ITRC PNW Transformational Resilience Network

All mental health and social service leaders are urged to read the attached article Preparing for Climate Overshoot Requires Quickly Expanding Our Mental Health System . It describes: How this decade or early next global temperatures will likely surpass the 2.7 F temperature threshold that unleashes extremely destructive and possibly irreversible impacts on the planet and society (climate scientists call this "climate overshoot") How, if we remain unprepared, the climate overshoot will...

No matter where you are in the world, one thing ties people together: We all gotta eat. But the ways people go about producing food can have disastrous consequences for the environment. With climate change already breathing down our necks, many are now pointing to sustainable methods of farming like regenerative agriculture as a blueprint for the future. Modern agriculture has led to a number of issues worldwide. For example, monoculture farming — where you use a single plot of land to just...

The next free 1 hr. webinar on the new ITRC Mental Wellness and Resilience Policy is in less than 2 weeks: on Thursday , March 25 from 12 noon to 1:00 pm Pacific Time (3:00-4:00 pm Eastern Time--US & Canada) (Note: this webinar was originally scheduled for March 18). To Register for the Webinar go to the ITRC Website: http://www.theresourceinnovationgroup.org/ Why the Urgent Need for a New Approach to Foster Mental Wellness and Resilience? The skyrocketing mental health and psychosocial...

From Healthy Places by Design, March 2021 NEW REPORT Socially Connected Communities Solutions for Social Isolation In recent decades, people in the United States and around the world have experienced soaring rates of social isolation, with profound impacts on community health and well-being. Healthy Places by Design, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has released a new report that reframes the conversation about isolation and outlines five recommendations for creating...

From Colorado State University, Science Daily, February 5, 2021 New research from the Colorado State University Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, published in Nature Scientific Reports , has found hospitals and schools are interdependent, suggesting their collective recovery must be considered in order to restore a community in the wake of disaster. Because hospitals and schools are so integral to a community's well-being, Associate Professor Hussam Mahmoud and Ph.D.

The Hill magazine today published my Commentary calling on the Biden Administration and Congress to recognize the urgent need to link their efforts to address both the pandemic and climate crisis with community-based population-level initiatives to prevent and heal mental health and psychosocial problems. It can be found here: https://thehill.com/changing-america/opinion/540152-pandemic-and-climate-solutions-will-fail-without-a-major-focus-on Building community-based, culturally-grounded,...

Please see information below regarding the Prevention Institute’s upcoming peer learning forum on trauma-informed approaches during catastrophic events taking place on Wednesday, February 17 th from 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM . Registration link below. Join Feb. 17 peer learning forum on trauma-informed approaches during catastrophic events What does it mean for a city or other local government to be trauma-informed and what might this look like during the COVID-19 pandemic? Agencies and...

January has seen major progress toward protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge , thanks to the organizing power of three distinct communities—Indigenous activists, TikTok creators, and the makers of an unfinished documentary film—that came together toward a common goal. “To be honest, it’s not easy going into places, talking to people that will never understand how spiritually and culturally connected we are to our land, to our water, and to our animals,” says Bernadette Demientieff,...

By Jazmin Goodwin, CNN, January 25, 2021 Europeans got more of their electricity from renewable sources than fossil fuels for the first time last year, according to an annual report from Ember and Agora Energiewende. The report, which has been tracking EU's power sector since 2015, found that renewables delivered 38% of electricity last year, compared to 37% delivered by fossil fuels. The shift comes as other sources, such as wind and solar power, have risen in the European Union. Both...

ITRC Training Program begins on Tuesday February 9 and includes CE Credits from the American Public Health Association For a detailed description and schedule, and to apply to attend, go to the ITRC website: http://www.theresourceinnovationgroup.org/

By Jane C. Hu, Outside Online, December 3, 2020 When Aimee Gray woke up on a Sunday morning in October 2017, she decided she was finally going to get a new pair of shoes. She’d worn holes in her favorite Skechers, so when she and her husband headed into town for groceries, she stopped in the shoe store and treated herself to two new pairs. As they drove back to the home they rented on Bennett Ridge Road, in the hills southeast of Santa Rosa, California, her husband remarked on the strange,...

A People’s Curriculum for the Earth is a collection of articles, role plays, simulations, stories, poems, and graphics to help breathe life into teaching about the environmental crisis. The book features some of the best articles from Rethinking Schools magazine alongside classroom-friendly readings on climate change, energy, water, food, and pollution — as well as on people who are working to make things better. At a time when it’s becoming increasingly obvious that life on Earth is at...