Priscilla Ward joins Dr. Sandie Morgan as they explore how true healing happens not through fixing or rescuing, but by learning to sit in discomfort, lead with curiosity, and create consistent communities where survivors can feel safe enough to begin their journey at their own pace.
Priscilla Ward
Priscilla Ward, LCSW, is the Founder and Clinical Director of Compass Rose Psychotherapy in Fullerton, California. With over 18 years in the helping profession and 15 years of clinical experience, she has dedicated her career to supporting youth, young adults, and families through trauma, anxiety, substance use, and grief. A graduate of the University of Southern California with a Master’s in Social Work, Priscilla brings extensive experience from nonprofit agencies, community mental health clinics, correctional facilities, and school-based programs. She has led mental health teams for the Orange County Department of Education, developing trauma-responsive programs and training professionals in high-stress environments. Her bilingual Spanish fluency and cultural responsiveness make her a trusted ally across diverse communities. Beyond direct practice, Priscilla serves as a consultant and trainer, equipping educators, faith leaders, law enforcement personnel, and mental health professionals with trauma-informed, harm reduction, and motivational interviewing frameworks.
Key Points
- People heal in community and relationship, not in isolation, and this healing process is rarely linear—it’s complex and messy, especially for those who have experienced trauma.
- The shift from “what’s wrong with this person” to “what happened to this person” is foundational to trauma-informed care and creates space for dignity and compassion over judgment.
- Harm reduction is a philosophy grounded in meeting people where they are, honoring their dignity even when they aren’t ready to stop certain behaviors, and recognizing that small steps matter because keeping people alive and safe creates opportunities for future healing.
- Faith communities can love people well by learning to sit in discomfort and resist the urge to fix or rescue, instead focusing on building belonging without requiring behavioral compliance as a prerequisite.
- Understanding the stages of change (pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, and sometimes relapse) helps helpers meet survivors appropriately at each stage rather than imposing expectations they’re not ready for.
- Secondary trauma and burnout are real costs of caring, and taking care of our own wellness is critically important because we need to be healthy people in the room to truly serve others without reinforcing harm.
- Trust is the bridge for change, and consistency creates safety that literally rewires the brain—centering connection over correction leads to systemic change in how we support survivors.
- Listening to voices of lived experience is essential; helpers should ask “what do you need” rather than assuming they know what survivors need.
Resources
Transcript
[00:00:00] Priscilla Ward: what harm reduction looks like in my community might be very different than yours, but the spirit of harm reduction can be applied anywhere and everywhere.
[00:00:11] Delaney: You know that uncomfortable space where things aren’t neat or solved, what if that’s where the real healing starts? Today’s conversation leans into that gray area. The space where our instinct to fix meets the deeper need to simply be present.
[00:00:25] When we let go of control and step into curiosity, we make room for safety, dignity, and real connection. That kind of community can change everything. Hi, I’m Delaney Mininger. I’m a student here at Vanguard University and I help produce this show. Today, Sandy talks with Priscilla Ward, a licensed clinical social worker who trains faith leaders and community teams in trauma-informed care and harm reduction.
[00:00:51] And now here’s their conversation.
[00:00:53]
[00:00:59] Sandie Morgan: Priscilla Ward, I am so excited to have you here at the ending Human Trafficking Podcast. Welcome.
[00:01:08] Priscilla Ward: Thank you. I am very excited to be here.
[00:01:11] Sandie Morgan: Well, you and I have served together on the Faith-Based Action Committee for our Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force for a very long time, and we’ve been having this conversation offline and decided it was time to bring it to the podcast. So let’s dive in.
[00:01:34] Priscilla, you’ve spent nearly two decades helping individuals and families navigate trauma, anxiety, and loss. What have you learned about people and what they need most in their healing journey?
[00:01:50] Priscilla Ward: Great, great and loaded question. I think probably the top thing that I have really taken away from all of the work that I’ve done is that people heal in community. We heal in relationship. Connection is a critical part of the process of the journey, but connection and relationship have a lot of complex elements that are required to really happen. And sometimes it doesn’t look linear. In fact, most of the time it’s not linear at all. It’s very complex. It’s very complicated, especially when we are truly serving those that have been through and are actively going through really challenging, traumatic, tragic things.
