"Trauma is everywhere. Support needs to be everywhere too."
Dan Drew, the mayor of Middletown, Connecticut.

Mayor Dan Drew helped open the Leadership Roundtable on Trauma & Resilience hosted by the Community Resilience Collaborative (CRC) of Middlesex County.

In fact, Mayor Drew was a little late to come to the podium because he was out in the hall filling out his ACE and Resilience surveys as all attendants were asked (anonymously) to do. He noted how many people are impacted by the trauma experienced in childhood - including him and thanked the CRC for the work they are undertaking.

The CRC was, which was founded by over twelve community members is led by Rebecca Lemanski (pictured below). 

It was a wonderful way to start a well-planned day. Some highlights are shared below. Also, there was a wonderful piece about the day in the Middletown Press (with some great photos).

Susie Wiet, M.D., Psychiatrist & Founder of Utah's Trauma-Resilience Collaborative (TRC)

Keynote presenter, Dr. Susie Wiet, is the  the founder of the Trauma- Resiliency Collaborative of Utah (TRC). She mentioned how representatives and senators in Utah have been speaking publicly about ACEs and ACE scores and how Utah passed legislation requiring all agencies to be trauma-informed, a bill passed with bi-partisan support.

Weis, an integrative developmental psychiatrist talked about the impact of ACEs as well as about starting a community initiative.

"I was not looking to do this. I was looking to join something," she said, and "was desperate to share information."

Her background had been in working with youth with drug addiction. She had a fellowship in psychiatry when she learned about the impact of ACEs. She did not think of herself as a community organizer but simply as someone frustrated because "everything is so siloed - it was making me nuts." At first, she thought, " it must be me. It must be me. It wasn't just me," she said as she met others also passionate to share about the impact of developmental trauma and looking to take collective action.

She did doubt herself at times and wonder, "Who am I do ask people to talk about trauma?"

But as she met others, all from different sectors and organizations, looking for a venue to share and connect, she somewhat reluctantly became the founder of the TRC of Utah. 

The first thing the TRC of Utah did was host a free, community symposia which was attended by 150 people. She said people called her to offer money and help. The venue was donated and 100% of costs were covered which kept it free.

One of the most impactful panels was with several survivors ages ranging from the thirties to the sixties. The key question they were asked:

"How did we miss your trauma?" 

The panel of survivors shared and the community listened.

"Despite what many fear," Wiet said, "the fact is that people do not fall apart when asked about it (trauma/ACEs)."

She mentioned how this fear existed when the original ACE study was done and continues despite the evidence to the contrary, which shows the health of people actually improves after being asked about ACEs. 

She shared how the body is impacted by ACEs, and not just the original ten ACEs, but others that happen in the community or in medical settings. She said, "toxic stresses and not all are in home," and also, that trauma impact adults as well since, "we're not impervious to trauma after 18." She spoke about how developmental trauma is "is particularly impactful" though for children who are "without grounding." 

She also gave a great presentation to help explain how biology is altered by training and why and how trauma reactions occur. She discussed the epigenome, shorter lifespans for high ACE scorers, and how "ancestral nutrition" impacts humans. She noted how high methylation folate diets, especially for pregnant women in high risk groups are important. Someone in the audience asked for details about a high methylation diet and I think it was a diet rich in leafy greens.

I can't do justice to all she presented or pretend I understood it all. Some of it went over my head. However, for those who want to do more research, please see her open-source article entitled, "Origins of Addiction Predictably Embedded in Childhood Trauma: A Neurobiological Review," available online in the Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. And check out Dr. Wiet's website. It has lots of research and resources. 

Wiet is an inspiring speaker. She is not only brilliant she is practical, passionate, and hopeful.

She says, "If we can start mitigating negative influence (pro inflammation state), we can get to better health."

She gave the example of a woman with osteopenia (weak bones) at age 26 who had normal bone strength by her 30's to prove that change and improved health are possible. 

"If we don't understand we don't have that structure to start healing ourselves," she said, making it clear why both trauma and resiliency are important to the TRC and that they want to make both more understandable community and statewide.

The Utah TRC created a screening tool, the Health-Resilience-Stress Questionnaire (HRSQ), which will be open source and available as soon as it's validated (soon). Dr. Wiet said it's already been shared with Dr. Vincent Felitti who is said to have "loved it."

She shared some lessons learned with the CRC community about keeping an initiative going that she's learned over the last four plus years. She talked about "the four f's" which are as follows: 

1. Fun
2. Form
3. Function
4. Food

She said the TRC of Utah meets regularly about six times a year (every other month) and always over a meal. She said, in between they communicate mostly by email and text. 

They are an open-invitation group with one rule which is "to check your ego at the door and bring in your knowledge. No silos allowed."

To find out more about the Utah CRC, the Health-Resiliency-Stress Questionnaire (HRSQ)once, the CRC of Utah, and find lots of great research and resources about how trauma and resilience impact health on Dr. Wiet's website.

Alice Forrester, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Clifford Beers Clinic, New Haven, CT

Dr. Forrester spoke before and after a screening of the documentary, Resilience: The Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope.

"Everywhere we go across CT people are saying, this is a real problem for us. We need to do something," she said.

"This is not a mental health problem solved by wonderful psychiatrists and social workers. This is a public health epidemic everyone should be thinking about," she insisted.

Dr. Forrester also spoke of the need for "pushing public health awareness."

