By Dianne Anderson

Not a lot of kids these days are into reading and writing, it’s more like scrolling and gaming.

But Brandon Allen hopes to change that mindset based on what he’s seeing out in the community, and as importantly, what he’s seen within himself.

Post-traumatic stress is a household phrase lately, not just relegated to the therapist’s office or medical textbooks. It’s become a reality of everyday life.

He understands how that stress, especially for youth dealing with a hard-knocks life, plays out and can shut people down.

It was part of his personal growth journey. He had to relearn the basics.

“What I had to realize is that I became laced into my personality to where I had to do the work to like retroactively feel again. So for a long time, there was a period of time where I was like numb,” said Allen, founder of the nonprofit Youth Writers Camp Inc.

As a youth, he held a lot of negative emotions inside, he didn’t know how to express himself, and didn’t  understand how his actions affected other people. Now that he knows, he wants to show others how they can learn by tapping their inner muse.

Developing self-awareness and self-control became the foundation of how he works with young people today.

Each year, he said about 300 students participate through school partnerships, including Moreno Valley Unified School District and schools in Fontana, giving them a creative way to grow emotionally, as well as academically.

Allen, originally from Memphis with a Arts-Based Research (ABR) framework, also teaches students how to publish and sell their own work, and how to connect imagination with economic empowerment.

So far, a lot of it’s been out of pocket. Through his partnership with Inlandia, the summer program has been great for the kids, and he hopes to eventually find a permanent home for Youth Writers Camp, where students can have a safe place to snack and create

“Most of these young people never imagined they could be an author, and then they are one,” he said. “Once you have done the thing you never believed was possible for you, you carry proof.”

Turning his own personal trauma into something that helps someone else has always been the goal. He feels that young people must be protected from reaching the kind of very dangerous low he experienced, which can end up in any number of destructive ways.

For him, it was a teaching moment.

“So essentially, whatever broke you becomes a burden that carries you and that you end up carrying for other people. And I think that when you can turn your brokenness into a burden, that’s when you start making an impact. It doesn’t become the thing that defeated you,” he said.

Growing up, there was no place to share his truth. Many young people he works with these days are missing what he needed at the time, but could not find.

He said there is no room to be honest about their brokenness without it being held against them.

Over time, he has done his own inner work, studied psychology and accessed therapy, focused on recognizing his emotions, and how to express them in healthier ways.

“What I’m realizing and noticing is that a lot of these students don’t have language for the reality of their emotions,” he said.

After a devastating betrayal in his youth, he wanted young people to realize they carry important stories, and that their stories matter. Today, the problem is that many are working without the tools and encouragement they need.

But, he said, being a bridge also holds a deeper inspiration for the healing that has allowed him to become a resource for others.

“That’s really the life that I got to experience through my love, my shift and transformation with Christ,” he said. “The thing that broke you can ultimately help you become the bridge.”

In middle school, he said he made it through some dark, hopeless spaces, even at that young age. Writing, putting feelings on paper, became a big part of the healing.

“Writing saved my life, and I say that plainly,” Allen said. “The pieces were dark, but a teacher of mine read that work and, instead of being alarmed by it, he encouraged me to keep writing.”

Through his mentoring program, he said students develop communication skills, and empowered through writing to understand themselves and each other. By building and shaping their words, he said that creative expression helps them make sense of their world.

“And a catapult,” Allen said. “It pulls out the things they did not know were inside them.”

That early experience, holding so much in, has taught him how to help youth today.

“So when I sit across from a young person now, I am not there to correct their writing. I am there to be the adult who reads what they wrote, and stays in the room with them,” he said.

For more information or to support the cause,

For Youth Writers Camp, see youthwriterscamp.com

On Brandon Allen, see https://www.iambrandonallen.com/

or email, ballen@youthwriterscamp.com