As the urgency to address trauma and adversity grows, many frameworks for change models have emerged to build community-level recovery, resilience, healing, and post-traumatic growth. But how do you choose the most suitable method for change?
Our July 2023 CTIPP CAN call highlighted community change models to help you better integrate community-led and healing-centered principles and concepts into your efforts. Far from prescriptive, the strategies can be tailored to your community's unique challenges and opportunities to cultivate long-term capacity and sustainability.
ROUGH TRANSCRIPT
00:00:08 Speaker 1: You do, as everybody so delighted to be here with you today and today, as you see on the slide, we're going to be talking about an exploration of community led woman, informed prevention, oriented resilience, building and healing, centered considerations for community transformation and just to share a little bit upfront some high level considerations when doing the work of supporting and strengthening communities and in doing so also integrating frame, including those changes that capture all of those frame marks that you see on the slide and again, just to give some context upfront today we want to share that soon you'll be able to act as a bit of a lengthier, long post we're sharing and this is a resource that we've created based on taking a look pretty expansive look, if I do say so ourselves. It was a pretty pretty deep look at the literature on what helps and what harms or hinders when working to build capacity and generate sustainable change in communities that have been impacted by drama. So in terms of what you can expect during our time together, today will be going through again just with high level considerations that you can dig more deeply into when the full report is up on our site, in terms of what status quo looked like, how that doesn't attend to the unique needs of our communities and what integrating Fama informed lands really intil and looks like. We're also going to speak briefly to some legislation under consideration that, aline with the vision that we propose before taking the common foundation that we all come from in this initial part, where we're sharing upfront and then applying it to an individual contact and sharing out in the larger group just what you're noticing, what you're thinking about, what you're wondering about what successes you want to lift up. So really lots to cover. And again, that's starting with the fact that many existing frameworks for community can really do, overlook the complexities of supporting Trama impacted communities and really any communities with complex and diverse needs it, and in some ways these approaches tend to really miss the mark, is that they lack comprehensive resources from recovery, which ultimately hinders people from taking on leadership roles within their communities to fear had changed. And that means that those leading the change may really come from the outside, so to speak, which impacts sustainability, because there isn't that focus on connecting and propensity building for sustained resiliency, not intentionally incorporating a drama. Informed Lent also tends to hold a-league with them and resilient on the table. People in the community are untapped and thus those parading the efforts might take action that ultimately doesn't aline with what those most impacted really believe needs to happen to support flourishing in the community. It also means that people are really not always coming from the same knowledge framework right to think about how to avoid replicating harmful patterns or how to avoid retrofitting communities and the people within them, which means a lot of community development. Earth really do end up perpetuating iniquities and semic shortcoming, and so also, really, you know, again, retreating people, even if there are some short-term positive changes or some small win. These efforts tend to fall short of addressing the unmet needs that are really necessary to pay attention to, to prevent future challenge and so again, just staying at this high level to unite us all around, seeing into what the research tells us, really thinking more specifically about some consideration, there's a good sense of what supports successful and sustainable trama inform transformation. That's what you see on this and the next slide. So just the touch on a couple different examples here. So to address some of these on the slide that we didn't speak to, you know many people in communities that could most stand to benefit from integrating atoms, inform plans really live in a place of chronic and ongoing threat. Right. They are all surviving and we all need to ensure our basic needs are met before we can even begin thinking about something that might feel extra right, taking on these additional roles in our lives. We also know that people who've experienced drama, especially when that is left unresolved, may really struggle with becoming activated or dis regulated when engaging with systems that have carved seven pounds or may find it difficult to connect with a realistic sense of hope or engage in the type of future oriented thinking that can be so important to keeping us committed to the cause, and so, without taking on that drama informed lens, it may have to engage those whose voice really most needs to be incorporated and amplified in the work of change, and being able to volunteer is also a time time privilege right. So that's not something everybody can engage in at the same level and a lot of times what we are, opportunities for participation being very much all or nothing and quite prescriptive. You know we need this, this and this and you you will do it, and it may be easier to sort of standardized that engagement and yet really failing to create a variety of different, meaningful role. You know not amsler roles, but cor central, important role and different entry ways into the work can really send the message that unless someone is in a position where they can dedicate endless hours to completing specific tasks that have already been defined, that they really don't bring a lot of value into the work. And I mean outright compound with messages of don't matter or my voice doesn't count. That already tends to be present in communities that have been impacted by. So even if paying volunteers isn't an option, the paying people for their labour is, from our perspective, always preferred. Also understanding that there are sometimes some shortcomings with organizations where it just isn't possible. There certainly are still ways to offer choice and to integrate Voice that