[00:02:46] Sandie Morgan: So when you talk about healing happens in community, particularly in the faith-based community, we want to welcome in survivors of any kind of abuse. But we’re talking especially about human trafficking today and sometimes our faith communities have a lot of rules really that make the belonging piece a little challenging.
[00:03:21] We have the belief piece in place. We all trust God, but the behavior to follow what the community sees as very standard and what is acceptable behavior. And so that kind of a community context for someone who is just starting to engage in a healing journey can be a very challenging circumstance for the survivor, the victim, and for those of us who have really good intentions.
[00:04:11] So how can trauma informed practices move beyond therapy rooms and begin shaping our systems, our faith communities? Our schools, our correctional settings, those are the places that survivors encounter every day.
[00:04:31] Priscilla Ward: Yeah, absolutely. And I think you’re right. There’s so many structures and expectations that exist in so many environments, including faith-based communities. And the huge shift that really needs to happen internally is understanding that our goal of fixing or rescuing is part of what needs to change.
[00:04:58] When we are in service of others, we are not necessarily need to be focused on chasing an outcome. It’s about being in service of somebody who’s hurting in whatever way, and learning to sit in our own discomfort, learning to sit in the messiness, learning to sit in the gray. So much of a prerequisite of belonging for Jesus was not compliance, was not behavior change, and it’s learning to lead with that even when we are uncomfortable. The reality is that oftentimes we approach things with this lens of what’s wrong with this person. When we see a behavior, an action, something that we deem is wrong or bad, what is wrong with them, and making the shift to internally ask ourselves what happened?
[00:05:54] What happened to this person? What happened in their life? What happened in their childhood? That this is the way that we are seeing them. This is the way that they are showing up and finding that deep compassion, even when it is messy, even when it’s uncomfortable. And we can apply these principles to every setting, whether it’s corrections or social services or a church learning to lead with that heart of what happened to this person and where can I find that opportunity to connect?
[00:06:27] Where can I really center dignity and compassion and meet them where they are. That’s the beginning of building belonging for folks.
[00:06:39] Sandie Morgan: So when you talked about us approaching this as we’re gonna fix it, and so when you talked about approaching with what’s wrong with this person, I finished that sentence in my head with and how can I fix it? I’m a firstborn daughter. My job is to fix stuff for the people around me and my siblings.
[00:07:11] And that fix it mentality is not going to be helpful. It reminds me of a podcast I did with Stephen Kin from Project Kinship. Yes. And they have a motto on the wall that says, we don’t save people. We serve people, and I think that’s the beginning of developing this attitude of what happened and how can I serve on your healing journey? Okay, so let’s talk about that trauma-informed faith and introduce a topic that sometimes a little uncomfortable in faith communities, whether we’re talking Christian or Muslim, where we have strong context for behavior expectations.
[00:08:16] So you frequently train faith-based organizations on trauma and harm reduction, and so how do you approach those conversations?
[00:08:31] Priscilla Ward: I think it’s really important for us to connect and where we overlap. So what do we all agree on? We all agree that it’s important to serve people, to take care of people. We wanna do good. We wanna love people. And I add the element of these conversations, the trauma-informed care conversation, the harm reduction conversation is us taking that one step further.
[00:09:00] I don’t believe it’s enough to love people. I believe we have to learn to love people well and learning to love people well requires us to step out of our box and learn things that are sometimes uncomfortable. But if me learning about trauma informed care, if me learning how to embody that, if me learning about harm reduction is going to help me love you well, then we’re living out our purpose.
[00:09:28] Sandie Morgan: Okay, so let’s get down to basics. What is the definition of harm reduction?
[00:09:38] Priscilla Ward: Harm reduction. So like you mentioned, this can be a sticky topic and sometimes there’s some pictures that immediately come to mind. But before I start talking about even any examples, I think it’s so important that we are really grounded in the fact that harm reduction is far more than a list of strategies.
