Join our UN High Level Climate Champion "Race to Resilience" Initiative to
BUILD MENTAL WELLNESS & TRANSFORMATIONAL RESILIENCE IN YOUR COMMUNITY
From record heat waves, storms, wildfires, droughts, floods, and other disasters, to increasing disruptions to the ecological, social, and economic systems people rely on for food, water, shelter, jobs, incomes, health, and other basic needs, the global climate-ecosystem-biodiversity (C-E-B) crisis is rapidly escalating.
The crisis is an unprecedented public health emergency that, without a major shift in how they are addressed, will produce radically more and different types of mental health and psychosocial problems than society has ever experienced.
THE CHALLENGE:
THE SOLUTION:
A public health approach must be used in communities to strengthen everyone’s capacity for mental wellness and transformational resilience for relentless adversities as residents help reduce the C-E-B crisis to manageable levels and enhance local conditions.
Transformational Resilience Coordinating Networks (TRCN) are local multi-sectoral coalitions that develop and implement locally appropriate strategies that help all residents remain socially, psychologically, emotionally, and behaviorally healthy and resilient during persistent adversities.
ITRC UN High Level Climate Champion “Race to Resilience” Initiative
Organizing Community-Led Transformational Resilience Coordinating Networks in North America and Worldwide
From record heat waves, storms, wildfires, droughts, floods, and other disasters, to increasing disruptions to the ecological, social, and economic systems people rely on for food, water, shelter, jobs, incomes, health, and other basic needs, the global climate-ecosystem-biodiversity (C-E-B) crisis is rapidly escalating. The crisis is an unprecedented public health emergency that will produce radically more and different types of mental health and psychosocial problems than society has ever experienced.
Individualized mental health services cannot address the pervasive stresses and traumas speeding our way. Instead, a public health approach must be used in neighborhoods and communities to provide the mutual aid needed to strengthen everyone’s capacity for mental wellness and transformational resilience for relentless adversities as residents do their part to reduce the C-E-B crisis to manageable levels and greatly enhance local conditions.
To accomplish this, as a partner in the U.N. High level Climate Champion Race to Resilience Campaign, the International Transformational Resilience Coalition (ITRC) and its core partners the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice (CTIPP) and Trauma Informed Oregon (TIO) will work with co-sponsors worldwide to help organize, strengthen, and “Commission” Transformational Resilience Coordinating Networks (TRNCs) worldwide.
A TRCN is a wide and diverse coalition of local grassroots, neighborhood, education, youth, faith/ spirituality, mental and physical health, social work, disaster management, climate/environmental, social and environmental justice, and other civic, non-profit, private, and public sector leaders.
From the bottom-up, the TRCN develops and implements locally-appropriate strategies that help all adults, adolescents, and young children remain socially, psychologically, emotionally, and behaviorally healthy and resilient during continual adversities, as they also engage in activities that help reduce the C-E-B crisis to manageable levels and enhance local conditions.
The TRCN Commissioning initiative will help community leaders in North America and worldwide learn how to organize a TRCN, facilitate and strengthen its operations, and develop and continually improve strategies that use a public health approach to build population-level mental wellness and transformational resilience.
The three phases involved with organizing and operating TRCNs include:
When local residents want to form a new network, or an existing group or coalition informs us that they want to expand their focus and organize a TRCN, we will declare them a “Prospective” TRCN. We will provide these networks with written materials and technical assistance and invite them to participate in in a Community of Practice (CoP), to help them learn how organize a steering committee (board or task force) with a clear mission, vision, and goals.
When a wide and diverse steering committee is formed with a mission, vision, and goals we will invite Prospective networks to become an “Emerging” TRCN. We will provide these networks with written materials and technical assistance, and invite them to participate in a CoP, to help them learn how to design strategies that use a public health approach to build population-level mental wellness and transformational resilience for the C-E-B crisis.
When an Emerging network has finalized and wants to begin implementing their strategies, we will invite them to become a “Commissioned” TRCN. We will provide these networks with ongoing technical assistance, continual public recognition, a logo they can use to show that they are a Commissioned TRCN and provide other supports to help them improve and strengthen their efforts.
In each of the phases described above, we will coordinate a “network of networks” to connect mature networks with newer ones to serve as peer mentors and help everyone learn, innovate, overcome barriers, and develop leading-edge practices.
Welcome and thank you for your interest!
Our process helps community leaders around the globe organize a Transformational Resilience Coordinating Network (TRCN) to help facilitate and strengthen its operations and develop and continually improve strategies that use a public health approach to build population-level mental wellness and transformational resilience.
The three phases involved with organizing and operating TRCNs include:
PHASE 1: PROSPECTIVE (Start/build your network)
Audience: Local residents who want to form a new network OR an existing organization/coalition who wants to expand their focus to include climate-ecosystem-biodiversity (C-E-B).
Resources provided: Written materials and technical assistance to help them learn
How to organize an initial small group (3-5 people) who together develop a preliminary vision of what they want to achieve and the benefits it will provide for the community, along with a simple elevator speech to describe their vision and goals to others.
How can the initial small group identify, reach out to, and engage other residents and organizations in a formal TRCN steering committee?
How the steering committee can develop a mission statement, goals, and operating principles, and learn and practice good communications and conflict resolution skills.