we just don't always be being incorporated into that. You know really thinking about what people want to do in terms of participating and where we can mobilize and leverage people's strength, and so to highlight a couple on this side again, the full report will go a little bit more in-depth but just to move on to the next fly, again, anchor up in some thinking about what really gets in the way of transformation. It's also that people who experienced Foma often feel this sense of futility after many, many experiences of being ignored and harmed and left behind by our systems and institutions. So that's really understandable right. And we also know on top of that that sometimes thunders or others come in and really do, overpromise and under deliver, and that those leading the change may end up pushing their own agenda and can even do harm with that. So I mean, of course, there will be skepticism that meaningful change effort can and will occur and that those efforts will truly calm the community's interests at heart. Trust is often assumed in these older or more traditional, say, frameworks for change, rather than thought of as something to be earned, something precious that really requires attentiveness and intention, which ultimately impairs engagement. And while many of us, on this fall, really might wake up thinking about this stuff right, we might think about elements of informed approach. It might be incorporated into our dailiness. That's not universal at this stage right. So the lack of a shared language and understanding about what community drama and collective drama can look like, along with how individual community members, individual lived experiences, can interface with community conditions in contact, is really something that can deter progress. If we don't have awareness of what's happening, it's very hard to stand-in an empowered place and make a choice about how to respond. It's also a reality that the necessary collaboration for really large scale community chains that we're looking toward is sometimes flashed, based on really powerful community organizations or other stakeholders coming in, and so being the people who are in charge of the purse strings right. So funding is scarce. That's a fact. I think we all know that quite well, and it's often a backbone organization may be designated the sort of gatekeeper of funding through either public policies or the administration thereof. Yes, sometimes it's written into legislation. Who will be in charge of those funds when really the funds would be better attended to, is placed directly into the hands of community members, with some sort of consensus based system to come together, coalesce their own common values and think about where that's really needs to be directed. You know, even with the best of intentions, charming, this sort of very centralized structure, rather than a community-based structure, can really result in investments to promote recovery being left with limited funds, though lower on the priority list than it ought to be, or sometimes even forgotten, because people who have been placed in leadership roles may instead really work to in what might seem like great concrete benchmarks that are demonstrable for funders. They continue the funding going instantly, working to attain some sort of conditional way to integrate community voice before thinking about logistics and check boxes. And of course, the silo that can to form through this process can further inflate the people who are at the forefront of the change from the true needs and wants of the community. And so again, these are some broad considerations that we noticed across the literature that brought us to really think about how vital a drama informed approach is here to overcome the barriers and to shift the norms toward resiliency and wellbeing in communities. Emerging and evolving evidence really suggests that targeting change efforts toward considering and being responsive to drama and its localized multilevel impacts in communities is critical, that promoting healthy, prosocial and culturally grounded coping is critical, that honoring community experts and centering voices of lived experience is critical right. It doesn't just bolter capacity, but it also can lead to a sustained resiliency that will help communities withstand future challenges and threats to collective wellbeing that we just can't accomplish unless we're really thinking about the full context in which this happened. And so when we are thinking about this model, we're really thinking about intergenerational, holistic health and wellness as well. And so the last side sort of what I would say in terms of some of the positive changes one could expect when working towards strengthening communities through drama, informed when, and we would propose that the quote unquote how here is, through finding pathways that really health efforts, anchor in and operationalise the sick values of Atrama informed approach which are displayed on this slide and in the report. There is indeed a whole section that dives more deeply into what these values really in Salon might look like in a community chain contact, sort of taking again his high level view, thinking about some of the ways that communities have themselves found many things that work that are allied with this and what then we can take away as important areas to pay attention to when we're building authentic civic participation to really promote that cross sector cross system change in our communities. That's both impactful and sustainable, because it is both community centered and community led. That's what we're going. That's what we want to share with you as well. And again there's a lot more in our report, but just a sort of on the same page. And thinking about this, one of the findings is, you know well, thinking a step back. There's so much complexity and dynamism to this work right and so again, communities really have their own constellations of needs and priority. So there isn't a one size fits all plan that all communities can just universally implements to make the stage change, and we all need that. All communities right. That's not realistic. So it's really important to line the work with priorities that are expressed by the community, while also balancing that with being realistically adaptable to whatever may come up along the way things change, things emerge and evolve. We certainly know that from the last few years, especially, that our priorities can shift really quickly, and it's important to build in some flexibility to these plans. And you know, while it's really also important