[00:10:02] It is, it’s truly a philosophy that’s grounded in a set of principles that at its heart is about meeting people where they are. It’s about honoring their dignity, even when they aren’t ready or able to stop certain behaviors, and it takes a pause to really acknowledge that abstinence isn’t always realistic or accessible, and small steps, any small steps, they count, they matter. Our goal with harm reduction is literally just what it says, harm reduction. It is to reduce harm because if we can reduce harm, whether it is a critical injury, a critical illness death, that means that we have an opportunity to help people move along in their journey. If they’re not here
[00:10:56] we can’t help them. And that’s the goal of harm reduction. It’s also a starting point. It’s not the end all be all. There’s a lot of other elements that need to exist for folks to be whole on their journey of healing. But harm reduction is an incredible starting point because it does allow us to center that dignity.
[00:11:24] That compassion, autonomy, which is so important when working with survivors, and really focusing on reducing the risks rather than eliminating them entirely. And that’s part of that shift rescuing or from saving and really learning that this can look different in every context, what harm reduction looks like in my community might be very different than yours, but the spirit of harm reduction can be applied. Anywhere and everywhere. So thinking about examples, I think sometimes we have these big scary examples that come to mind, like syringe exchange programs or safe use sites.
[00:12:10] Sure, those are some examples of harm reduction, but there’s so much more. So I like to remind people, if you brushed your teeth this morning, that’s harm reduction. If you wear a seatbelt, that’s harm reduction. So those are examples that are not all the way in, you know, that far end of the spectrum.
[00:12:29] And that’s important to remember. There is a spectrum. We all fit in a different part of the spectrum.
[00:12:36] Sandie Morgan: And I think back to my personal experience and my life in another country. When I was in Athens, Greece, I worked with various nonprofits that reached out to victims of human trafficking. And in my basket when we went out to engage mostly girls on the street who are victims of human trafficking and have all the elements of human trafficking, force fraud and coercion almost always.
[00:13:21] And so in my basket, I’ve got cookies. I have a thermos of hot water to make tea or coffee, and I have condoms.
[00:13:32] Priscilla Ward: Mm-hmm.
[00:13:33] Sandie Morgan: And when some of my friends went out with me, they’re like, you’re giving out condoms. And it’s like, well, you know, I care about these girls. I see some of the same girls week after week. I just want them to be safe, and if that’s what I have to do, that’s what I’m going to do.
[00:13:57] Priscilla Ward: Yes. Yeah. And that is spot on. It’s bringing in this non-judgment. Truly, you don’t have to agree with what is happening behaviorally to be compassionate and supportive and offer practical help, practical support that’s going to reduce the likelihood of maybe these young girls acquiring some deadly disease or illness.
[00:14:29] Lots of different things and so again, we are reducing harm. We’re not co-signing on behavior. We are not saying, I agree with this. Yes, go and continue. We’re saying, Hey, this is happening. So how can I help you be safer if this is your reality? Because I want you here. I want you here tomorrow and the next day and the day after, because the longer you’re here, the longer we have an opportunity to build that relationship, to build that belonging, that’s gonna help us move into that healing journey.
[00:15:03] Sandie Morgan: One of the things I’ve observed is that harm reduction and stages of change actually intersect. Can you speak to that stages of change model as we are looking from our faith lens to expectations and where the survivors or victims may actually be.
[00:15:30] Priscilla Ward: Yes. Okay, so I’m just gonna hit the stages of change so we’re all starting on the same
[00:15:36] Sandie Morgan: Okay. Yeah.
[00:15:38] Priscilla Ward: So first is pre-contemplation. When we look at pre-contemplation, that’s somebody that’s like, I don’t have a problem. There’s, I don’t need to change this behavior. This is my reality. Some people might call that denial. It’s not even on the radar that this is something that needs to change. Contemplation is like, okay, maybe. Maybe there’s an issue here. I know that I’m ready to do about it. Maybe this isn’t the best for me. Maybe there’s another option, but I’m not ready to do anything. Then comes preparation.
[00:16:09] Preparation is when somebody says, okay, this is something that I want to change in my life. I want to change it. I need to change it. What do I need to start learning? What do I need to start connecting to? What resources do I need to start putting into place so that I am ready for my next stage, which is action.
