right to finish. And so we were doing a lot of work there, speaking about that, meeting with individuals. So I’m sure we passed each other. I even was sitting in some of the same sessions.
That is awesome. Well, so you mentioned that that bill or that that legislation, is that a big part of what you do today is working with with lawmakers?
It is, it is. I’m known as like Mr. Accountability in the state. So I work with a lot. you know, my motto is you don’t pay my mortgage so I can hold you accountable. I’m going to go to you. I’m going to ask what the community needs. And it’s really hard for, you know, these legislators and individuals to tell me no, that I’ve either got them elected or I can get them unelected. So, you know, if we show up with an issue, they’re there. But no, I have some amazing friends that’s State Senate president is a dear friend. I’m a mentor of his. He championed our legislation. Representative Jennifer Bacon, who’s also in my district, I helped lead run her very first campaigns and a huge supporter of, was also our co-author. And so I spent a lot of time. don’t like the word, the word’s not lobbying.
The word is really like and informing and educating individuals about what is happening on the ground in the community. And most people had no idea that, you know, I think we see it from afar, kids get in trouble, they get kicked out of school, a kid gets in a fight and they get suspended for five days or 10 days and then they’re on the track or they get arrested and we just assume that like, okay, kid got arrested and now he’s gonna come back into the community. There really isn’t a pathway back in. And so this legislation really created that first of its kind pathway for students to reintegrate back into society. But it’s not even just like, the education piece, it’s also the mental health component. We’ve written legislation to support consultation and FFN family members that are supporting zero to five-year-olds because it’s really important that we think about what is the sociological pieces, right? My research is in epigenetic trauma. And for our listeners, epigenetic trauma is trauma that is ingrained in our DNA just naturally. if you have a lineage of slavery, of apartheid, of genocide, of alcoholism, domestic violence, of chemical imbalances and mental health issues, those markers then end up in the markers of our children and our children’s children.
And so you have two pieces here. One is biological and one is societal that then creates this epigenetic piece. And so a lot of my work centers on how do we support educators in understanding the dynamics of students they’re educating so they don’t see a student has a problem or a disciplinary problem, but maybe that student was witnessing domestic violence all weekend and so taking a test on Monday isn’t like the thing that they want to do. They just feel safe. And so they’re talking back like, I’m not going to take this test, not because they don’t want to take the test. They just maybe didn’t eat all weekend. They didn’t sleep all weekend. And so it’s really helping educators understand the dynamics, the sociological piece of this, but then also the biological piece of it. And so that has been the work that I’ve been trying to educate around the state and around the country over the last few years around this is, if we look at it this way, then it changes and flips our mindset of how we address and even look at the behaviors of those in our own community, in our own family.
Wow, that’s fascinating. I never heard of that term and thinking about it though, very, would be a very powerful factor in whatever it might be, right? Graduation, risk factors, things like that. When you look at our students being set up for success, I would actually love to ask you some tips if you don’t mind, because a lot of our listeners are the ones who are going to advocate at the Capitol and they’re wanting to get involved with legislation because just like, know, hi, well, how do I protect the young people in my town? What does it take to be successful in, that realm of advocacy and holding legislators accountable and things like that? Do have any tips for us?
Legislative Advocacy: Creating Pathways for Change
Yeah, I do. One thing is this is be prepared, right? Understand the issue, understand the cause and personalize it. think oftentimes we anticipate that like just because someone’s elected to the office, they know something. Let me say this. Most of the times the people that are elected to office, they’re elected to office to be a voice for us. And we oftentimes think it’s different. Like, they’re the voice that speaks for us, but they know what they know what they need to do. They oftentimes don’t. And so I say be organized.
Understand your issue and don’t be afraid to speak up for the things that you need. I as a young person I Utilize my voice in ways that I think you know that sometimes piss people off I was okay with that, you know, we used to we used to cruise in Denver and when you’re The police came out and riot get on a single-day mile on a cultural event and like attack the cruisers. And at this point in time, I was the safety of the chairman. So I’m working with the city. But even then I had to get up out of my chair and walk around to the other side and say, stand with the community and call out that like, no, the chief was out of town. The mayor was out of town. meant that the public safety manager was in charge. Take some responsibility. Right. And even at that point, being able to stand up and say, no, I know the truth and holding the powers that be.
It can be scary, but I tell you, people listen to young people. So if they’re organized, they know the issue and they’re willing to stand up, I think that’s the biggest piece. I always, I use a quote that I wrote part of it when I was 16, thinking I wasn’t going to live till I was 17. And then the second part of it I wrote when I was about 25 and I was like, okay, life, you know, I made it that way out of there. So, you know, and I always tell this to young people, like everything in life is temporary, except for death. Challenge all ideas, never stand down always lead and be more tomorrow than you were today.
