Eighteenth Edition: Preventing ACEs | Healing Adversity | Promoting Resilience | Georgia PACEs Connection (GA)

Aligning Resources Across Georgia To Support Resiliency

To Our Resilient Georgia Partners and Stakeholders:

Mark your calendars for our Lunch and Learn taking place July 21st from 12 to 12:45. We launched Resilient Georgia Lunch and Learn series this year to provide a place for our regional coalition partners, peers, and stakeholders to share opportunities for partnership across the state. Next month will feature Sewn Arts. Sewn Arts is a nonprofit organization working throughout Georgia that aids care providers and health & human service agencies incorporate evidence-based arts interventions that improve individual and community health. If you would like to attend or present at one of our upcoming Lunch and Learns, please contact us at info@resilientga.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">info@Resilientga.org.

We would like to take a moment to honor June as Pride month, and share the work of a few organizations making the world a better place for our LGBTQ+ friends. Be sure to check out AMAZE’s youth-targeted initiatives to provide LGBTQ+ inclusive sex education from a young age. Their videos can help parents and educators start a respectful and informative conversation about sexual orientation and gender identity. The Trevor Project has a great page of national resources and guides supporting kids who identify as LGBTQ+. If Georgia is your home, we recommend checking out this list of resources curated by Georgia Equality. Lastly, we’d like to highlight the work of Lost-n-Found Youth, who help connect LGBTQ+ youth experiencing homelessness in Georgia with safe and supportive housing. At Resilient Georgia, we hope our work empowers and supports the LGBTQ+ community at all times, not just the month of June, but we recognize this month as a wonderful time to reflect on how to invest in a better future for LGBTQ+ kids.

Teenish

We are so proud of the recognition our Coastal Georgia Regional Coalition partner, Savannah’s Gateway Behavioral Health Community Services Board, is getting for their “Teenish” mental health and wellness podcast. The podcast, developed by and for youth in Savannah and neighboring communities, sheds light on systematic and personal issues around mental health. Keep up the great work!

Instagram: @teenish912nk

We would also like to highlight several resources and news updates:

Be sure to check out this article highlighting the necessary and timely work of Resilient Georgia partner Kate’s Club to promote resilience and coping strategies in children facing grief around the death of a loved one.
Mental Health America of Georgia is hosting June trainings on mental health crises, balancing work and wellbeing, maternal and youth mental health, financial literacy, and building resilience. Follow the links to register before it’s too late!
We want to highlight the work of Lydia’s Place, an organization helping emotionally and physically support youth in their transition from homelessness and/or foster care.
Through their new initiative, Georgia’s Resilience Innovation Team, the Medical Association of Georgia is empowering medical professionals to address unique effects of the waning COVID-19 pandemic, such as grief, burnout, and PTSD. The American Medical Association’s “Joy in Medicine” program highlights further resources for supporting medical professionals.

Summer can present unique challenges for parents and children alike. If you or someone you know could use some help with meals this summer, please take a look at this summer meals locator flyer by the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning. Additionally, SHAPE America has created a calendar of activities linked here in English and in Spanish. Georgia State University also provides access to some awesome at-home ways to get kids exercising their brains and bodies. Additionally, check out these youth-centered summer groups on social, personal, and problem-solving skills conducted by licensed therapists at CHRIS 180.

If you’re hoping to get your children to a camp this summer but don’t know where to start looking, feel free to utilize Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning's guide to choosing a program. Despite activities on the agenda, summer can mean more time together at home for some families. This self-care summer toolkit created by the Alliance for a Healthier Generation can help set you and your family up for a more restful season. Finally, a psychologist presents her case for giving teens a break after this especially hard year. After the amplified stress of this past year, we hope our newsletter serves as a reminder to take a deep breath and encourage the kids in your life to do the same!

Sincerely,

Brenda Fitzgerald, MD

Executive Board Chair

Emily Anne Vall, PhD

Executive Director

Regional Grantee Coalition Spotlight

Can you give us a brief description of the Building a Region of Resilience coalition?

We are Georgia Family Connection Region 1, 15 separate but united collaborative organizations who are focused on helping build resilience in our communities. Our mission is to create a poverty- and trauma-informed and responsive region by building capacity, increasing community awareness, and influencing systems change - with a focus on creating and implementing strategic plans. Our priority frameworks include Strengthening Families (5 protective factors) and Trust Based Relational Intervention (TBRI).

