What serious topic can bring more than 200 people together for two and a half hours on a weeknight?
It's something that has major effects on health an life expectancy, but is not routinely screened or treated by physicians. It's something that anyone can encounter at any point in their lives. And it's something that can affect the quality of living for an individual and a community.
In a word, it's trauma.
On Oct. 5, several community and state agencies together hosted a forum called, "Creating a Trauma-Informed Berkshire County: A Community Conversation," at The Colonial Theatre. Currently a clinical term, advocates for the approach of care and concern for community members say they hope to make it a more grassroots movement and commonly understood community-based practice.
The event attracted a wide range of attendees, from clergy to community members, therapists to teachers, state legislators and the district attorney, among many others.
What participants said best introduced the topic to them was the screening of a September 2014 "TEDMED" TED Talk by Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, an American pediatrician. Titled "How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime," the talk has since been viewed more than 2.3 million times on the TED website alone.
[For more of this story, written by Jenn Smith, go to http://www.berkshireeagle.com/...addresses-trauma-and]
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