The core principles and practices of using a public health approach to build population-level mental wellness and transformational resilience for the C-E-B crisis.
When a wide and diverse steering committee is formed with a mission, vision, and goals we will invite prospective networks to become “emerging” TRCNs.
PHASE 2: EMERGING (Develop local strategy)
Audience: Existing network who wants to integrate this process into their mission and operations OR prospective groups that have formed a steering committee with mission, vision, and goals.
Resources provided: HANDBOOK, members-only online group, written materials, technical assistance and access to participate in a Climate Community of Practice (CoP) to learn how to design strategies that use a public health approach to build population-level mental wellness and transformational resilience.
PHASE 3: COMMISSIONED (Implementation)
Audience: When an emerging network has finalized their action plan and is ready to begin strategic implementation, we will invite them to become a "commissioned" TRCN. You can also apply here.
Resources provide: HANDBOOK, members-only online group, ongoing technical assistance, continual public recognition, a logo they can use to show that they are a Commissioned TRCN, and other support to help them improve and strengthen their efforts.
Building Human Resilience for Climate Change
Resilient Oregon: Resilience Toolkit & Resource Guide 2025
WEBINARS:
Bob Doppelt's Transformational Resilience: Presencing and Purposing skill presentation for Los Angeles wildfire survivors and service providers (February 2025)
TRCN Community of Practice: Session 1 and Session 2 (October 2024)
BOOKS:
REPORTS:
U.S. Community Mental Wellness and Resilience Act one-pager
About the U.S. Community Mental Wellness and Resilience Act
The Need, Methods, and Examples of Communities Using a Public Health
Approach to Build Pop. Mental Wellness and Resilience
Examples of U.S. Based Community Mental Wellness and Resilience Building Initiatives
To Cut Government Costs, Address Mental Illness in Psychology Today (January 2025)
Many Americans Are Dissociated from the Climate Crisis in Psychology Today (December 2024)
Is Unconstrained Freedom Harming Mental Health? in Psychology Today (December 2024)
Hurricane Helene Shows Need to Establish Resilience Networks in Psychology Today (October 2024)
Community is Medicine in Psychology Today (January 2024)
Prevention is the Cure: Public Health & Climate Crisis Webinar on Organic Wisdom (August 2023)
The bipartisan bill that could heal the mental health effects of climate change in The Hill (May 2023)
Why Journalists Should Investigate the Twin Mental Health and Climate Crises for the Society of Environmental Journalists (April 2023)
Climate Emergency Requires Fundamental Expansion of Our Approach to Mental Health in Psychiatry Online (June 2021)
The Climate Emergency Calls for a New Approach to Mental Health in Undark (June 2021)
The Importance of Building Resilience for the Climate Emergency on Voice of America (April 2021)
Pandemic and climate solutions will fail without a major focus on mental health in The Hill (February 2021)
(As of Sept. 1, 2024)
• Beth Haase, Chair, Climate Committee, American Psychiatric Association, and Craig Obey, Chief of Government Relations
• Scott Barstow, Senior Director of Congressional Affairs, American Psychological Association
• Corbin Evans Senior Director of Congressional Affairs, American Psychological Association
• Sarah Butts, Director of Public Policy, National Association of Social Workers
• Cara Cook, Director or Programs, Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, and Jessica Mengistab, Program Manager, Climate and Clean Energy Advocacy
• Katherine Catalano, Deputy Director, Center for Climate, Health and Equity, American Public Health Association.
• Kristie Trousdale, Deputy Director, Children’s Environmental Health Network.
• Jesse Kohler, Executive Director, Campaign for Trauma Informed Policy
• Mebane Boyd, Resilient Communities Officer, North Carolina SmartStart Program
• Lise Van Susteren, Psychiatrist, Clinical Associate Professor, George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, and member of the Climate Psychiatry Alliance
• Elaine Miller-Karas, Co-Founder and Director of Innovation, Trauma Resource Institute
• Ruben Cantu, Associate Program Director for Community Trauma, Mental Health, and Violence Prevention, Prevention Institute.
• Rev. Paul Abernathy, CEO of the Neighborhood Resilience Project in Pittsburgh, PA
• David Shern, Senior Associate, Department of Mental Health at Johns Hopkins University, and Advisor, National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors
• Rebeckah Turner, Director of Community Engagement, Community Resilience Initiative
• Howard Kurtzman, former Director for Science at the American Psychological Association
• Mandy Davis, Director, Trauma-Informed Oregon
• Robin Saenger, Founding Director Peace4Tarpon (Tarpon Springs, Florida)
• Brigit Hassig, Executive Director, Visible Hands Collaborative
• Steven Hoskinson, Founder and COO of Organic Intelligence
• David Pollack, Professor Emeritus for Public Policy, Oregon Health and Science University Advisory Committee
• Anna Lynn, Mental Health Promotion Coordinator at the Minnesota Department of Health
• Deborah Golding, Health Equity Zone Program Administrator, Rhode Island Department of Health
• Carrisa Caban-Aleman, Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine, Florida, and member of the Climate Psychiatry Alliance
• Sandra Bloom, Associate Professor, Health Management and Policy at the Dornsife School of Public Health, Drexel University, Founder of Creating Presence, and Co-Founder of the Sanctuary Model
• Patricia Foxen, former Deputy Director, Research at UnidosUS