Rome Northwest Georgia Coalition

Coalition Geographic Service Area:

Bartow, Catoosa, Chattooga, Dade, Fannin, Floyd, Gilmer, Gordon, Haralson, Murray, Paulding, Pickens, Polk, Walker, Whitfield

What are some of the innovative partnerships that have helped address the behavioral health needs of the region?

We are currently working with the PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports) and Wrap-around Services Coordinators for NW Georgia with DOE and RESA to provide a Compassion Fatigue training for school administrators. Facilitated by our partner, Georgia HOPE, this training will be the kick off for a year-long program providing incentives for school administrators and staff who engage in prevention activities each month.

What are some accomplishments you would like to highlight?

Capacity Building – The leadership of each Georgia Family Connection collaborative in Region 1 have been trained to deliver an evidence-based or best practice curriculum related to trauma and/or poverty. These include: TBRI Caregiver Training , Connections Matter, Bridges out of Poverty, Darkness to Light nd Standards of Quality for Family Strengthening and Support.
Community Awareness - The region has leveraged their learning to create Trauma 101 and Poverty 101 workshops that build awareness and encourage collaborative partners to seek additional training and capacity building in one of the above-mentioned programs. 67 awareness activities have been implemented this fiscal year, serving 2.209 participants including board members, community partners, parents, children/youth, and community members.
Systems Change - 14 counties have embedded trauma- and/or poverty-informed best practices in their strategic plan implementation for FY22 and most are using or creating strategy teams and workgroups to guide their work and provide oversight.

To learn more, please visit the Rome Northwest Georgia Coalition website and read our Resilient Georgia Regional Grantee Summaries - Spring 2021 .

Positive and Adverse Childhood Experiences (PACEs)

Need summer reading material? We encourage readers to check out this inspiring autobiographywritten by Justin and Alexis Black, a couple who both encountered hardship in their childhoods but utilized hope and connection to overcome the consequences.

We also recommend this new documentary series created by Oprah and Prince Harry, “The Me You Can’t See”, discusses mental health struggles while sharing research and resources by mental health experts. Finally, this article highlights the supportive perspective of Shanti Das, founder of mental health non-profit “Silence the Shame”, on the recent announcement that tennis player Naomi Osaka is dropping out of the French Open to address her struggles with depression and anxiety.

Getting the word out is undeniably important, but so is action. We are grateful for research pioneering evidence-based ways to promote resilience, such as therapy designed to create immunity from toxic stress. To read about stress inoculation therapy and more about how resilience works, check out this review article from Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience. Another way to protect kids from experiencing the aftereffects of ACE's is simply to be there for them. Having a caring and understanding adult figure can alter a child’s life drastically. As a parent, this conversation can be as simple as being transparent about your own struggles. If this feels scary, and you're not sure where to start, consider reading this thoughtful guide about "talk[ing] to your kid about their mental health". For professionals, we would like to amplify the work of Dr. Johanna Greeson, who authored this manual about connecting with and mentoring adolescents in foster care.

COVID-19 Resources

As the COVID-19 pandemic evolves, children can benefit from clear communication about how to keep themselves and others safe. Check out Strong4Life’s guide on how to “Help Kids Adjust to Changing COVID-19 Guidelines”.

This playbook for “Vaccination Efforts and Communication Barriers”, compiled by Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, includes a wealth of trauma-informed instruction for those hosting COVID-19 vaccine distribution sites on centering equity and trust when promoting and giving vaccines.

Interested in how COVID-19 has impacted behavioral health services? This tracker shows behavioral health changes in metropolitan cities all across America. Notably, though telehealth has increased, all behavioral health services in Atlanta are down 6%. This could reflect new financial or personal barriers that the pandemic has created for individuals.

Racial Equity Resources

Child Trends reports new data showing that child poverty overall has increased by 1.8% in 2020. These increases are especially prominent among Latino and Black children.

Read about researchers at Emory University investigating the links between racial stressors and health outcomes as well as ways to remediate racial disparities in the healthcare system.

When a classmate says Min Jee’s lunch is “how everyone got sick,” will her friends speak up? This story by Elizabeth Kleinrock, a 2018 recipient of the Teaching Tolerance Award for Excellence in Teaching, can help students see the importance of interrupting bias and valuing the cultural traditions of their families and friends.

Be sure to read additional resources on the topics above, and more, here.

“No matter how bleak or menacing a situation may appear, it does not entirely own us. It can't take away our freedom to respond, our power to take action.”

― Ryder Carroll

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