(Originally posted May 11, 2023)
The Peace and Justice Institute hosts 5th Annual Resilience Conference
WINTER PARK, Fla. — The Peace and Justice Institute is hosting the 5th annual Resilience Conference in Winter Park this week. The conference focuses on trauma and covers different ways of preventing and dealing with violence.
In a crowded room on Thursday, Rachel Allen directed people’s attention to the trauma that folks are feeling in their neighborhoods, schools, homes and work. Allen is the executive director of the Peace and Justice Institute. She explained how the conference focuses on addressing violence with kindness and compassion.
“This is about helping our community become what is called trauma-informed,” Allen said. “So that we don't just respond to negative behavior with punishment, but we look beyond the behavior to what's really going on. And we ask the question what happened? And we try to solve for that and be the loving adults and give the loving and caring response that children and our fellow adults need.”
Thursday’s theme was “Moving Towards a Transformative Approach: From Punishment to True Discipline.”
“It might be parents at home with children misbehaving. It teaches us to look beyond the behavior to the need. What's missing? What do they need?” Allen said.
The room was filled with leaders in health, education, law enforcement and the judiciary.
“This is the pathway to peace because it takes all of us to nurture the brains of children and families in our community so that we don't have violence to ourselves, in our homes or in the community. And it will take all of us to get there,” said Allen.
State Attorney Monique Worrell spoke on a panel Thursday morning.
“When you're talking about peace and justice, those should be goals that we're striving towards as a community,” said Worrell.
For the State Attorney, it has been a week of talks starting with her gun violence prevention summit on Monday.
“I think this week actually represents the true diversity of all the things that the criminal legal system encompasses,” she said.
Worrell explained why she wanted to be a part of the conference.
“As State Attorney, we had the opportunity to see all of these different afflictions that goes beyond what law enforcement gets to see when they make an arrest. We get to hear the mitigation. We get to hear about their mental illness and see their history of mental illness,” she said. “So I think community education and the role that the State Attorney plays in these issues is really important.”
Ruben Saldana was on another panel on Thursday. He is the head of Florida’s Credible Messenger program and Gloves Up, Guns Down.
“People's hearts are more inclined now to look at why are kids picking up guns?” he said. “We have to go back to them traumas and then realize that, ‘Hey, maybe a six-month program won't cure six years of real hard trauma.’”
Saldana served 19 years in prison and is the former leader of what was once Orlando and Miami’s biggest street gang. He now uses his lived experience to mentor young folks.
“I was sent to prison at 16,” he said. “I had escaped from a mental institution when that happened. And so, did I not deserve the mental health rights that everybody else received or the kids are receiving now? I would think I should have for a first offense, and it wasn't a murder. It wasn't a rape.”
Saldana said the conference is more than just talk.
“This is a good step,” he said. “I hope we put into practice all the great ideologies being thrown around. When I was sent to prison as a kid, we didn't have these type of panels. There wasn't judges and mental health specialists and community partners coming together to advocate on the behalf of the kids who were traumatized, who ended up into a system that didn't rehabilitate anything. You can't rehabilitate anything if it didn't have habilitation from the beginning.”
This is a two-day conference. It wraps up on Friday afternoon.
Click here to view original article posted by Wesh 2 News on May 11, 2023.
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