Resources for staff support groups, around mitigating STS or building resilience?

Boston, Cambridge, and some North Shore (Massachusetts) municipal Police Departments have [trauma-informed] Intentional Police Peer Support programs that are affiliated with the On-Site Academy, which provides Crisis Respite Care for All 'First Responders' AND Human Services personnel, now from anywhere in the world (Used to be just from USA/and only 'First Responders'), but they now have their Crisis/Respite program on a serene rural farm, with animals....

Hi Jenny,  The TIMBo Collective in Boston is doing this work with several organizations in Boston and Washington DC--building staff/systems resilience through their TIMBo for organizational wellbeing methodology. I'm attaching the most recent white paper.  Happy to put you in touch with Sue Jones, the founder to learn more. Full disclosure, I'm involved with the organization but I think they have a revolutionary way of embedding resilience practices in staff. 

Best,

Lynn

@Lynn Eikenberry: 

I'm in MA, work at ACEs Connection, and would love to hear more about the work from you and Sue Jones as I'm sure those on the MA Essentials for Childhood statewide team would as well. In fact, I'm tagging @Deb Mutschler as well who keeps us all quite organized. Also the Hampshire County Roads to Resilience Community in MA is doing exciting work as well so I'm going to tag @Heather Turner @Kristal Cleaver and @Andrea Mancuso who help communicate what's happening there in case you all aren't already aware of one another.

@Robert Olcott You are so generous with your extensive knowledge about what's happening all over New England and the nation. THANK You! I'm going to look more into what's happening in the Police Peer Support and Respite Care as well that I'm not aware of. THANK YOU! 

Cissy  

Lynn Eikenberry posted:

Hi Jenny,  The TIMBo Collective in Boston is doing this work with several organizations in Boston and Washington DC--building staff/systems resilience through their TIMBo for organizational wellbeing methodology. I'm attaching the most recent white paper.  Happy to put you in touch with Sue Jones, the founder to learn more. Full disclosure, I'm involved with the organization but I think they have a revolutionary way of embedding resilience practices in staff. 

Best,

Lynn

THANK YOU!  This model looks incredible and is completely in line with what I'm looking for.  If you don't mind, I'd love the chance to chat with Sue.  My e-mail is jak292@case.edu if you are willing to connect us.  For context, I am the Asst. Director at the Center on Trauma and Adversity at CWRU in Cleveland.  We have rolled out Healing Network Nights-- a monthly drop-in opportunity for any helping professional attempting to engage in trauma-informed practices, with the goal of enhancing the relational health of our workforce.  Our first gathering saw educators, nurses, social workers, yoga teachers... even an architect found his way to us. Looking for a comprehensive model to guide us in making sure we use the time to create as much healing and support as we can.  

Thanks again for sharing.

Hi Jennifer, The Philadelphia ACE Task Force has been working on secondary traumatic stress for a number of years.  Our work began with a screening of the film Caregivers as part of our ACE Film Festival.  More recently we have been working with the Philadelphia City Council to raise awareness about and begin to craft policies that address STS.  Here's a recent article about our work https://generocity.org/philly/...0&_hsmi=69526486

On a separate note, my son is an undergraduate at CWRU - would love to connect with you next time I'm in Cleveland which may be in May.  I also recently spoke at a conference in Mahoning Co. OH - they are doing some great work to organize their trauma across sectors

Leslie Lieberman posted:

Hi Jennifer, The Philadelphia ACE Task Force has been working on secondary traumatic stress for a number of years.  Our work began with a screening of the film Caregivers as part of our ACE Film Festival.  More recently we have been working with the Philadelphia City Council to raise awareness about and begin to craft policies that address STS.  Here's a recent article about our work https://generocity.org/philly/...0&_hsmi=69526486

On a separate note, my son is an undergraduate at CWRU - would love to connect with you next time I'm in Cleveland which may be in May.  I also recently spoke at a conference in Mahoning Co. OH - they are doing some great work to organize their trauma across sectors

Thanks, Leslie!  I actually lived in Philadelphia about 5 years ago and was at FPCN/Health Annex and I think may have connected with you around the trauma-informed efforts happening there!  We've come full circle.  Would love to connect with you when you're in Cleveland-- let me know! 

We are hoping to screen Caregivers as part of our Healing Network Night initiative.  We are in the very early stages of attempting to do some city wide work in this area, as well, and would love to hear any tips you have.  

Hello Jenny, et al.

What an interesting series of responses to which I'm responding somewhat belatedly.  I very much appreciate your question about peer support groups as I too promote such peer-led interventions in workshops that I've been doing for many years on secondary trauma and staff resiliency.  My focus on this subject comes from my work for 20+ years in child welfare and the recognition of the incredible grief and loss that staff and even more so clients experience.  

As I moved into filmaking some years ago, I was eager to explore this subject further and discovered that secondary or vicarious trauma of course occurs in so many additional professional caregiving fields.

Am happy to talk or email with any of you further about the question of peer support groups, debriefing modalities that I use, and other interventions.  CAREgivers film which I co-produced and released in 2015 continues, I'm happy to say, to be screened and broadcast with regularity and interest--and is used in various training TIC centers. I'd be happy to share a link for review purposes upon request.

I very much enjoyed reading the TIMBo White Paper as I also practice MBSR and utilize some aspects of it in my workshops.  It was a pleasure to be hosted by Police Captain Darren Ivey for a screening / workshop in Kansas City;  I'd love to know more about  Robert Olcott's Crisis Respite Care for All 'First Responders' AND Human Services.

I can be reached at 267-266-0842 or by email at viccompher@comcast.net .

With best wishes,

Vic

Vic Compher, MSS, LCSW

Filmaker

www.caregiversfilm.com 

http://authenticconnectionsgroups.org/

I’m going to bed feeling very hopeful, reading about all these amazing people and groups, quiet making history in wellness. Thank you for helping me and my work continue to grow and deepen in serving the healing and helping communities. Gratitude.