to coconstruct concrete goals with the community and monitor progress along the way, it's also important to notice the process right, not just the outcomes, and so, especially for communities that have been impacted by Trama, the recovery and growth projectors are going to look different. That is expected and actually beautiful. Right to be able to see the ways that people can integrate these principles into their communities in ways that help them build resiliency and prevent harm in the future, even though it might look different from one community to the next, and so really staying connected to one another in this work and tapping into the wisdom and expert that's already imbedded into the community along the way we found, help us notice those areas to scale and the places where things are working, where we can further mobilize around and strengthen what's happening. Who really support sustainability and that being here? Right? Because a lot of times chains will be catalyzed and people will be led in the dark. In the long run, sustainability is not always the focus, and so being crosses, oriented and flexible really helps with that. So, for example, this might be. You know, how are community members noticing their dailiness, even if we haven't hit that big goal of, let's say, finishing the construction of the factory that shut down and turning it into a community enrichment and connection centre? If that's the only goal we're looking to and if we're only looking to check the outcome based loses, it's really challenging to notice the way that people participating and having a voice and engaging with one another and visioning and planning is really critical to the process and actually pumpy healing in that process in and of itself. And so you know, where can we notice of feedback loops to really tap into in order to mitigate burnout or frustration that we know can arise if we only pay attention to those, quote unquote victories that are bigger, and you know most people in this hall probably are familiar. Burnout is real, you can all day long. This can affect our daily life and also we only have so much capacity, and so the process orientation really helps us keep us anchored in our common values rather than just trying to go from one achievement to the next. Similarly, we've found that it's important to recognize that each community itself is a living system and each community, as the living system, is both nested within larger systems in our world, while also housing smaller micro systems within and all of these victims are constantly interacting with one another. Right. It's by looking through this systems and prevention lens that we can really shift the focus of change efforts from the more popular paradises of personal moral failing, deficiency or potent mental illness that so often permeate and stigmatized in our society, for a more holistic vision. Right, because it's there, through this convention and system glen, that we really notice where the need to support change at all of these different levels, to produce significance, sustainable community and population level transformation is really necessary, and it's so often and either or refined, when it really ought to be both: an, when we think about addressing individual impacts of drama, when we think about working with families and communities and states and systems and institutions, it's both. And and so it's about supporting individual and selective recovery and healing where harm has happened, building brazilian so that future hardships can be withstood without disrupting the positive progress and growth that is happening and ultimately finally shifting our systems and institutions such that we prevent the harm from even occurring in the first place. And so communities have what they need to flourish and thrive, and that includes the members of the community that has those resources as well. That's playing a long game in a lot of ways right. So it's really important to give consideration to multi-generational intervention solutions and support. This isn't about, quote unquote, just looking at supporting the next generation of adults or helping children along a healthier developmental path. That is absolutely a part of it at a noble goal. And also this is about understanding the significance of the contact in which that development happens, which means both throwing safety at home and in the community. It means engendering a sense of trust in community members to support one another in being healthy and well, re-establishing trust with systems and institutions by coming together for collective action to push them to support the change that we want to see and really collaborating to get everyone's needs met through direct action, and again that goes through using opportunities that are already within reach within communities right now, as well as institutionalizing what works through what are just actually longer-term policy pathways. We do not need to wait for a piece of legislation to be signed into law to take action on this. Additionally, operating from the perspective of how each person witnessed and to share their gifts in meaningful ways, is again a really important part of this work, and so each partner in chains, making an intentional effort, really notice capacity and strength and wisdom both in themselves and in others, as well as finding ways to leverage them, can really enhance success in community change. And you know, speaking back to some of the barriers we mentioned before, this can really counter that lack of self-efficacy and the difficulty accessing hope that change can really happen and this can create instead a sense of shared ownership and mutual commitment to working in partnership with others in the community by mobilizing unique strength toward achieving mutual goal, and that is kind of common cultural right a lot of times this is about being competition for scarce resources. So this is really a from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset, and the research shows that this kind of connectedness and honoring the many ways of knowing and thinking and being and doing and relating can be really critical in community transformation efforts. Education and training is also important, so we each can commit to acting an alignment with what we know helps create a sense of belonging and which promote the safety and trust needed to work collaboratively toward a healthier and more resilient community. And so we really encourage folks to consider how to make these opportunities for share learning, both ongoing and diverse right. We often hear that people in