As children are returning to school, many parents and children are experiencing anxiety. The anxiety may be sparked as parents leave their children in the care of others with a nagging worry about Covid-19 and whether it can spread throughout a school. Parents who believe in vaccinating may be worried about children who live with non-vaccinated parents and how that could impact their children’s health. Some parents may experience panic attacks and increased irritability. With the recent spread of the Delta variant, parents may feel more uncertain of whether to send their children back to school or not. In addition, parents want to know about school protocols for safety and connection. Some parents who don’t believe in masks or vaccines may wonder how their views will be accepted by the school and other parents. Parents are also concerned about how schools are going to be addressing the loss of learning that may have happened during school closures. Therapists Susan Reedy and Inez Tiger will discuss how parents can cultivate their well-being and reduce their anxiety and help their children as they return to school. They bring rich experiences of being school counselors. They will share their knowledge about how to help parents navigate this journey along with their children.

Dr. Randall Bell will discuss his book, Post-Traumatic Thriving, the Art, Science and Stories of Resilience. Today we see crime, abuse, alcoholism, drugs, anger, and anxiety everywhere. Jails and prisons are crammed on an industrial scale. Recovery centers are packed with patients. Extreme political and religious groups regularly trap more members. Too many schools are simply factories for dropouts. All of this is the result of unresolved trauma. Ultimately, the quality of our lives depends on our ability to successfully process our heartbreaks and catastrophes. By college age, 66% to 85% of all people have been impacted by at least one traumatic experience. COVID has arguably traumatized everyone. In Post-Traumatic Thriving, Dr. Bell follows the journey from the depths of the initial shock to the pinnacle of ultimate healing and growth. Dr. Bell will discuss his new book. He will share some of the poignant stories of people he has met on his journey and interweave advanced science with the stories of people who have not just survived but used their trauma as the fuel to thrive.

Fires are devastating to communities and to the children, teens and adults grappling to survive and to recover. During the last week in Western United States, over 22,000 firefighters were combating wildfires, homes burned, and thousands of residents fled from the fast-moving flames. The Dixie Fire in Northern California and the Bootleg Fire in southern Oregon are being further sparked by very dry conditions and what climate change scientists say from climate change. The stark reality is we cannot expect the wildfire threat to ease any time soon. The harsh reality is the nation will continue to see more intense wildfires stated Oregon Gov. Kate Brown last week. We can learn from communities like Butte County’s Paradise, California destroyed by the Camp Fire in 2018. Many people lost their lives. The community of Butte County gathered during and after this tragedy to rebuild. Scott Dinits, my guest works as the Human Resources Director for the Boys & Girls Clubs of the North Valley and is also a Co-Director of the Ability First Sports Camp in Butte County. He is a Steering Committee member of Thrive. Thrive exists to support and expand community wide policies and practices that promote resiliency and address the impact of childhood trauma across all generations. Scott will address the impact on children and families caused by the fires and how through working with programs promoting wellness, healing can occur. He is certified in the Community Resiliency Model and as an ACE Interface Master Trainer.

Meet Me At the Shore: Tracking the Tide of Posttraumatic Growth After Human Trafficking and Trauma K Thomas, a trained trauma therapist and a survivor of sexual and relationship violence. K will weave their personal and professional journey through the challenges of healing, finding appropriate care, and the constant ebb and flow of posttraumatic growth. Working with North County Lifeline’s Project LIFE, K has provided trauma therapy, reprocessing, case management, and emergency response to survivors of sex and labor trafficking and exploitation. K will share personal and professional experiences of posttraumatic growth and experiences of their work with survivors of human trafficking and exploitation and practical tips of how to meet clients at the shore of resiliency. Survivors of human trafficking and exploitation are no stranger to the reality that healing from trauma is a lifelong process. Many survivors of human trafficking have experienced severe psychology, financial, physical, and sexual violence with long lasting mental, physical, legal, and financial impacts. Some folks might even ask if it’s possible to heal from so much trauma. If you are working to overcome your own traumas or working in the mental health field, you’ve probably heard the phrase “Healing isn’t linear.” Just like nature itself, we move through seasons of growth, death, expansion, and contraction in our healing journeys. We often become discouraged by setbacks, triggers, and obstacles to obtain care. We become overwhelmed by the dance floor of trauma, caught up in the constant movement, high energy, and lack of center. But what if stepped off the dance floor and onto the balcony? What if we viewed our journey as constant exploration of self instead of a task to complete?

