“How do I forgive?” This is a common question posed by survivors of trauma. Mental health therapist Shani Tran responds with a question of her own: “Are you ready to forgive?”

While there is a myriad of material available to therapists who work with trauma victims, what is lacking is a specific tool to assess and gauge a client’s preparedness to forgive and start the step-by-step journey of addressing/overcoming trauma. This is an essential first step in the process of forgiving. You can’t forgive if you aren’t ready. Being ready involves more than saying so; it involves the ability to let go of the previous narrative you have around your trauma. When you experience a trauma you lose something which means that grieving is also a part of the journey.

This grant will enable Tran, the owner and founder of The Shani Project, and one of the three mental health influencers featured on TWCF’s second Forgiveness Forum, to develop a Forgiveness Preparedness Tool for her clients and the clients of other therapists. A scale will be tested with 100 therapists and individuals in therapy to determine the efficacy of the tool for determining readiness to forgive. Tran then aims to develop a plan to disseminate the tested scale amongst mental health therapists. This assessment tool will give therapists and clinicians concrete data to assess their client’s readiness for the forgiveness journey. The target audience is people between the ages of 18-30 years who have experienced some form of trauma, have been diagnosed with PTSD, and are actively seeking or currently enrolled in therapy.