the community have critical knowledge about drama and drama. Informed approaches withheld from them because the training efforts are focused only on helping professionals, which is important, and also thinking outside of the box, and finding meaningful shared learning opportunities is also a vital piece of the puzzle, though, in addition to those more formalized and professionalized training, some communities screen videos, for instance, like paper tigers or resilient or the wisdom of drama or portraits of professional caregivers, and then facilitate community discussing, both, to be brief on, you know the heavy contents as well as the coconstruct meaning of the content and state it in community. Others might have community wide events or learning circles or train the trainer program that engage people with lived experience as peers. You know, there are a wide variety and range of activities in platforms that communities can use to create both formal and informal learning opportunities, and there's power in bringing awareness to what's happened to us right. This helps us make choices for ourselves in our communities in a way that really allows for full participation and engagement with meaning for work like advancing health and Brazilians among those we care about. Understanding that something may have happened to a neighbour versus adopting a more pathologizing and shaming approach of wondering what's wrong with them requires us to look through this lens of near or neuroscience, epigenetic, adverse childhood experiences or ashes and brazilian science. And again, the report goes in through each of these aspects in a community context, a bit more deeply, but just at a high level. We can look to not just in understanding what types of services and supports will most fit the needs of a particular community, but also to support each other in noticing the activity and strength in people's stories of survival and to really shape how we engage with others and invite others into this community. Collective change work which ultimately contributed to the culture of the collective as well. Our guesses, many of you have run into the frustrations related to funding. There are opportunities to come together and really rethink how we can conceptualize funding. It's one of the biggest barriers in the research, but really thinking about giving considerations of policy and other changes that can afford more flexibility and sustainability is an important part of this work. Unstable funding or funding that, again is contingent upon meeting goals that are somewhat unpredictable, since there are so many variables that playing communities are a really significant halter of progress, especially because a lot of times those benchmarks don't aline what the community actually wants and needs. Brading and blending funding from a diverse array of sources so that even with financial ebbs and flows, the losses and gains of different grants, policy changes, there is still a reserve available to keep building on the momentum towards change, and that would make all the difference, as can again actually providing communities with the funding in the first place, rather than placing control with external parties by by helping bring partners into alignment with a tram, informed lends too, and this goes back to the education component. It becomes easier for those big organizations and agencies to seed control, because they can see that they're able to and really ought to trust that those who are most impacted in the community are absolutely going to have the most fitting solution. And then they can think about the role that they can take on to support implementation, and particularly with the rapidly evolving landscape of the here now and with consideration for what's been laid bare in terms of just utterly insufficient emergency response and management measures in the last few years. Building Brazilians in communities takes on, perhaps, I would say, maybe a more important role than ever, and so it's important, since, back to funding, that so often only evidence-based or evidence informed practices, our funding, that we continue to work toward expanding the empirical understanding of what works, to address individual and collective rama and to build resiliency and sustainable community leadership in communities impacted by adversity and in doing so, anchoring in frameworks like community-based participatory research and empowerment evaluation, so that communities again are not left feeling like outside academics that are coming in, getting what they need and then leaving, without supporting its members of the community toward working towards changes that they want to see. Instead, community members can feel supported and heard and included and as if their lived experience can inform the important corrections of the work, not just in their communities but in others who may replicate change efforts in the future. And finally, thinking about intentionally maximizing protective and resilient factors while working to also mitigate risk and vulnerability factors really repos us to think beyond any one particular service sector or industry or community-based resource and to loom out and see what's really needed to join together in co creating the community conditions and context in capacity to meet the complex individual, family and elective community need. This includes the intentional integration, or rather the intentional reduction, of fragmented care and salad service delivery, and also paying more attention to the interconnectedness and the interdependence of the strands of community life, though no one institution or system alone can address the complexity of all we're addressing by looking toward engaging communities to effect from informed change right. So that means that the more brains that are at the table, the more perspectives can engage to inform more coordinated, creative and connective change effort. We know that healing happens in the context of healthy relationship, and that is a message that rings through at every level for each partner in change, and it's our best hope that some of the other areas explored today and more deeply in our forthcoming will provide significant inroads to start thinking about where we might be able to seize opportunities to work together towards our shared vision of a healthy and resilient future in a cross system and prospector way. And so I just want to take this opportunity before we have a brief Brazilians practice and then join in conversation together to throw it to Jessie to uplift a couple of measures our federal government has put forth.