And if they use that marker, right, around like around their decisions, around the choices, and especially when you’re having conversations with the powers that be, you’re going to be strong in a foundation to be able to lead, direct, and create effective change. I think the biggest piece is that young people feel like, I’m just a kid. You’re not just a kid, right? Like if there’s seven kids together and they’re fighting, then they have a belief.
You’re not a kid, you’re a community, right? And you’re a community with power. And so it’s how do we enlist them to understand that they have power in their voice, but it’s about organization and knowing the issue.
That’s so good. And your quote gave me chills too. Are stories important when you’re doing this type of advocacy too? I know numbers and preparation is important because that’s like the backing of saying it’s not me. But in my training, stories are everything because they’re sticky. But is that actually as important when you’re reaching legislators and advocating for those type of things.
I would say it’s probably more important, right? Because you get to personalize who it is. You get to put a name, a face, a community, a situation to the cause. I’m a data guy. I’m a nerd. Data runs everything, lot of everything that I do in terms of why we do. So data is one point, but stories is also data, right? The historical significance of why this is important is also data. And if it’s a story that’s connected to that, much like my story, that is data. Most kids where I come from. And it’s interesting, we hosted a networking event last night, mentoring all these young leaders, entrepreneurs, and they’re hosting this networking event. It felt amazing to be, know, I’m 46 and they’re like 25. And it’s amazing to see them using their stories of pain, heartache to become entrepreneurs, to become leaders, to become business leaders.
And I think it’s important for us to share the story because the story then makes it real, right? For me, ⁓ it makes it real that like, if know, Jose can do it, then a lot of us could do it. There was a young man I was talking to, Keith Kiminal. He’s not young. He’s two years older than me. We went to high school together, but his wife worked with one of the companies that happened to be there last night, saw me in the room. And you know, I’m in Broomfield, probably 25 miles away from my community. And he comes up to me and I’m like, Keith, my God, how are you? And we’re talking to other individuals. And he was talking to one young man and he’s all, no matter what Jose was going through, I knew he was going to be somebody that made it. Right. And it was partly because he stood up, had voice, but he’s like, and I was like, I was just humbled by this last night. You know, like, you know, everything I went through, were on the ROTC together and he’s like, no, there was, knew like, we knew that like, you can, you were gonna make it.
If you can, if anybody was going to do it for us and come out of the West side, you were going to be that one. And, and I think that’s the, and now 28 years later that I’ve been out of high school, you know, to hear that, to know that like people were paying attention then and are even paying more attention now. So young people have a chance, have a, not just a chance, but an opportunity, a responsibility to stand up so that when they leave, when they leave school or leave their youth, youth lives, people can reflect on them later on and say, I remember when and look what you’re doing now.
Understanding Epigenetic Trauma and Its Impact
Wow. So what is your, what does your work right now? How, like, yeah, what format are you in? Are you running your foundation? Are you doing consulting or like, how do you get into these issues that you’re helping with so much?
Yeah, no, that’s a great question. So I’m doing a lot of work. I’m a board member with Parents to Parents. so consulting and supporting the work of really uplifting and lifting up our community-based approach and our filmmaking opportunities to really integrate communities around faith, coalition, and then also opportunity for change. So we’re doing a lot of work around that, lifting up communities through filmmaking, through conversation. I host the largest school supply drive in the state of Colorado. We give out about four to 5,000 backpacks a year. This will be our 18th year. So we’re planning on that in August and we gave out our 50,000th backpack last year. And so a lot of the work is done in the community there.
But then I just really supporting schools and school districts and community organizations around the country around mental health support, really training their leaders to look at what mental health is differently, to have those conversations around the sociological components of those pieces and power and privilege. And so a lot of that is done through personal consulting, through my foundation, and also in partnership with organizations like Parents to Parents and the amazing work that we’re doing there.
Okay, cool. And for those of you who haven’t heard of Parents to Parents, they make educational content for, I guess, for parents, but also through different organizations like hospitals or public health and coalitions. You can access these videos and use them, which I’m just kind of new to learning about them, but was really, really inspired.
Yeah, you know, it’s exciting. I’ve been with Parents to Parents now, I want to say three, four years on their board. I was a former board president and have shifted now into a different position and really leading our coalition work as a board member. And yeah, just you hit it right on the head, right? We are creating educational content. Let me me let me let me make it a little broader. We are creating content that is educational, thought provoking, or even institutes creates institutional change in a non-controversial or non-partisan way. We are enlisting and laying out the facts and then showing the stories. One of them is Blue Baby. And I think about eight young men at Boys Town that we followed in their stories to really bring life to what is happening and then how great organizations like them are doing and supporting some of this work.
