Walla Walla Violence Prevention Conference with Dr. Felitti

Walla Walla, WA, recently hosted Dr. Vincent Felitti as keynote speaker to our second annual Violence Prevention Conference March 26-27.  It was a whirlwind of events for the community- and Dr. Felitti!  In addition to the conference, Dr. Felitti presented two separate seminars to our two hospitals.  (The photo of him is by Steve Lenz.) Our initiative has been trying to "break in" to the medical community and add them to our team as we collectively address the question, How do we reduce ACEs in our population?

The conference had a huge audience, which was so rewarding, and Dr. Felitti spoke on the connection of ACEs to violence.  He also presented at two workshops.  Here is some of the feedback and/or preparatory stories that circulated within our community. 

Dear VPC collaborators:

I received a wonderful message, sent late last night, from someone who attended part of the conference (and wished he could have attended more). Here is an excerpt that speaks for itself:

"I am so proud and impressed with the scale and professionalism of the conference that was organized by you and your staff. It was undoubtedly a world class event. I sincerely hope that there is a write-up in the papers about it.
"I say that because I want everyone to recognize how well the event was put together and how educated, informative and influential the speakers were. But upon reflection, I realize that the most valuable facets of your event are the ones that may never be recognized. The ripple effects of what was learned during each session can never be measured in this lifetime. I believe that lives were saved, Kari. And more significantly, is if somebody found peace (or picked up an understanding that will help spread peace to someone else). I hope you can see (through all of the effort and exhaustion) it was truly a meaningful occasion!!"

Thanks to all of you for working so hard to make this possible.

Yours truly,

Kari

Sent to Violence Prevention Conference team on 3/28/12

The photo below, also by Steve Lenz, shows Allyn Griffin giving a presentation called: “Being an Xbox Parent in a PlayStation World Full of Nintendos and Wiis”.  Griffin, a former NFL player, works at Jubilee Youth Ranch, a Christian based school for kids who have been thrown out of every other option.  

This is our parent night event at St. Patrick’s, where we were OVERWHELMED by the number of parents who showed up, with a huge portion being our Latino parents!!  He was a huge hit with parents!!

The next photo shows Mark Brown and Teri Barila, co-founders of the Children's Resilience Initiative opening the parent event in the evening by talking about resilience strategies. After they presented, parents attended one of four different workshops. We did the parent night at one of our churches because it draws many parents that might not go to a school district venue. btw, all photos that Steve Lenz too during the conference can be found on Facebook.