00:28:40 Speaker 2: Thank you, Whitney. I invite everybody because the cat has been so remarkably active and thank you all. It's wonderful to see the engagement just put into the catalog post that shares opportunities for everyone in the United States at least to respond to our friends in Scotland that I know we're on the colon elsewhere. You could try seeing what happens if you click on these and let us know, but and you could certainly learn more. But there are opportunities to engage on both of these bills right now in the blog posts that I just put the chat, which you're welcome to do, as I discuss both of these bills. But the rise from Drama Act and the Community Mental Wellness and Brazilians Act are two different bills that have both been introduced in Congress in bipartisan and bicameral fashion, with a quick exception that I'll get on the House side. Verse that expand crosssector community coalition building and resources to promote exactly what Whitney has been sharing on the call today and so rise from Tram. This is its fourth congress that it's been introduced. It was introduced in the Senate side in May and it's expected to be introduced on the House side today actually. And so that's why you see question marks there for the House resolution number were not exactly positive, but we'll update at the ride from Trama Act creates a new grant program to fund cross sector community coalitions that are addressing Trama to prevent and mitigate the harms, as well as several other provisions that try to educe hospital admission rates, training for frontline service providers and in this Congress is bill. It also uplifts various parts of the then 18 support acts that are sunsetting after five years and so trying to keep those going in. The Support Act in 18 was a bill by Congress that was really around opioids and it developed, among other things, the Inter Agency Task Force on Trama Informed Care, and so this bill also uplifts many aspects of that. And then on the other side you'll see the Community Mental Wellness and Railins Act. The is all about promoting cross sector systems, coordination and coalition building. That is really working to get out in front of extreme weather events and other disasters, because right now so frequently the response is after an event has already occurred. We come in and flood, all with supports, however, extreme weather events, other widespread community tragedies. Aromatic events are becoming more predictable and more common, and so, rather than just waiting until they hit, let's build capacity at the community level across system. So we have the capacities, the resources, the skills and connections to rebuild more quickly if and when tragedy does strike and not just come in after with these supports. So that way we're working on the front-end and the back-end and of course hopefully no widespread tragedy hits a community. And then the communities are still better oriented around addressing the trauma that already exists in the community. And so again, the Rise from Trauma Act has been introduced in the Senate, is expected to be introduced in the House today. The link that I shared in the chat. We will update that when there's House information as well, but then the has already been introduced on both the Senate side and the House side, and we invite everybody to reach out to their federal offices through the link that I shared, and also, please share that with others so that we get the network effect of advocacy. That really helps to amplify the voices of this movement and make sure that this is the Congress that, like we said at the beginning of the year, is taking on trauma and starts to make these investments. And so with that Whitney, I'll kick it back to you.
00:32:58 Speaker 1: Thanks for lifting that up, and so the quest of our community. We want to pause to have a brief brazilian practice. This is optional for you, if you'd like to take a moment to go grab water, stretch whatever you need. That's too, but if you want to join us, would like to introduce you to this practice called buzzing breath or bumblebee, and it's based on or inspired by primary Panama for any yogis out there. And so you know, this practice provides you with an opportunity for you to focus on breathing in a way that's been demonstrated: to relax the nervous system and produce some notable sensation, and also for you to notice and explore those sensations in your body while connecting with this type of breathing, particularly in the community context that we're practicing in. So I am inviting you to start by getting nice and comfy and finding whatever thoughts you sit or lay or stand-in that you feel called to right now, and we're here. In this practice together, you're invited to breathe in deeply through your nose, slowly filling your lungs and now in with a closed mouth, while making a humming sound, making that outbreath as long as you can, without any strain or discomfort soon. So let's repeat this a few times, playing with different tones or volumes, still breathing in and coming out and coming out the next. Let's rest our tongues gently behind the top row of our teeth, relaxing our jaw while our mouths are for to click a little bit, just open a little bit like this, breathing in deeply again, and this time as we engaging the tongue behind the teeth with a buzzing sound. And let's do that fight again. They're finding the right vibration in tone and volume for you breathing. And so the last variation of this, if you choose to engage, is to raise your hands up to your face with your elbows pointed outward level with your shoulders, forming your little being and placing the tips of your thumbs on the cartilage outside of your ear openings, with your elbows at your shoulders to feel the vibrations a little bit more deeply. And after this next step you won't hear me so well. So just know that in this moment we're going to do two of each pile style: first the hum, then the buzz. So before we do that, with your arms in position, very gently, inward, with your thumbs, again to feel the vibration to the opening of your ear, I feel gently with the cartilage and inhaled.