Instead, she said, "We wait, as a society, until the kid is ready to disclose. You see all the damage done til the child is comfortable. My personal belief is we really need to change our perspective in talking about it (trauma). Kids and adults get the message it's not o.k. to talk about it."

She said doctors have shared why they don't or can't address ACEs. Their reasons are because they only have 11 minutes a session or because it's too uncomfortable to know a lot about families and so they don't always want to know the answers to questions about ACEs because they will remain in relationships with a kid or family for eleven years - though both are true.

Doctors have been candid enough to share, "it's because it's too hard to know," she said. "It does hurt. A lot," she said, "it's painful."

She spoke of what we've learned from our history and past mistakes as related to veterans.

She spoke about mistreated veterans were, how soldiers were sent to Vietnam on a commercial jet and dropped off, alone, into the jungle and once in Vietnam, no one would interact with them in the platoon" because new soldiers are a liability because they are new and don't know what they are doing. Adjustments were difficult going to Vietnam, while serving and then coming home.

Dr. Forrester talked about soldiers who would changed out of uniforms and into civilian clothes in airport bathrooms upon homecoming because they were called "baby killers," and yelled or spit at by protestors.

She said we learned a lot from those experiences and how important a homecoming is and how now, as a cultural we recognize that more when soldiers return home. We understand that homecoming is an important time.

She said, in relation to trauma, we need a homecoming for trauma survivors and others because there are important questions to be addressed:  

"How can I be part of a society that will listen to me?"

"Where is it o.k. to talk about hard things?"

"Where is it o.k. for a doctor to be sad?"

She said avoiding and ignoring hard topics"is where toxicity is at a cultural level."

Dr. Forrester spoke of how, for a long time, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) wasn't even used with women and children at all because it was based on the experiences of male veterans. We now know all civilians and all soldiers get PTSD and that women, in fact, are diagnosed with PTSD more than twice as often as men. 

There are social issues we are all still learning about as the #MeToo and other movements makes evident.

Dr. Forrester spoke of community violence as well as the original ACEs. She said that traumatic loss and bereavement are among the most painful types of trauma.

Note: The CRC team shared the Pair of ACEs handout with all who attended. 

Dr. Forrester said, "the highest stigmatized loss is incarceration."

She spoke of how people sometimes say things like " Daddy is in hospital, or Daddy is college, etc." 

"We have long balls of wool to untangle to learn how to talk, how to understand. We're not there yet," she said, "it's hard to talk about (some things). It's very uncomfortable."

But she stressed that the difficulty and discomfort need to be managed and worked through, collectively as kids are living with hunger, abuse, and a lot of them do not even know it's not o.k.

She spoke about the approach to bullying prevention has changed over time and how one study found it's more effective to ask all kids where bullying happens in the school than to focus only on addressing the bully or the victims of bullying.

"You have to change the environment," she said, "if bystanders do nothing they encourage the behavior."

She also spoke of her participation on Sandy Hook Advisory Commission formed in CT following the tragic shooting at  Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 where more than two dozen people were killed, the majority being young children. 

The commission learned about dozens of other school shootings and she said, "in every single school shooting someone did know something" about the shooting ahead of time but for varied reasons didn't know who, where or how to share that information.

"There are children who are suffering, among us, who are difficult and easy to ignore," she said. "We saw that in the Parkland case (Parkland, FL high school shooting tragedy). It's our problem to deal with. It's our responsibility. We need to create a world where it's o.k. to tell." 

Mary Dineen-Elovich, LCSW, Founder of Intentions Counseling and Clinical Training Center, Founding Member of the CRC of Middlesex, CT

Dineen-Elovich gave closing remarks and said, about the movie Resilience, and the work of the CRC, "The secret is this. This is about all of us. It's about you, me and our collective spirit." 

She told the story of a little girl, youngest of five, who began and ended most of her days in fear and pain, and sometimes hiding outside.

The little girl was scared and sad at home but also had hope and help from spending time outdoors, and was supported by many caring adults like a bus driver and teachers at school.  The girl, who experienced physical and sexual abuse as a child remembered a bus driver saying, "I've been waiting for you to be old enough to go to school," and shared the names of influential teachers.

In fact, the little girl grew up to start her own career as a kindergarten teachers. Who was the little girl? She was (is) Dineen-Elovich herself. She's also an Adjunct Clinical Faculty at the University of St. Joseph in West Hartford, and a founding member of the Attachment Network of CT and speaks internationally about the neurobiological impact of trauma. She has worked as a Circle of Security Parenting Educator. I call that lived and learned expertise.

Her words were a reminder that those with ACEs are among all of us, not only depicted in movies, but present in the rooms we share, common among our peers, co-workers, family members and maybe we ourselves. It's a point also well made by the anonymous sharing of the ACE scores of all who attended.

Dineen-Elovich is a founding member of the CRC. She ended her talk with this Helen Keller quote.

"Although the world is full of suffering,
it is full also of the overcoming of it."

Cissy's note: It was wonderful to get to meet @Rebecca Lemanski, MSW, in person, as we'd talked lots on the phone. It was fun to get to know some of the CRC founding members, volunteers and the community members who turned out.

It was an impressive launch.

I'd planned to be signing up folks interested in becoming members of ACEs Connection and the online CRC community at our table (see above) but we had some technical difficulties (because life). Therefore, I was able to listen to most presenters and grab some notes. While these aren't minutes and I didn't capture everything, I'm grateful to have been present and to learn with and meet so many fantastic people.

I hope others post photos, blog posts, or comments as well. This community is already doing amazing work.