[00:16:29] And action is really doing the work. It’s taking all of the resources, the connections, the relationships, the services, the support, and starting to actively work towards change. After preparation, we’re not done. Then comes maintenance. Let’s say you were successful. You got to where you wanted to go.
[00:16:53] Now we have to help you maintain because that’s oftentimes the most difficult thing. When things get challenging, it’s easy to do well when things are moving just like we want them. But when things get difficult, it’s a lot easier for us to fall back into old patterns or to start seeking the reassurance that is familiar to us or to tap into sometimes survival strategies that are not the most helpful outside of just surviving. So maintenance is super important. And then I say there’s sometimes one more. This doesn’t always happen. It often does. And that’s relapse. A relapse of the behavior because maintenance is so difficult. And then when there’s relapse.
[00:17:37] We’ve gotta go through this process again. It can go a little bit more quickly, but it depends on the person. You know, I tell people like a relapse can be a bump in the road or it could be a mountain when that is gonna help us determine what we do. So when we overlay harm reduction with this, and we think about the folks that we are interfacing with, you’re going to be interfacing with survivors at all stages of this process, if somebody is in pre-contemplation and we are saying, you have to do this, this, and this, and this, this is required in order for me to be here with you, in order for me to care about you, in order for me to encourage you, in order for me to serve you. And they’re like, I don’t even know if this is a problem in my life.
[00:18:23] That’s not gonna work. But if we bring in that harm reduction lens and we say like, Hey, I see that there’s a lot going on. Let me just share some resources and some information with you, and when you’re ready, you let me know. And you know, it looks like you’re hungry. It looks like maybe you could use some supplies that could keep you safe.
[00:18:45] Let’s talk about that. How do we help you access that? Do you know where to access that? So it’s important that we meet them there and that gives us an opportunity to start getting to know somebody so that the key when somebody is in pre-contemplation is getting to know them enough to where then we can compare and contrast where there’s discrepancies in their own beliefs. So if somebody is, let’s say they’re in active drug use, right? And they’re saying, you know, I wanna be a good parent, I wanna have a solid family. If we’ve sat around long enough to connect with them and meet them at that stage, we can say, you know, I’m really confused ’cause I hear you say.
[00:19:30] You really want these things in your life, and at the same time, you’re living this life of active use. How’s that gonna work? And we’re not imposing, we’re not demanding, we are not expecting, we’re leading with curiosity and we’re allowing them to say, you know what, that is a little bit mismatched.
[00:19:51] That’s how we get them into contemplation and then, you know, continue to progress from there. But again, that harm reduction lens, when we’re not coming in to fix, we’re coming in to help you stay safe long enough so that we can build this connection and have these types of moments and conversations.
[00:20:10] That’s what’s gonna get us there.
[00:20:13] Sandie Morgan: Well, and your description of that parallels my experience as a nurse over the years, many times working with newly diagnosed diabetics, and the whole idea that we have to eliminate a lot of sugar from your diet that takes off the plate M&Ms and cake and pie. And so there’s a great sense of deprivation and my patients have gone through all of those stages of change and relapse is really common. And think about your own life. You’ve got friends I know who are diabetics, and then you serve the most amazing chocolate mousse cake and they can’t have any, and so then they relapse and their sugar goes high and it’s bad for their health, and our community hasn’t supported what they need to change.
[00:21:28] So we sometimes substitute with harm reduction strategies. We have a gluten-free, sugar-free substitute cake. That’s a harm reduction model. And it’s such a good example if I’m willing to do that at the church potluck. Then I think theologically, it demonstrates compassion, and so curiosity and compassion.
[00:22:03] Compassion takes what we know and puts it into action.
[00:22:09] Priscilla Ward: Yes.
[00:22:10] Sandie Morgan: So this idea of building compassionate systems where we’re all competent in leading with curiosity instead of fix it. That takes a lot of energy. It takes self-reflection and it’s exhausting. Sometimes, actually a lot of the times I’ve been doing it for a few decades.
[00:22:37] So in your work as a social worker, training educators, leading on your church staff, working with other clinicians, have you had to address secondary trauma or maybe even burnout?
