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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFWfVaeCALg

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

• Compass Rose Psychotherapy

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?

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