Wendy Ellis, left, with Cincinnati councilmember Scotty Johnson. (Courtesy Wendy Ellis) June 29, 2023 — By Ruth Steinhardt — GWTODAY Her research on the deliberate destruction of Black communities in Cincinnati was recognized as key to the formal apology. Cincinnati’s lower West End neighborhood was a thriving enclave of middle-class Black family life when it was effectively obliterated by the construction of Interstate 75 in 1956, with 2,800 buildings leveled and nearly 26,000 residents...

The Center for Community Resilience (CCR) is pleased to share its 2022 Annual Report highlighting our latest efforts to advance a national movement building more equitable and just communities for children and families. CCR worked with partners across the country to develop new approaches in narrative change to lift up the truth of structural racism, strengthen power-building to mobilize communities and the organizations that serve their needs and interests, and use science to measure...

Join the Center for Community Resilience and our partners on Wednesday, February 8, as we unveil the 2023 national policy agenda to promote health and well-being across the lifespan. This comprehensive agenda focuses on the building blocks for health and well-being to promote social and economic equity for America's children, families and communities. Register at https://bit.ly/3ZyelGU Read more about the agenda here . Presented in partnership with the Institute for Women's Policy Research...

America’s Truth: Documentary Bridges History, Community, and Policy for Change The Center for Community Resilience at George Washington University is pleased to announce the release of America’s Truth , a documentary that tells the truth about how structural racism harmed four Black communities in Cincinnati. Today's inequities — across race, gender, and class — result from centuries of policies and practices meant to create and sustain social hierarchy. To move forward toward an equitable...

Community resilience is much more than the absence of adversity. As we have demonstrated in our work at the Center for Community Resilience-- equitable access to trauma-informed systems and supports that help children and families prevent adversity, heal from trauma and most importantly provide a foundation from which a community thrive is what resilience looks like! As an 'antidote' to our Pair of ACEs tree, we unveiled our latest resource The Resilience Tree. Much like the Pair of ACEs...

Our first ever documentary chronicles this community's journey of facing difficult truths, providing space for reconciliation and the formation of political will for systems transformation.

Wendy Ellis, William Dietz, Daniel Chen: Community Resilience as a framework for Public Health 3.0 to address structural racism, foster equity, and improve population health. The article, “ Community Resilience: A Dynamic Model for Public Health 3.0 ” presents an innovative model for Chief Health Strategists to measure and define place-based community resilience. The paper describes methods for measuring equity and addressing structural racism as a public health strategy to improve community...

Being Anti-racist is the first step in taking steps to end racial trauma as an adverse childhood and adverse community experience. In the Building Community Resilience Networks and in the work of the Center for Community Resilience we are dedicated to confronting the root cause of racial trauma in our country and across the globe-- the belief in White supremacy that is empowered by structural racism to produce the outcome of White supremacy. This is the vicious cycle of American life. To...

Struggling with how to Foster Equity Conversations in Community? Join the national partners of the Building Community Resilience Networks as we share our lessons learned in fostering equity as a strategy to prevent childhood adversity and build community resilience. Wednesday, February 26th 12pm-1:15pm Eastern More info at go.gwu.edu/EquityWebinar As a nation we have agonized over how to approach conversations on race, racism, inequity and racial justice. Too often we have opted to attempt...

GET the @ ResilNation Policy & Advocacy Guide at go.gwu.edu/bcrpolicyguide . JOIN our policy webinar on May 23rd 1pm Eastern. REGISTER at go.gwu.edu/bcrpolicywebin ar. ADVOCATE for Resilient Communities for a # ResilientNation !

This week, BCR networks from across the country will come together to share lessons learned in building resilience in the face of community adversity with one another and with the nation’s lawmakers. This meeting takes place in Washington, DC – a city with one of the highest opioid death rates in the country where, like in other American urban areas, it’s African American deaths due to opioids that are spiking most steeply. Violent crime is down but homicides increase.

Building Community Resilience in DC RSVP & join us to discuss local work to build a resilient nation in DC! On Thursday, April 19 th , Building Community Resilience (BCR) will convene local partners - including from DC's Chief Resilience Officer from the Office of the City Administrator, the Early Childhood Innovation Network , legislative staff from the DC Council Committee on Health, Mary’s Center , and others - to describe local resilience work being done through programs, practice...