00:36:25 Speaker 2: One.
00:37:00 Speaker 1: And hopefully you enjoyed the tresilian practice. If you opted in just inviting you to notice what's shifting for you, what you're noticing, will you return to your normal breathing, how those vibrating sensations went for you and what it's like to be practicing in community, just paying attention to our bodies and being together in community, and so the last part of this meeting moving into that is giving you the opportunity to reflect on some of those high level concepts that we talked about today and to provide you with an opportunity to connect and share successes and Chapin community wisdom with challenges or successes. Whatever feels like. The way you want to connect today is what we on the Tip Street team ascribed to deport. There's a document that's being shared in the chat. It's a document you can utilize for reflection during this independent time. Now there are eight different problems. We're going to give you five minutes to just put your thoughts together. Fully aware, you're not going to be able to get through very many bumps, and that's okay. This is really to help you individually think, use this with others, but also for right now, what we'd encourage you to do and just choose one or two prompts that you are looking at and you feel called to something you want to think about, something you're noticing, something you want to plot out, so choose one or two prompts from that list. Just jot down some notes for yourself and we're going to process in the larger community, and it doesn't have to be specifically about these problems. But what we find is that sometimes having this guided sort of reflection points can really help you gather your thoughts together and think about what you want to put out there into the community, and so we're going to give you five minutes. Let's do. This will be 245 PM eastern time. I'm not sure what that is. Other tones, but make the conversion and it'll be about five minutes. I'm going to put on some music, so we're not all sitting awkwardly together in silence and we're going to second, and then the floor will be yours for the rest of the time. We're together so remote myself place the music and check it in five.
00:39:19 Speaker 2: Thanks went in, just so folks know I'm going to pause the recording. If you're watching the recording of this, please feel free to pause and the link to this google form will be in the description on you.
00:39:34 Speaker 1: Thanks for your patience with the technology man, Jessy, and I even like tested it beforehand. Isn't that the way in the 23 when we're gathering? Hopefully you know that five minutes again, just to get your brain thinking and you might have gravitated toward one prompt. You might have just taken note from what you were thinking about and noted in anything. Is the floor is yours for the 15 minutes. That remains in our conversation, and so I would just open it up and anybody who wishes to begin can raise their hand. Well, we'll get a few going and you're able to put whatever you like out there. There are successes, wonderment things, you're noticing things, you're wondering about beautiful name, honor. I'm going to go ahead and let you get a start. I thank you so much. I went through the one I live in, I live in Bedfordshire but work in London and I'm interested in doing informed here. Can you hear me? Can you guys hear me? Yeah, yeah, so I'm looking to offer counseling, intimacy from Car to Liberia, West Africa, where is very lacking and the culture and the stigma attached is in.
00:41:06 Speaker 2: Allowing me to set up so when I look to.
00:41:11 Speaker 1: If there's a lot of barriers in West Africa, in Liberia.
00:41:19 Speaker 2: And for someone to say they're depressed or anxious or have drama seems to be a sign of weakness, because I grew up there doing civil war and they having recovered, whereas I've gone through counselling and stuff. So that's the hope, that's what I wanted to, so that community really needs.
00:41:45 Speaker 1: What important work you're doing! Thank you for putting it out there and for lifting up what is so important to address, and thanks so much for also sharing your own experience, Doctor Anne. I'm going to go with you and then Dennis, I see you with your actual hand raised, so we're going to one beautiful thanks, so much.
00:42:06 Speaker 2: Thanks for having me. One of the things that I think that's really been extremely helpful are doing focus groups regularly with. So I work in schools mostly, but were really partner with the communities, because that's what you know. Schools are saying. There's so many different partners and different things going on in the community and nobody's on the same page in the community. So meeting with family and youth and really trying to find their their areas of need, and then also meeting with the community partners. So I met with the community partners several times just to kind of map out what do you actually have going on, because I'm like I'm trying to understand, you know, and trying to explain it to people like there's so many different things around youth engagements specifically, and so I brought all those communities and the community partners and we mapped it out. Kind of look. This is what you're doing, just to give a visual of it. And then we brought all the youth in and actually had a meeting with them. And I had the community partners sit in the back of the room and I said I will introduce you, but you're only observing that this, this meeting needs to be led by the youth. And so because so many times each engagement is here, we're going to tell you what we want.