How do we fund innovative reforms to make mental health services that are trauma-informed and resiliency-focused more accessible? Two leaders in the field, Carey Smith Sipp and Jesse Kohler, advocates for reform in communities and in our legislature, will share their views and the importance of community members working together and using their voice to create change. They will help us understand the American Rescue Plan Act, three new pieces of legislation that can help our communities organize and fund mental health practices fostering equity, diversity, and inclusion. They will discuss how accessing the funds of the American Rescue Act Plan can help in protecting our most precious resources, our children, the children to come, and our earth. Carey and Jesse will also share about themselves and what inspired them to be invested in this work. Carey Smith Sipp is a community facilitator for PACEs Connection from PACEs, a social network that supports communities to accelerate the global positive & adverse childhood experiences (PACEs) movement in shaping adult behavior and health. Jesse Kohler is the Executive Director from the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice (CTIPP), an organization committed to inform and advocate for public policies and programs at the federal, state, tribal, and local levels that incorporate scientific findings regarding the relationship between trauma and related social and health challenges across the lifespan

Drs. Larry Ward and Peggy Rowe-Ward will address how we are all as a world community are impacted by Racism and how we can heal from the traumas that arise from Racism. Dr. Ward’s book, America’s Racial Karma published in September 2020 addresses how America can begin to heal. They have been teaching and practicing with Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, a global spiritual leader, poet and peace activist, revered throughout the world for his powerful teachings and bestselling writings on mindfulness and peace. They received the lamp (teacher transmission) from him at Plum Village in 2001. They co-authored Love’s Garden and this book was featured in The Best Buddhist Writing of 2009. Peggy and Larry work with CEOs of Fortune 500 programs to integrate cultural diversity, corporate change and transformation. They will also address the Wisdom School they have created to bring healing to our global community.

New Hanover County faces many natural crises due to their location on the coast of North Carolina and the numerous hurricanes that have occurred over the last few years. New Hanover County adopted biologically-based resilience practices from the Community Resiliency Model (CRM) with the goal to create a trauma-informed and resiliency-focused practice toward each person in public service, sharing a common understanding of the impact of trauma and chronic stress on the nervous system. The implementation is integrated as core measures for professional development and as a means to permeate the county’s culture.  This is not only imperative in the aftermath of community disasters but also for prevention. Bo Dean and Mebane Boyd will discuss how resiliency strategies were implemented through community partnerships and in conjunction with the New Hanover County Resiliency Task Force.  They will discuss how their resiliency programs emerged throughout the county and discuss their challenges and successes.

Heidi Williams-Cooper and Lindy Settevendemie began working together just prior to the pandemic with Emory University’s Social, Emotional, and Ethical (SEE) Learning program.  SEE Learning is an innovative K-12 education program, providing educators with the tools they need to foster the development of emotional, social, and ethical intelligence for students and themselves. Ms. Williams-Cooper and Ms. Settevendemie's work started as a collaboration to create a culturally responsive adaptation of the SEE Learning curriculum to meet the needs of the the Kindezi Schools’ community, students and teachers alike. They have rich teaching backgrounds and a shared wisdom in ideas to guide us during this post-pandemic era from a vista of looking forward as they look back. They will explore how to use SEE Learning to cultivate well-being, promote healing, and support liberation.

This month is PTSD Awareness Month. Kate Wheeler and Elaine Miller-Karas will dialogue about the treatment of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) and how through two treatment methods, EMDR and the Trauma Resiliency Model (TRM), healing is possible. EMDR treatment was recently highlighted by Oprah and Prince Harry as a treatment for trauma. PTSD is a mental health condition. It can occur in children, teens and adults who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event. The experience could be direct or indirect like hearing about the death of a loved one. PTSD can occur in all people, of any ethnicity, nationality or culture, and at any age. PTSD affects approximately 3.5 percent of U.S. adults every year, and an estimated one in 11 people will be diagnosed with PTSD in their lifetime. Women are twice as likely as men to have PTSD. PTSD affects a person’s mind and body. People can be reminded of the traumatic event by multi-sensory triggers of the event, like a sound, a smell or a visual image. It can feel like the event is happening in the present moment even if it happened years ago. Sometimes people don’t remember the details of the event, but the body remembers by sounding an alarm when reminded. A person can be left with a powerful physical experience with no memory associated with it. There is hope of healing with EMDR and TRM.

The internet and social media are often perceived as the bad guys as they have unfortunately been abused by perpetrators to target children, teens, and adults for bullying, sexual harassment, predatory grooming and sex-trafficking. But what if this same technologies could be used in a positive way to provide individuals, organizations, and communities with the knowledge and tools they need to address and prevent sexual violence? Today’s guests bring a combined 50 years of experience in the field of sexual violence prevention and will share why they are convinced that technology is a major key toward eradicating all forms of sexual misconduct.