In response to the increasing demand for BCR expertise and insight we plan to provide more opportunities to share lessons learned. In addition to our regional expansion, see BCR in action later this month. Join us for the next BCR Town Hall in DC on Thursday, April 19th at 3:00pm (EST) in person or via livestream. Read more for details.

Blog Written by Jeff Hild Policy Director, Redstone Center for Prevention and Wellness At the Building Community Resilience (BCR) collaborative and network — based at the Redstone Center for Prevention and Wellness , George Washington University School of Public Health — we are working to improve the health and wellbeing of children, families and communities across the country. We do this by working to align systems to address the “Pair of ACEs”  — adverse childhood experiences in the...

Tomorrow (July 26), Building Community Resilience will co-host a briefing on childhood trauma-- The Need to Address Childhood Trauma: Implications for Child Welfare and Education-- at the U.S. House of Representatives. Honorary Co-Hosts are Rep. Danny K. Davis (IL-7) and the Congressional Foster Youth Caucus. Featured speakers include Wendy Ellis , Milken Scholar, doctoral candidate and BCR Project Director, Olga Price , Director of the National Center for Health and Health Care in Schools.

As the adage goes, actions speak louder than words. I was reminded of this after being racially targeted during a business trip to Los Angeles this week.* The incident happened after returning my rental car and boarding the company’s shuttle service to the terminal. I was second in the line of more than 30 other customers who had been waiting for nearly a half hour for the shuttle to arrive. As is customary, the driver began to ask us of our terminal destinations, but when he got to me he...

In every city, in every community and on every block, an American family struggles with adversity. That’s the thing about a dverse c hildhood e xperiences (ACEs)—they have no boundaries. ACEs transcend race, class, religion, and economic status. They include experiences ranging from extreme poverty or family problems, to experiencing violence, abuse, and discrimination. While the prevalence of ACEs across all demographics are a fact, using hard data to demonstrate the impact in your...

BCR Coalition Building and Communications Webinar Tuesday at 1pm (Eastern). Register at go.gwu.edu/BCRwebinar The Building Community Resilience (BCR) initiative aims to promote community resilience through cross-sector partnerships and integrated networks that will address, prevent and reduce the effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and Adverse Community Environments (ACEs) on children’s health and well-being (The “Pair of ACEs”). The BCR Pair of ACEs tree image grew out of our...

"Medicine should join our community organizations and agencies and experts to work towards creating healthier families and children."- Dr. Robert Shapiro, Cincinnati Children's Hospital and Medical Center The Mayerson Center for Safe and Healthy Children of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and Medical Center spearheads the Building Community Resilience (BCR) initiative that now spans over 40 organizations and sectors in the greater Cincinnati region. The Mayerson Center, the child abuse...

We know that resilience – or one’s ability to ‘bounce back’ in the face of adversity – can protect an individual from the accumulation of stress due to adverse childhood experiences. BCR, based at the Redstone Global Center for Prevention and Wellness at the George Washington University, takes this understanding to the community level in order to foster resilience that buffers against adversities impacting whole communities – and to break the cycle of poor health and other lifelong outcomes.

This past month the Building Community Resilience collaborative met in Dallas to focus on strategies for communities and hospital health systems to reduce toxic stress and prevent adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) through a population-health approach. The Dallas BCR team led by Cheryl McCarver at Children's Health wrote this blog that highlights the power of collaboration and potential in community to build resilience. Learn more about how we are connecting health systems and community to...

As Kim Scott, the President and CEO of Trilliam Family Services points out in his recent blog post , the not-for-profit sector has reached a critical moment in an era of healthcare transformation. There is an increasing need for cross-sector solutions to our biggest social challenges. This means that organizations working in isolation leave themselves at risk for losing connection with the communities they intend to serve. For this reason, not-for-profits must take control of the narratives...

Last week's meeting of the Building Community Resilience collaborative provided an opportunity for one of our nation's leading experts on obesity to call attention to ACEs and trauma. Read more from Dr. Bill Dietz at this Huffington Post blog. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obesity-zip-code-and-adversity-new-action-toward_us_571ea1a5e4b03b93e7e42a69

Join us Thursday at 12PM EST/9 AM PST on Twitter for the #ResilientNation chat. We'll be discussing a recent Prevention Institute report on adverse community experiences. This is your opportunity to engage with the co-authors of the report. Read more here: http://bit.ly/1SijI8e