A request regarding “What Happened to You?” Book studies?

We registered a book study, I believe. But we didn't hold it until this year, beginning in January so I'm not sure if it got counted. I've read the book and we have about 20 regular attendees. - Tulsa, OK

That is terrific! Thank you. I’ve heard from another study leader via email. If you had time to write a little post about your group, it would be terrific. It doesn’t matter that you started in January! You got started and are into it and have  20 other people involved and that is great! Congrats.  

If you all decide to take action in your community in some way as a result of the study, would you be willing to tell us about it?

Thank you again!

We loved the idea, but in the end were not confident that parent/caregivers would make the effort for a book group. Would love to hear how others made it work! Thanks.

Hi, I was unaware of your initiative. I am a special education teacher in Riverhead, NY, and have been trying to bring trauma-informed teaching to my district. I first read, “What Happened to You?” by Bruce Perry, MD, PhD, and Oprah Winfrey in April of 2021 and immediately recognized the power it held. Since then, I have held 2 15-hour inservice classes in my district using the book as a book study. The first class had 10 people and the second one 8. Although I was disappointed in the turn-out, both studies were completely successful and participants learned a lot.

I asked teachers to take the ACEs survey themselves and collected the results anonymously. It came as an initial surprise to me that the vast majority of teachers that took my classes scored a 0 on the ACEs. This just points out to me the need for more education in trauma-informed teaching!

Please keep me apprised if you decide to have more projects like this or events including a webinar with Dr. Perry. I regret missing it.

Eileen -

That’s great that you had those two studies!

We had a lot of support materials available for the studies and they are still available. You can access them

Also, we recorded the videos!

https://youtu.be/DZtXaOhEWkY is the video about the book studies. with the links to the support materials.

https://youtu.be/YxI1OVVBGSw Is the link to the video with our CEO Ingrid Cockhren and director of education and outreach Mathew Portell interviewing Dr. Perry.

I hope these resources are helpful!

Hi. I am currently facilitating a three meeting book group in Sylva, NC in concert with my local library (Jackson County Public Library) and co-sponsored by a new local group, the Compassion Jackson Coalition, whose goal is to provide education/activities on trauma, resilience and healing in order to move our rural  community toward greated empathy and connection. We purchased the book for 10 participants, and I created a packet for them along with a powerpoint to lead us through the book. Our group is a mixture of professionals, educators and community individuals so the powerpoint is intended to unpack some of the introduced concepts to help us better answer the questions. The powerpoint includes some short explanatory videos (including Dr Perry explaining the brain bottom to top processing, one on regulation/co-regulation, one on the ACES study and one on addiction & connection) and some regulatory reset and connection activities. Our final meeting will include a brainstorming session on how our local community & organizations can become more trauma informed and move toward resilience and healing. We are holding this book group as a Beta test with the hope that we can hold more! I attended several of the training sessions and WHTY book group via PACES. This book - especially the audio version - is so accessible for the lay person as well as professionals. I love it - and learned about it through PACES so thank you (:

I'd like to register and do a book study in 2024 however because I am in Canada, each time I've tried to get in touch with someone for the steps to do so I've had no luck. Seems all the inquiry forms you need to reside in the US.