[00:22:56] Priscilla Ward: Absolutely. I think this is a critical topic that we could do a whole other podcast on. And I think for a long time it was overlooked. There is a cost to caring. There is a toll that it takes for us to love people well, and I think it’s really important that we understand that taking care of our own wellness, of our own wellbeing of our being healthy, right? If I am, if I’m going to show up to be of service and try to help somebody along their journey, I need to be a healthy person in the room. I don’t need to be perfect, but I need to be healthy. And understanding that taking care of ourselves is a critically important part of the process because when we don’t, we will devolve into these patterns of behavior that will sometimes reinforce the harm that others have already experienced. And again, it’s good intentions, but when we’re so tired, when we are so exhausted, when we’re so burnt out that it’s like I don’t have, I have time to be curious. I don’t have time to ask. Not one more question.
[00:24:18] Just do the thing. Here are the three things you need to do.
[00:24:21] Sandie Morgan: Okay. Okay. Now you’re getting too close for comfort here, because when I’m tired, I just wanna fix it.
[00:24:29] Priscilla Ward: Yes, yes.
[00:24:31] Sandie Morgan: Yeah. Okay. Let’s look at the future at the kind of systemic and cultural changes that we wanna see in how our teams create environments where both the helpers and the survivors can thrive.
[00:24:51] Priscilla Ward: Hmm. Yes. I think if we go back to trust being the bridge for change,
[00:25:02] Sandie Morgan: Mm.
[00:25:03] Priscilla Ward: will help us to really focus on consistency. That will create safety for us, for survivors, and that will really allow growth to happen. If we are consistent, every small act will help to literally rewire the brain of the survivors and of all of the other people that we’re serving.
[00:25:30] Now, this is tapping a little bit into understanding of trauma-informed care, but there’s also science that backs up that we heal in community, that we heal in relationship. Because our brain is responsive to what’s happening. And if all my life I have had people really exert power over me, really reinforce compliance and this is what you have to do and when you do it and how you do it, and you report to me and we come in and we say like, Hey, I care about you.
[00:26:02] And I wanna know you. I wanna understand you. I want you to be safe. I care about your safety, whatever that means. The brain is like, wait, what? What is this? And neuroplasticity starts to kick in. But the more people have these experiences, the more likely we are to create these safe and whole environments.
[00:26:23] This is what leads to that systemic change because we start really centering connection, not the correction of behavior and it’s so important that we do that. With all of that, we also really start leaning in on the reality of people’s lives and leaning in with a listening ear to say, you tell me what you need.
[00:26:47] Instead of me showing up and telling you what you need, let me listen and you tell me what you need. The voice of lived experience is so important in this. We can have lots of ideas. And that’s okay. We can have lots of great intentions. That’s okay. But if we’re not listening to the voices that are living these lives that are enduring these challenges, we’re not gonna get very far.
[00:27:15] Sandie Morgan: I love leading with curiosity, engaging with compassion, and I wanna continue this conversation. Priscilla, how can people reach you?
[00:27:29] Priscilla Ward: So a couple ways. One, it would probably be easiest to head to my practice website, which is compassrosepsychotherapy.com. There’s a little form there where folks can shoot me a message if they would like. I love these conversations. I think it’s really important and folks leading with curiosity into this is also how we mobilize change.
[00:27:55] Sandie Morgan: Well, I am so looking forward to future conversations and I will make sure we have a link in the show notes. Thank you so much, Priscilla.
[00:28:07] Priscilla Ward: Thank you, Dr. Morgan.
[00:28:09] Delaney: A huge thank you to Priscilla Ward for joining us today. One of her most important points was how communities don’t have to be perfect to be safe. They just have to be consistent. When we shift from trying to fix people to creating trust, connection, and room for their own pace of change, we actively support their healing.
[00:28:28] And her explanation of how harm reduction fits with the stages of change gives us a clearer lens for what support can really look like.
[00:28:35] Listeners, if you loved this conversation, make sure you check out our website@endinghumantrafficking.org for tons of in-depth show notes and other resources. And if you’d like to help us grow this podcast, you can start by sharing this episode with someone and connecting with us on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn.
[00:28:53] As always, thank you for listening.
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