00:43:28 Speaker 1: For you versus actually talking to them and her?
00:43:32 Speaker 2: What they have to say. So those are some of the things that are the kind of seem like they're maybe fluffy, or you know a lot of people think of them, as are they really important. But if you use that information and say all right, here's the here, the commonalities that you all said, and then this is what we're going to do and then develop a strategic plan that, across everyone, kind of what are the biggest things and that youth are guiding all of that. That has been really really helpful in engaging everybody and getting families more engaged, as well as just getting partners like the partners have been really wanting to communicate because they see that this is actually a vehicle to make things happen. So anyway, that was just kind of something that that we've had. I've seen some really good success with.
00:44:22 Speaker 1: Amazing! Rich! Thanks for putting that out there, beautiful idea and talk about modelling the model of inclusion and entering community Voice Beautiful Point. Thank you so much for taking that and then Dennis, and then I'm going to go with the administrator and your name also denise it. Then you're muted. Unfortunately, I'm hoping. I bet you're saying beautiful things. Let me see, I might be able to ask you to unmute and then it might tell you that to day it looks like you might be mobile. I'm unmuted. Would you be able to help? Maybe like find a message for that and we'll go with Michael. Thank you. Go head, Michael, won't you Michael, mute?
00:45:31 Speaker 2: You're.
00:45:31 Speaker 1: We hear you.
00:45:35 Speaker 2: Can you hear me? We can hear, beautifully done.
00:45:40 Speaker 1: All right.
00:45:42 Speaker 2: Several short things at the same time as we are meeting here. The International Community Development Society is meeting in Seattle and County Health Ranking is having a meeting right after this about mental health Trama and dealing with it at a, at a county-level all three things are dealing with the same thing at the same time and we aren't talking to each other. To your point about this about the way we handle Rama with mental health and other problems. This was one. Sorry to hear it in 1928 by the Chicago Area project, and if people don't know about it, they should read anyway. I put those three lengths. If anybody wants to contact me particularly, I am on the membership committee of these National International Community Development Society. For you people, they have links out in in Europe and Africa. If somebody wants to contact me as one and one, I will be glad to facilitate other links. That's an overview type thing. I could talk about other things, but that's my time.
00:47:32 Speaker 1: Thanks for uplifting that, thanks for being a connector that's so awesome to be able to happen to your resources. Thank you so much, and now I see that you're unmuted, go ahead.
00:47:43 Speaker 2: Thank you on. How much time do I have? I need about six and a half hours, but should I cut it down?
00:47:53 Speaker 1: And for a little bit.
00:47:55 Speaker 2: My name's Michel Jazz. As you can say, he is silent. I'm in New York City and 14 years ago by chance, I landed in high school to talk about relationship dynamics. I almost failed out of high school due to growing up with chronic and prolonged neglect. Hippocampus shrunk, long short-term memory, information retrieval. I'm not sectarian but by the grace of God. Somehow I landed in a high school in 2008 and I was doing relationship coaching because of course I had trouble with every relationship I've ever been in. Growing up in a home with no conversation, no books, no music. There, I began to see how much kids had an interest in relationships and relationship dynamics and I started my organization called the Relationship Foundation. We're nonprofit. Now somebody found my book. I wrote a book, I didn't really write a book, I spoke a book and people typed. So I say our book and I put together a curriculum, a kid who almost found out a high school. So we have a curriculum and book. Our website is done. You can see what teachers, principals, superintendents are saying about the work we introduce. Mostly what we focus on is Marshal Rosenberg's nonviolent communication. We are explaining to students and their teachers how to express your needs and feelings without blame or judgment and to listen empathically. You don't need 600 and 32 pages on the neuroscience of empathy to learn how to simply say: I hear you, then silence, tell me more. Would you like some feedback? No, I just wanted to be heard. We've simplified empathy to that. We have teachers saying in 20 years I've never heard of anything like this case. Social school psychologists. Why didn't I learn about when I was in school? So we're on a mission, were being considered to go into an entire district in the Bronx, just spent. I just spent the spring spring semester with seventh graders in a school in the Bronx and after two sessions the teacher wrote an email to the principal saying this looks like the next step in social and emotional learning. The children are opening up about their lives and their emotions, and their behaviour is improving. What what school doesn't want? Behaviour improving because when behavior improves, grades improves and when and when you learn about respect with nonviolent communication, you don't bully and say things that are hurtful and and we are on a mission. So anybody who's interested in bringing to school work that can help to mitigate trama. Those kids will then go home with those life skills and be able to