Engaging a Broad Audience: Lynn Waymer’s Reflection on Community and the 2018 Beyond Paper Tigers Conference

“Trauma is becoming an everyday word. People are hearing it on the news. They’re reading about it in newspapers as well as magazines,” Lynn Waymer notes. Lynn- the Vice President of Communications and Community Engagement at KPJR Films- was a speaker for CRI's 2018 Beyond Paper Tigers (BPT) conference. In reflecting on the conference, Lynn discussed her perspective of community, the shifts she has witnessed in KPJR Films’ audience, and the power of broad media campaigns.

“What we’re seeing right now is that our audience is become much broader than any particular vertical,” Lynn comments. KPJR Films- the producers of the documentaries Paper Tigers and Resilience- originally attracted educators to their films. Gradually, their audience expanded, and with each screening, it touched a new group. Lynn remarks that “following educators, both K-12 and colleges and universities, interest came from pediatricians. Then it was juvenile justice professionals. Then federal government agencies. More and more of the general public is becoming interested in the subject and both films serve as innovative educational tools.” Through film and media, we are seeing the science of trauma and resilience attracting vast sectors of individuals.

The 2018 BPT conference focused on CRI’s message that Community is the Solution; ultimately, we have the greatest success in building resilience when many social sectors are involved. Lynn and KPJR Films are indeed witnessing this cross-sector engagement from their own audiences and thus have launched social media campaigns to educate and communicate with the everyday person.

“Trauma and toxic stress affect everyone; it doesn’t discriminate. We try to extend our messages a little broader to really illustrate how trauma affects all children,” Lynn notes about the hashtag campaigns #PreventTraumaBuildResilience and #BeTheOne, the former of which was launched at the 2018 BPT Conference.

The #PreventTraumaBuildResilience campaign centers on providing tips, tactics, and strategies for maintaining a resilience focus. Utilizing the platform Twitter spreads KJPR’s resources, engages those with additional knowledge, and begins discussions about various viewpoints. For example, Lynn tweeted a clip of a KPJR film, a visual explanation of the effects of toxic stress on the body, and [they’re] “seeing the highest level of social media engagement- sharing- with this clip,” she’s observed. Once people hear the language of toxic stress, Lynn notices that their interested is piqued, they want to learn more, and many take a step further and take action.

The audience of the 2018 BPT conference was the first to be introduced to the campaign; they experienced the launch live, as the conversation extended online. With excitement, Lynn shared that KPJR has already received feedback from the community embracing the hashtag since the conference.

And in reflecting on the conference, as the hashtag expands, Lynn welcomes any community that comes to her in need. “We don’t necessarily see ‘rightness’ or ‘wrongness’ of a situation; we see an opportunity to educate,” she says. “We are flexible, we respond to the need presented.