San Diego Trauma-Informed Guide Team (SDTIGT) Learning Exchange Minutes 10.7.22 (Book: From Trauma to Resiliency: Trauma-Informed Practices for Working with Children, Families, Schools & Communities)

Networking (12:15 – 12:30 pm)

Welcome and Introductions (12:30 – 12:45)
Tri-Chairs Amelia Barile Simon, Dana Brown, and Linda Ketterer

Amelia read aloud the Land Acknowledgement.

Learning Exchange (12:45 – 1:45)
Melissa Tran Chamblin introduced speakers.

Shulamit Ritblatt and Audrey Hokoda

Reviewing SD-TIGT Goals and book, From Trauma to Resiliency: Trauma -Informed Practices for Working with Children, Families, Schools & Communities

Shulamit Ritblatt: Read aloud goals of the SDTIGT guide team and presented book From Trauma to Resiliency, which included 25 authors and provided summary of purpose and findings. Chapters explored the experiences of oppressed groups. Book reviewed trauma and long lasting negative effects of trauma but also the amazing personal strengths and forms of adaptation and resilience. Chapters also reviewed the importance of lived experience in service provision. Purpose of book was to provide an opportunity to professionals and students to learn about trauma informed practices and stories of resilience of faced adversities. This was a 5-year project from 2016-2020.

Audrey Hokoda: Presented Chapter 6, Creciendo Juntos (Growing Together): Building Leadership in Latino Parents in a Trauma-Informed Elementary School. Funding provided by California Endowment. The focus was on resident and youth leadership to build their capacity to shape culturally relevant health initiatives in their community. Project was a 9 month project with parents at Cherokee Elementary who witnessed violence and wanted to provide better and safe opportunities through trauma informed practices. Parents and community became trauma informed through educational workshops and events that were organized. Takeaways, long term collaborations and community members felt empowered.

Adrienne Markworth and Monica Bhagwan: Presented Chapter 11, Healing Around the Table: A Trauma-Informed Approach to Community Nutrition Education. Wrote chapter on nutrition education for teens and adults through a trauma informed lens. Used research on adversity, trauma, resilience, personal/professional experience to build a community nutrition education curriculum for teens and young adults. Held nutrition focus groups and testing demonstrations. Found that youth learn from a variety of sources. They enjoy exploration, discovery and surprise. Themes and objectives were used to question what a trauma informed approach would look like for nutrition education and generated interest on the alignment between equity and trauma informed care.

Cambria Rose Walsh & Melissa Bernstein. Presented Chapter 12, Trauma-Informed System Change in Child Welfare in particularly the service providers in child welfare. Work was done on a national level for research but did focus on San Diego local work. Looked at groundwork, leadership, policy, procedures, etc. Huge focus on child trauma and generational trauma. Created The Child Welfare Trauma Training toolkit, https://learn.nctsn.org/enrol/index.php?id=536. Guide is for workforce training.

Part of chapter comes from the Advancing California’s Trauma Informed Systems project; funded by Office of Child Abuse Prevention located in Rady’s Children Hospital. Partnered with Child Welfare and Behavioral Health Counties across California. Goal of project was to take the concept of a trauma informed organization and make it practical for child welfare leaders. Because there are different components of trauma informed care and within child welfare there are many demands as a system, this guide was for leaders to use for clear guidance on where to start to make meaningful and sustainable change. Research focused on the definition of what a trauma informed organization is, particularly “responds by fully integrating knowledge about trauma into policies procedures and practices and seeks to actively resist re-traumatization.” Reviewed process of how they evaluated if an organization was a trauma informed organization, this consisted of the organizational environment, workforce development and trauma informed services. Counties who participated selected the areas they wanted to work on and group worked with each county for 9 months. Most counties, 70% identified secondary traumatic stress as the area they wanted to work on. A framework to make system change was also created.

Breakout Sessions: Flowers and Weeds activity