No, we don’t need the president nor congress. We do need the following people in your county to stop business as usual and focus on preventing adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). City mayors City counselors County commissioners School board members These local elected leaders—many of them your neighbors and colleagues—have the capacity to collectively understand the emotional and financial costs of ACEs and trauma. We can’t have family-friendly cities and counties while we live in an...

We were very blessed to receive the following: Resilience Reno County, $5,840 x 3 years – Resilience Reno County 3.0 : First year of a three-year grant for an AmeriCorps Volunteers In Service to America (VISTA) position to strengthen this collaborative effort to equip community members and organizations with resources on healing from Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). Ultimately, Resilience Reno County aims to create a trauma-informed community that is more empathetic and able to connect...

Thirty-seven Reno County community members took the first step in the commitment of becoming a trauma-informed community. District 308 and ESSDACK drew people towards the pioneering conversation of building a resilient and trauma-informed Hutchinson. This all stems from the district bringing in two national trauma-informed leaders, Heather T. Forbes, author of Help for Billy and Jim Sporleder, the principal in the documentary Paper Tigers, to Hutchinson to help the district begin the journey...

After having 37 individuals at its first two meetings, there was a huge turnout for the first of three meetings targeting a study of the book Childhood Disrupted by Donna Jackson Nakazawa. Fifty-three community members, representing more than 20 agencies spent their lunch hours going deeper. Conversations about the impacts of childhood trauma were wide spread, but as one shared "in chapter three we are already talking about solutions." These meetings have lead to new connections being built...

Thanks for posting, Rebecca! Congratulations, Hutchinson and Reno County!!

thanks Rick! Great to you connected with Donna Jackson Nakazawa about questions - I bet that made for an even richer discussions! This is a nice model for that other communities may want to replicate.

There was incredible energy in the room and people are plugged in. I am so excited to watch this unfold.

HI Rick- I wonder if you can share any tips or the outline of how you structured the book study? Thank you!

Hi, Gail. We selected 4 questions from chapter 1-3 with assistance from the author. The "extra" question was for attendees to share anything gleaned from the reading which they deemed was relevant to their particular organizations. We allowed about 45 minutes for discussion and gave time updates every 10-15 minutes to keep groups on task. Each table group captured their most important ideas on chart paper. At the end a representative of each table shared their "big idea". I took snapshots of...