Unhealed trauma, the school to prison pipeline, and how community steps in when systems fail: A reflection on the film Wendell & Wild

by Sydney Conroy

“One scream and my parents were gone. Figured I’d just hate myself for the rest of my life” opens Kat, the main character as we know her at 13 in Wendell & Wild (2022). The fatal car crash of both of her parents when she was eight years old becomes the basis of the story she created about herself that she carries into the present. We see this impact in small moments, like when she tells her current classmate, “I don’t do friends Raúl. Bad things happen to people I’m close to”. I recognised this experience immediately as a child therapist, as echoed from children I saw in play therapy, who believed an action of theirs alone caused their parents to divorce or children who believe themselves to be intrinsically bad following a mistake. I thought maybe, with that opening scene, I’d write another analysis about trauma depictions in film (Conroy, 2022), but as I continued watching, Selick and Peele, the two screenwriters, brought to life an even more pressing picture to engage with; the connection between unhealed trauma in youth, the systems this brings them into contact with, and who steps in to support them.

The film immediately introduces us to two systems that Kat has interacted with since the death of her parents: the foster system and the juvenile punishment system (term modified from abolitionist Mariame Kaba’s language of criminal punishment system rather than the criminal justice system (Kaba, 2021). Five years following the traumatic event, Kat is having panic attacks and self-proclaims herself as a consistent troublemaker. Depicted in this film, and a common reality off screen, we witness both systems fail to support Kat in her healing. The foster care system and the juvenile punishment system did not support her in developing an ability to check in with her emotions and sensations in her body as evidenced by a panic attack she did not recognise having. They also do not provide her with a consistent and trustworthy support system to get the rest of her needs met in a healthy way so we witness her do what has become familiar to her to receive connection: get in trouble.

The failings of these two systems, which should be supporting her, brings her to yet another system: an alternative school. Specifically, a religious school with a Break the Cycle programme, reminiscent of many programmes we see across the globe for hurting children with unhealed trauma. Here we see Kat being reduced to a file in the eyes of the school; labelled as damaged by the adults in power around her. At this school the viewer is explicitly introduced to the school-to-prison pipeline; the legal punishment that comes into youths' lives when they are not given the support and healing opportunities they need in order to progress in their lives. A company running privatised prisons near the school in the film explicitly states, “That’s our business model. Bus them into your school, then we make it impossible for them to succeed there. And when they fail, our new prison will be waiting with open arms”. Insidious, yet when no one is supporting meaningful trauma healing, this is the reality.

It could be possible for some to write off where these systems fail and prison is waiting to punish, to say, “well if only Kat had a therapist”. To that I say, therapy should not and cannot be the only resource for youth to rely on to have a space in which to process grief, to heal trauma. A therapy session typically happens for one hour once a week, leaving 167 other hours each week where children and youth are inside systems that are reducing them, ignoring them, and problematising them as shown in Wendell & Wild (2022). When non-judgmental space, safe and trusting relationships with an adult, and emotional awareness skills are siloed into therapy or mental health spaces only, it limits and fails our youth. As therapists, waiting for youth to be referred to us once they have been deemed inconvenient for the adults in their lives, we can only react – we are not involved in prevention, lest we forget the documented harm our own mental health industrial complex has across psychiatric hospitals, pathologising diagnoses, rehabs, and our connection to punishment enforcement with police/military/court systems (Burstow, 2003).

The conclusion of Selick and Peele’s film centres on an important truth: when systems fail, communities step in. It is mentors and friends that supported Kat, not school systems or the mental health care system or juvenile punishment centres. In a time of collective distress like the Covid-19 pandemic, when mental health providers are overwhelmed and healthcare is privatising or at capacity all over the globe, it is time to consider the ways in which we as therapists can show up outside of the therapy hour and therapy room. We publish within the ivory tower, we train each other in workshops, attend expensive specialised conferences, many of us missing engaging with teachers and activists and coaches and parents in our own communities. When children are unable to get themselves into therapy services, we are relying on schools and parents and legal action to connect with youth. Wendell & Wild (2022) is an important reminder that our jobs are political and interact with systems that are failing youth across the globe. Trauma healing, grief processing, meaning making, and modelling safe relationships can and must exist in community spaces and community relationships, outside of therapy rooms. It is time for therapists to be a more intentional, proactive, and part of systemic, holistic, and sustainable change.

Sydney Conroy is a PhD Candidate at the University of Cambridge at the Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development, and Learning (PEDAL). She previously received her Masters in Psychology at Seattle University. Sydney has also worked as a therapist with children, young people, and families in both a community agency setting and private group practice.

References

​​Burstow, B. (2003). Toward a radical understanding of trauma and trauma work. Violence against Women, 9(11), 1293-1317.

Conroy, S. (2022). Narrative matters: Encanto and intergenerational trauma. Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 27(3): 309-311. https://doi.org/10.1111/camh.12563

Kaba, M. (2021). We do this ‘til we free us. Haymarket Books.

Selick, H. (Director). (2022). Wendell & Wild [Film]. Netflix.

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