help their families. When there's domestic violence, where there's food and security, where there's abandonment, where there's abuse and neglect, I'm I'm a dreamer. You know, I never thought I'd land up in a school because that's where I had the most pain and that's where school shooters go when they've where they've had the most pain and take it out with a with a machine gun. So I want to get to the kids who might pick up a gun more than anything, but also to the general. To our 57 million school-age children we do parent programs. We also work with child advocacy center. They are in every state. If you don't know about them, write it down. Your state has a child advocacy centre and there are there are branches all over the state. We've been in Missouri, we've been in Pennsylvania, I'm going to Orlando for the Florida in about 10 days and we're going to Illinois in the fall and we want to get to all the cats and the PC Prevent Child Abuse America. So we're here. We want to collaborate with, stip, share any more information than we have. And what I really want to ask if you're going on this long is: is there this billion dollar grant that schools will be eligible to apply for a grant? And can we say to them if you bring our program, it will help add to your grant application. That's my question. After all that I just shared. Thank you, mindful of time, and I see one other hand, and I know that the calls ending at three just just too quickly. Answer your question. I think that if you're referring to the grant program that we advocated for last year, funding went to local education agencies and advocacy can be done at a local education, at local education agency level, to apply for federal funding for funds that could be used for Tram informed purposes, for various different programs and just to highlight, and I know that Whitney will get to this. But also next month CTP can call, will be about to inform schools and so much more discussion about the work being done in schools next month is well. I know that that was quick and probably didn't address everything. So feel free to reach out an email if there are any other questions. Reach out to you directly on that, because I want to be very clear what I say to the schools where they can go to get to grant money. That sounds good. Thank you and Chris. Don't want to ignore your hand up. I really agree about simplifying the link language, making it.
00:54:12 Speaker 1: Getting rid of the jargon and I've been working on mitigating vicarious.
00:54:17 Speaker 2: Which is such a mouthful! I'd really like to get away from talking about vitalis coma, because it's really basically.
00:54:23 Speaker 1: This drama, and I wanted to like, think about new ways of talkin.
00:54:27 Speaker 2: About the roma, even because that word is getting over utilized in ways that I think it gets confusing for folks too, because not all loss.
00:54:37 Speaker 1: But all drama is.
00:54:39 Speaker 2: And I think sometimes in our culture we get these terms mixed-up and it creates confusion. So I've been talking about growing chill skills instead of mitigating vicarious drama, and I'm open to other suggestions around dressing secondary thematic stress, whatever we want to call workplace Rama, workplace stress, because I know.
00:55:00 Speaker 1: We talked about Burnout Fly at the beginning of the call and I just appreciate everything everybody's been saying here. I did want to.
00:55:07 Speaker 2: The second: to do really good work with children, but they don't follow the kids into their later years.
00:55:14 Speaker 1: And we need to address the needs of.
00:55:16 Speaker 2: Survivors, and that's an area that I still see huge gaps for that, and I say survivors of sexual Thomas specifically, but thanks again for hosting this. I always enjoy these calls.
00:55:30 Speaker 1: Appreciate your taking that with that correct love that that was a creative language and and yeah, I wonder if anyone in the chat has any thoughts or contributions or if you want to send them our way. We're happy to share them broadly for different brainstorming. I love that idea and again, thanks for all of you for staying back. Just want to lift up again. This is. We're going to have a post that will be completed probably by the end of the week. I think for that it will be up. I have to do some final edit. That is the URL for it. If you want to sort of jot that down, if you want to have the filling the code and just copy your phone on it so you have it open in a tub, you'll get an email when, if you're on our mailing list which if you aren't please do join, you'll get an email to let you know that we've uploaded that post and you can access that as a resource. And as Jessie said, next month we'll be doing Trama Informed Schools. You might remember we released the Trama informed school Schools report earlier this year and again there's so much richness to that right as was even brought up in this conversation. So we just want to continue that conversation, come together and brainstorm and hopefully have a lot of community time during that. During that time together and if you have any questions or wonderments or anything, you want to share with me: Whitney tip dot Org, Jesse is Jesse as tip dot Org, I know a couple of you mentioned. You might be reaching out to him and yeah, that's it for today. I'm so humble to have been in community with you and thanks to those of you who stayed back. I know Jessie and I will hang back if anybody wants them, just wants to express anything, but otherwise we wish you a fabulous day ahead and really just grateful for your thoughtful engagement.