On the heels of a state policy victory, grassroots advocacy led by the Alaska Resilience Initiative continues to move toward the goal of systemic change by publishing a brief for people who occupy strategic positions across the state. While Alaska Senate Bill 105 builds a framework for changing the system, that's only a beginning. A new document, “Toward a Trauma-Informed, Resilient, and Culturally-Responsive Alaska,” authored by Andrea Blanch, is designed to help elected officials, policymakers, businesses, Tribal Governments, faith leaders, health providers, and educators take the next first step: understanding the pervasive impact of traumatic experiences, individual and historical, and seizing the opportunity to foster our inherent capacity for resilience.
To understand its pervasive impact is to understand how trauma is historically woven into cultural experiences and how vulnerabilities are part of a system that has created and that continues to perpetuate structural inequities. Alaskans are particularly vulnerable. The 2013 survey of ACEs in Alaska reveals that the experience of childhood trauma affects ⅔ of the population, and nearly a quarter of the population has experienced four or more ACEs. The reverberating impacts of “vicarious trauma” across all sectors and communities are costly, and the brief shares those numbers. The overarching message is that all can become trauma-informed, and all are invited to design for greater equity, to find ways to allocate resources that will lower costs in the long-run. That design means investing in people and helping them shift their perspective from mitigating trauma symptoms to re-imagining a more equitable system that identifies root causes and seeds preventive practices. The cultural, historical dimensions and bonds at the root of many problems remain central to a path forward, and they provide a hopeful message about how an entire system and all the people interconnected can benefit from a strength based transformation.
This latest brief is not written for trauma and resilience studies experts in particular because all can become trauma-informed. While mental health experts play an important role, creating healthy communities requires all of us, especially those who steer institutional policies and practices and who work directly with children and families. The language, length, and visual design of the brief make it accessible and informative for readers with prior knowledge as well as those just entering the conversation. Now that ACEs awareness has been integrated into state law, the brief was written in preparation for a fall convening of all State of Alaska Commissioners and teams from each department to get them up to speed on the science of ACEs and resilience alongside a tribal perspective. The brief provides a common language and principled framework for cross-sector and cross-community collaboration, and it encourages training to help recognize the signs and symptoms of trauma and to invoke a trauma-informed response.
Once people in strategic positions understand the impact of trauma throughout the system, the next step is sharing the knowledge and skills to re-orient and guide more productive responses to the signs and symptoms of trauma, responses that help people adapt to stress without amplifying the trauma. Some responses to recurring stress are maladaptive, and those who recognize these behaviors can use principled strategies to redirect adaptive responses toward positive outcomes. Identifying and implementing more productive responses will depend on the internal dynamics of each agency or sector, and the change process will need to develop organically. In some agencies, changes may affect every function; in others, change may be integrated more incrementally.
Co-Constructing Shared Knowledge
The key message of the brief is that people are not alone. This initiative is building momentum from the grassroots level and is poised to co-create shared knowledge and collaborative leadership that will sustain and extend the transformation. The latter section of the brief connects the coalition building underway in Alaska to the work in five other states. A quick glance at timelines for each state’s initiatives demonstrates that this is not a quick fix but a sustained systemic transformation. In the case of each state, resilience work is locally situated and intentionally designed to awaken the healing powers of communities. Following the state profiles are a list of outcomes that document improvements that will result in a more efficient use of resources.
By Jackie Cason, volunteer and a communication workgroup member of the Alaska Resilience Initiative
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