We’ve done suicide prevention films, one of the films that I’m in that really describes and talks about like, the need to have these conversations and why voice matters and what that looks like. We’ve hosted one on gun violence, on American tragedy ⁓ during the 25th anniversary of the Columbine shooting and really bringing life to Sue Klebold and love is not enough in that kind of context around that. There’s stories on anorexia and we’re working on one now on the apartheid.
And so it is just been just a powerful organization to really just invoke educational opportunity and change societal change through filmmaking, which oftentimes you, you I don’t know when the last time I went and saw a movie at a movie theater, but I always, you know, anytime our movies are out, I’m there, but I really haven’t got myself to watch any other movies out of theater.
That’s incredible. And I love what you said too. It’s like, it’s not a certain party, it’s bipartisan. It’s one of those things that’s missing today with, we live in like a vacuum of our algorithms feeding us the same voice that we want. And it’s so important to have those just, hey, here’s the story, here’s the information. We’re not going to sway you. It’s really, really important today threat.
The Role of Parents and Caregivers in Child Development
It really is, you know, and think because we’re so inundated with whatever, you know, we’re so inundated with propaganda from everyone, right, from everyone. If it’s what kind of cereal to buy to what kind of shoes you want to what politics, all these pieces, right. And I think for so many families, they just want like, I’m just trying to make it today. I’m just trying to survive tonight. And what we are trying to do and parents to parents to our filmmaking is give them hope that they’re not alone, that others have gone through this, but there’s resources.
And I think one of the biggest pieces that we’re looking to do is support and partner with hospitals and organizations to create small films, 10 minute films that parents, new parents, individuals that are sitting in a dentist’s office can watch and then it’s playing, giving them supports and opportunities. Because collectively, parenting is a hard job. I don’t have children. I have 18 God children. I had three step children, but I don’t have children of my own, but all these kids are my children.
And I see the dynamics of how hard it is just to be a parent, a caregiver, a tia, a tio, abuelito in today’s world. And so as much as we feel like we should be isolated and do it on our own, raising children is a community job and not an individual job.
Yes, it is. Yes, it is. And we’re the same. It’s like our team, we love our team’s kids. If y’all are following Vibe18, you know there’s a lot of new babies running around with the team and we support whatever we can. We get to be the fun auntie and uncle. yeah, we care so much and I think that’s what fuels the work. It sounds like for you too, there’s such a need.
Get out of out there and if we have the capacity and ability to change and using our voice, that’s the best thing we can do right now. So I want to leave people, Dr. Jose, with a way to like take advantage of the great work that you’re doing. So if there’s any links or ways that we can connect with you that you’d want to be connected with other coalition leaders or schools, feel free to share those as well.
Yeah, definitely. really for us, you as you’re thinking about parents to parents and the support that you’re doing, look us up. Parents to Parents of Colorado, the Civil Family Foundation is my organization that is leading this work. But if you really want to learn a little more about the Justice Engaged Student Bill of Rights, it’s JESCO, J-E-S-C-O, House Bill 24-1216.
Google that in Colorado or to come up and you’ll be able to see that kind of platform of how we made it happen, the work that was done there to move that forward. But I think the biggest piece as we are moving forward and thinking about how individuals could be connected to us, please get in touch with us at Parents to Parents. The work that we’re doing in terms of the filmmaking, in terms of the work is we want to hear other people’s stories. And maybe somebody has a story that we haven’t heard about that we haven’t worked on that we could really lead. And so we like to make that happen. And I can also provide to you all of the different links so that can go up as well rather than name them all out. Yes.
Yeah, that sounds great. We can put those in the show notes. Dr. Jose Silva, this has been a pleasure speaking with you. just, yeah, I feel the passion. Like we’re not on video right now, so all the passion is just coming through your voice and I just really appreciate the work that you’re doing.
Thank you so much. And we appreciate the opportunity to have this platform, the opportunity to share what we’re doing. And as I stated earlier, we all have a responsibility, not just to ourselves, but to our neighbors. And has faith-fearing individuals and God-fearing individuals, or wherever you stand on that spectrum. It is about who we should be to one another. And that then is a reflection of who we are to ourselves. If we are not good to others, then we can never be good to ourselves. And so remember that.
That’s so good. Listen, this has been an incredible new episode of the Drug Prevention Power Hour. If you are listening, please keep up the amazing work. If you’re coming on the Prevention Cruise, we can’t wait to see you. If not, there are a couple spots left. So go to preventioncruise.com. And of course, if you need anything, just reach out. Reach out to parentstoparents.org. Check out Jose Silva’s Foundation. All those good things. And if you need help getting young people involved in prevention, sparking those new clubs, you can go to vitalityteam.com and we will see you all next Monday for another episode of the Drug Prevention Power Hour.
