Could a workplace actually help prevent trauma and help people heal?
If you are burned out, tired of a toxic workplace, looking to join the Great Resignation, or, if you’re an employer, if looking for ways to prevent a mass exodus and retain valued employees, you are not alone.
The last three years have seen the pandemic, racial unrest, environmental traumas, increases in poverty, major policy and political shifts, and the effect these existential threats have on our stress levels. These collective traumas have inevitably affected our tolerance for challenges to our lives, livelihoods, and wellbeing.
To explore the future of work; ways work both contributes to our stress and could in fact be a means of promoting wellbeing, PACEs Connection called on experts from the fields of PACEs science, human resources, public policy, infant and child development, trauma-informed leadership and more for a deep look into the workplace and we were met with these topics to consider:
- A History of Work – Paid and Unpaid Labor in America
- Nurturance: The Fundamental Condition Every Human Needs to Thrive
- Do Policies Create Poverty, Child Abuse, and Neglect ?
- What If Babies Ran the Workplace?
- Compassion Fatigue
- Toxic Workplaces
- Trauma Informed - Being Embraced by Every Professional Sector
- Partnering across Georgia to Create Trauma Informed, Inclusive Workplaces
- The American Laborer
- Empathetic Leadership: Toward a Workplace that is Human-Centered and Trauma-Informed.
- Reimagining Workplaces, the Role of Wellness
- How One Organization is Tracking and Recognizing Organizations that are Becoming More Trauma Informed.
PACEs Connection will explore these topics and more for three afternoons next week, and invites you to register here now for the conference, taking place from noon - 5:00 p.m. ET, June 13 - 15. Tickets range from $150 for a single day to $399 for the full conference. Conference sessions will be recorded and offered for sale at a later date.
Join PACEs Connection CEO Ingrid Cockhren and authors and leaders from the field of PACEs science, human resources and trauma-informed leadership as they share historical and late-breaking perspectives on work and trauma, our economy, the dignity of work, lived experiences, the impact of policy, who’s looking to create “trauma-informed workplaces”, and the future of work.
How would we work in a “Just Society”, where all are valued equally? The healing-centered workplace – and the disruptions it will take to create it – will happen through community.
Descriptions of each day:
Day 1: The Great Resignation: How did we get here? How is it that we created and now perpetuate a system that values the work of some and denigrates the work of others? How did we get to the point of The Great Resignation? When and how will it stop? How does historical trauma in America affect the way we work– and overwork – ourselves and each other?
What about economics, racism, and poverty and their impact on how we work?
How do current policies and practices encourage child abuse and neglect?
What if BABIES ran the workplace?
Speakers will include Cockhren, an expert on historical trauma in America, and author Tony Biglan, PhD, a Senior Scientist at Oregon Research Institute and the Co-Director of the Promise Neighborhood Research Consortium. Dr. Biglan has been conducting research on the development and prevention of child and adolescent problem behavior for the past 30 years. His books include, The Nurture Effect, How the Science of Human Behavior Can Improve Our Lives and Our World; and Rebooting Capitalism: How We Can Forge a Society That Works for Everyone.
Clare Anderson, MSW, Senior Policy Fellow at Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, will share research on the economics of child abuse and neglect, and how some polices perpetuate poverty.
Deborah McNelis, M.Ed, author, The First 60 Days and The Neuro-Nurturing ® Interactive Packet Series for new parents, founder, Brain Insights will share what the workplace would look like if babies ran it!
Day 2: Change starts here: Toxic stress, burnout, and work life balance. We have to look at where we are – as individuals – with toxic stress, burnout, and work life balance. What are the lived experiences of people who’ve survived toxic workplaces? Racism on the job? Microaggressions for being LGBTQI? Loss of employment or income due to lack of quality affordable childcare? What are the lived experiences of people in places where new parents are given time off, and high quality childcare is state-sponsored, as is healthcare? How are states handling the mental health crisis and creating trauma-informed, inclusive workplaces? Is diversity, equity, inclusivity, and belonging work the solution?
