SEE ALSO: Concept Note Overview
Introduction
The Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice (CTIPP) coordinates and advances the trauma-informed movement through education, activism, and advocacy. Founded in 2015, CTIPP’s mission is to create a healthy, just, resilient, and trauma-informed society where all individuals, families, and communities have the social, political, cultural, economic, and spiritual opportunities and support necessary to thrive.
CTIPP operates three flagship initiatives that exist independently but complement each other: PressOn, CTIPP Community Advocacy Network (CTIPP CAN), and Ideas Lab. Here, we are pleased to provide an overview of our PressOn initiative, through which we promote and bring together cross-sector, trauma-informed coalitions under a national umbrella for the invaluable purposes of mobilization (including activism and advocacy), networking and connection, and resource-sharing, as we build a movement to prevent and heal from trauma.
Community Need and Overview of Initiative
A majority of our nation's population suffers from trauma. Prolonged exposure can create negative impacts throughout a lifespan which, if not addressed, can ripple across families, communities, and systems. The effects of trauma run rampant on an individual and societal level, impacting every system and placing a burden on our nation’s under-resourced services. The cost of trauma in the United States is estimated at a minimum of $14 trillion per year in lost productivity and associated healthcare costs, and at least 650,000 lives annually.
The good news is that trauma-informed coalitions have proven so effective that when supported and sustained properly they can reduce a wide array of social problems and cost burdens on public systems. These coalitions are rapidly growing in number. On the statewide level, more and more coalitions—Whole Health Louisiana, HEAL PA, Maryland Trauma-Informed Care Commission, Resilient GA, Resilient TN, Hawaii’s Office of Wellness and Resilience, New Jersey’s Office of Resilience, Trauma-Informed Oregon, Trauma Matters Delaware, Iowa ACEs 360, and so many others—are working to promote trauma-informed policies and practices.
This growth of awareness and action is also happening on the community level, with many more community coalitions throughout the country. The trauma-informed movement is uniquely positioned for rapid expansion in the near future.
What these coalitions currently lack is a central coordinating entity where trauma-informed practitioners, advocates, and coalition members can share emerging and promising practices for advancing the movement via education, activism, and advocacy. The time is right for CTIPP to put in place a collective impact infrastructure for the movement’s continued growth, which is precisely what we aim to do through the PressOn initiative.
PressOn was created by CTIPP’s late co-founder, Dan Press, who dedicated his life to reducing harm and ensuring all individuals, families, and communities have opportunities and supports to reach their full potential. CTIPP is committed to honoring the work Dan did on this earth, and to continuing the efforts he recognized as vital.
PressOn: The National Coalition of Trauma-Informed Coalitions
CTIPP aims to address the mounting need for coordination and alignment across coalitions and systems at large by serving as the focal point for connection, resource-sharing, learning, and collaboration within the movement.
Through PressOn, CTIPP provides a dedicated platform and regular opportunities for individuals and organizations to connect, share best practices, and learn about emergent developments and opportunities within the trauma-informed movement. Recent efforts and successes include:
Aligning our work on the state and local levels with potential and new support and funding opportunities to ensure the sustainability of, and opportunities to scale, the incredible, transformative work our growing network across the country is doing. We recently advanced our ongoing goal of garnering bipartisan, bicameral support in Congress for the RISE from Trauma Act (RISE) and the Community Mental Wellness and Resilience Act (CMWRA). RISE would create a new HHS program to fund community-based coalitions. CMWRA would authorize funds to help communities develop local strategies to plan for and respond to psycho-social-emotional challenges caused by disasters and toxic stressors.
Mobilizing our PressOn coalition partners to learn from each other about best practices in the implementation of trauma-informed work, potential new funding opportunities, and overall trends in trauma-informed policies and legislation, via our CTIPP CAN series of teleconferences. A recent example of members growing from each other’s work came in our teleconference on “Advocacy and Messaging,” where members had the opportunity to learn from Iowa ACEs 360, who provided information about their recent successful messaging campaigns, as well as the Building the Movement Workshop Series.
Promoting free and accessible resources that support communities in activating, advocating, and educating around trauma-informed approaches, practices, environments, and systems. Examples of this include CTIPP’s Trauma-Informed Schools Report, Workplaces Toolkit, and Guides to Community Change and Meetings and Conversations, among other resources, like our trauma-informed advocacy series. Each of these free resources has also been utilized for shared learning and discussion on CTIPP CAN calls.
As the number of states and communities participating in trauma-informed coalitions increases rapidly across sectors, CTIPP and PressOn partners will provide critical coordination that assists the growth of new movement members and helps communities already engaged in trauma-informed work scale and sustain long-term.
Growing the PressOn Initiative
With the trauma-informed movement on the precipice of explosive growth, CTIPP needs capacity to meet growing demand for cross-sector coordination. To scale and sustain our work, we need philanthropic partners who can increase our capacity exponentially, as we have reached the limit of what we can achieve with current resources.
Through PressOn, CTIPP aspires to be the hub for a national movement and to evolve into an intermediary organization. One that does government affairs work and continues to provide technical assistance for the trauma-informed movement while also funding the work of community coalitions across the country. In the long-term, we would like to see PressOn become the hub for a global movement as we achieve our national goals.
To fully realize the vision of PressOn and CTIPP, we are seeking to raise at least $2 million in 2024. This would create sustainability for multiple full-time staff members to support our national work, including a full-time, paid Executive Director and a HR/Finance Officer.
As we raise more funding, we also envision making grants directly to coalitions in our network to provide direct support. Building our capacity will put CTIPP in position to address a full range of work—community relations, advocacy supports and government affairs, research, communications, grant development, and beyond—enabling us to build and bolster this critical movement at all levels.
Join the Movement
We are eager to grow our organizational and institutional partnerships so we can powerfully and collectively work towards a healthy and just future in which all individuals can truly thrive. Your support of CTIPP, whether for general operating needs or our PressOn initiative, will allow us to amplify a burgeoning movement; a movement poised to make transformative, collective, and sustainable change across the country at local, regional, state, and federal levels.
For more information about CTIPP or ways in which we can partner together, please reach out at jesse@ctipp.org.