Speakers will include Porter Jennings-McGarity, PhD, LCSW, PACEs Connection Director of Community Data + Continuous Quality Improvement and Trauma-Informed Criminal Justice Consultant, Alison Cebulla, Healthy Workplaces Consultant, and Becky Haas, internationally recognized advocate, trainer, and organizational coach on using a trauma-informed approach.
Guided by her direct practice experience in the child welfare system, Dr. Jennings-McGarity's scholarly agenda includes empirical research related to secondary trauma and burnout in the child-welfare system, including co-authorship of a peer-reviewed research paper on compassion satisfaction published in the Journal of Social Service Research.
Haas is the co-author of the Building a Trauma Informed System of Care Toolkit for the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services. It details a blueprint for creating community resilience, as featured in PACEs Connection, Growing Resilient Communities 2.1, and has been recommended as a “practical tool” in Johns Hopkins, Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action.
Emily Anne Vall, Ph.D. and executive director of Resilient Georgia, and Jenn Graham, founder and CEO of Inclusivv will discuss how Resilient Georgia has created several tools, resources and opportunities that all partners can take advantage of to create a more trauma informed workplace culture and recognize secondary trauma and/or empathy fatigue.
Vall and Graham will also discuss ways regional coalitions have bolstered this work through workplace training opportunities, leadership opportunities, and courageous conversations. They will also share more about the work of Inclusivv across Georgia to embrace workplace culture and inclusivity.
Day 3: The Future of Work - Envisioning a healing-centered workplace and just society. Diversity, equity and inclusion, and health and wellness. What does work look like in a “Just Society”? Do we value – or not value – the sacredness of work? How do we pay people what they're worth? How do we ensure that people are able to do work they love? How will it be when all work is honored and valued, when all are assured an income that makes truly living – being able to afford the basics of housing, food, clothing, transportation, education, and healthcare as a given, but also earning enough to enjoy life’s pleasures of vacations, entertainment, free time? Will we actually be more productive? Can we create enough trust in the workplace to ask for empathy? Who is monitoring what organizations become trauma-informed, what does that mean, and how do we find out which workplaces are “Family Forward”?
Speakers will include Katharine Manning, author of The Empathetic Workplace, and Vernisha Crawford, CEO of theTrauma-Informed Institute, as well as Lisa Finaldi, Community Engagement Leader at the North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation, which recently began certifying “Family Forward” workplaces.
Manning has worked on issues of trauma and victimization for more than 25 years. As a senior attorney advisor with the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, for fifteen years, Manning guided the Justice Department through its response to victims in cases ranging from terrorism to large-scale financial fraud to child exploitation.
Crawford's Trauma-Informed Institute certifies leaders as trauma-informed professionals to reduce workplace trauma and prioritize wellness. Her presentation will emphasize the non-negotiable nature of wellness in our lives, and how prioritizing our physical, mental, and emotional well-being impacts personal and professional success.
Finaldi, Community Engagement Leader at the North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation, has led the charge on creating Family Forward NC, an initiative to “improve children’s health and well-being and keep North Carolina’s businesses competitive”. The program is “employer-led change to increase access to research-based, family-friendly practices — big and small — that improve workplace productivity, recruitment and retention; grow a strong economy; and support children’s healthy development.”
At the end of each day's presentations, a panel discussion with the speakers will give speakers and attendees alike the opportunity to make comments and ask questions.
For current and future sponsorship packages and other information, contact Carey Sipp, PACEs Connection, director of strategic partnerships, at csipp@pacesconnection.com.
Register here now for Healing Centered Workplaces: The Future of Work conference, taking place from noon - 5:00 p.m. ET, June 13 - 15. Tickets range from $150 for a single day to $399 for the full conference. Conference sessions will be recorded and offered for sale at a later date.
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